Would the centrifugal forces generated by the drive system adversely affect the performance of suppressors?  What other engineering problems do you perceive?

DeGroat

Thank You, Sir

I have no idea how effective it is, but...

DeGroat has tried this but I've heard absolutely ZERO in terms of how successful they were with implementation.  I've heard accounts of other attempts which all failed miserably.  

That being said, I don't know why you would even want to bother suppressing a minigun.  The minigun is primarily used in situations where suppressing fire, cover fire, high-rate of fire troop support, and general target saturation are required.  There is essentially zero reason why you would want to "suppress" a weapon in situations like those.  In fact, the sound alone of a minigun entering your battle "arena" is sometimes intimidating enough on its own to effectively disperse the enemy.

In addition to that, the mechanism of the gun itself is LOUD.  Firing a minigun with practice (non explosive, inert) ammunition creates noise levels well in excess of 110 dB and there is simply no way to "quiet" that.  

The concept of suppressing a weapon firing rounds at super sonic speeds is useful for masking the origin of single shots, or even very short bursts of full auto fire.  The "continuous" nature of the noise produced by the M134 would give it's location/origin away regardless of whether or not a suppressor is used.  

The extra rotating mass of a suppressor on the barrel assembly would also incur significant drag on the drive assembly, and reduce fire by a few dozen rounds per minute most likely.  

Depending on the actual design of the suppressor, it would have to be quite large in order to contain the HUGE amount of gasses and unburnt powder which are exiting the barrel.  The rate of fire is such that if you take a single barrel.  Fire a shot.  The second bullet will be coming down the pipe before all of the excess powder from the previous round has even finished burning off outside of the muzzle.  Not to mention all the powder and gas from the OTHER 5 barrels which have all discharged rounds in between.  You'd need a HUGE chamber to effectively quiet and contain it.

Modifying the muzzle end of the gun gets to my next point.

The current most up to date support structures for the M134 (i.e. yoke, axle, and vertical arm) are designed such that the vertical and horizontal pivot locations are situated at points relative to the gun, that effectively "zero out" any recoil or reaction force that a gunner would feel when operating the gun by the spade grips.  In it's current state, the gun can easily be operated by using only the tips of one's thumbs on the trigger buttons.  There is no outside force that the gunners hands/grip must overcome to control the weapon.  And believe it or not, altering the flash attachment has a significant impact on the recoil reactions at the spade grips.  For example, lengthening the flash hider or shortening the flash hider WILL cause the gun to want to wander off of its neutral axis.  Implementing a suppressor would certainly incur drastic changes in this recoil resultant, and thus would require a re-design of the vertical arm, and possibly the yoke/axle assembly.  Not a likely endeavor for parts which are already NSN'ed and AWR'ed.  

Happy to answer any other minigun related questions if you have them.  

-Dillon Aero employee...

Who would want to suppress that beautiful "BRAAAAAAAAP!" of salvation?

And what about suppress the aircraft it's in?

Plenty of vehicle mounts out there.....

Thank you for a very insightful reply.  I may be contacting you if the need arises.  Where a need exists, so does a market.

No problem!  I can tell you that after working there for a few years I've seen lots of interesting "needs" arise that we've been interest-gauged on, which in reality would NEVER have a market.  On top of that, the issue of having a "market" isn't always the problem, it's getting the people who are in charge of procuring said "need" to agree that it is an actual NEED and worth forking out (usually big bucks) for.  Many politics and "chess games" to be played in the ol' "mil industrial complex".

Roger that!  Just making VERY initial inquiries and assesments to an idea I am still conceiving.  I'm meeting with some owners soon for further refinement of said needs.  Will stay in touch.

Ed you show off

Now lets go shoot one!










(please)

GOOD LORD!

Thats insane. Can you imagine what would happen if you get a baffle strike?

I think there is a video of it melting.

Suppressing a DIllon shoudl eb equivalent to treason, I have buddies that have talked about how just the sound of a Mini starting to wind up has defused the situtaion that was brewing.

I was wondering if you were gonna make it to this thread.

We need to convince "Dillon Aero employee" to get us on the short list for the next company outing

Hell yes, I vote holiday party

I knew someone was going to say that/should've hedged my bet from the git go!

True, but rare in the real world.

Rare yes, impractical no.  Fun to fish new ideas as we never know what/whom will strike.  Meeting with a couple M134 owners tomorrow for further development and application discussions....

2 weeks ago, I had to shoot a bunch of hogs tearing up our farm & deer food plot.
A friend just bought a mini gun & I thought how useful it be to have it suppressed to mow them down without waking the neighborhood.
His mini is at DeGroat now being refurbished. I suggested the suppressor & his eyes lit up
I think it would be the cats meow.
Don't they run 3,000 rpm? / 6 barrels = 500 rpm/barrel

While I understand it basically has no real value, I think "just because" is as valid a reason as any. But from a more practical standpoint (and you'll have to excuse my lack of personal experience with the M1234) but would a suppressor on a mini-gun reduce the muzzle flash and make it easier to shoot and see under NODs?

Oh, I never said impractical...just not common.

It's possible I guess.. The current design of the flash hider does pretty well at keeping muzzle blast from obscuring your vision, but that being said, the most significant muzzle flash variation we've witnessed with the current flash hider, is a result of different ammunition types.  Ammunition loaded with slower burning powder can create a huge fireball at the business end of the weapon, while cartridges loaded at the bare minimum with fast burning powder produce minimal flash and flame.  Obviously this is true for all guns, but the rate of fire of the minigun compounds the result almost exponentially, and is yet another variable you'd have to contend with in creating any sort of new muzzle device.  

And you guys are right.  "Just because" is a perfectly good reason for looking into new ideas.  I think it'd be quite interesting to see the results of some prototypes for this, but as others have posted above, the concept has been worked on by other folks for years now.  DeGroat has been publicizing their minigun suppressor for well over 4 years now, and there hasn't been a single video posted anywhere of it in operation.  Let alone any type of statement from the company that it actually works.  Every new project has a point of diminishing returns, where your investment capital and energy start to seriously out weigh any further positive results.  This seems like one of those projects where people who take it on perhaps reach that point a lot quicker than they expect.  

We used to have holiday parties.  The last one I recall though, we got "reprimanded" for "dissapearing" a tree that the property owners would have preferred to keep.  

Lol.

DeGroat didn't invent the minigun suppressor.  The MAC people tried it in the 60's and it supposedly lasted around 200 rounds before failing.

Color me "not surprised"