"When you first hear of a gun without any moving mechanical parts, you tend to laugh. I know I had to withhold my giggles," recalls physicist Adam Drobot of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a company based in San Diego that evaluates new technologies. "But once you see the videotape of this test-firing, the giggle factor goes away."

The gun in question is something that even its inventor says comes out of left field. Termed Metal Storm, the weapon has no hammer, no trigger, no breechblock and no shell casings to eject. Equally unusual, a single barrel fires at a rate equivalent to one million rounds per minute. In comparison, the fastest conventional firearms (Gatling guns) fire only 6,000 rounds per minute.

Comments