Incredibly, storekeeper James Michael O’Dwyer’s gun has no moving parts and operates entirely on electrical impulses.
Despite the fact that O’Dwyer’s invention has vast and even dizzying implications as an awesome military weapon, when he approached Australian defense officials in 1994 with his idea they turned a deaf ear. And when he showed his gun to former U.S. Special Forces chief Gen. Wayne Downing, the general said O'Dwyer was "certifiably" crazy.
That’s no longer true. The general is now a member of the board of directors of Metal Storm Ltd., O’Dwyer’s new company, along with retired U.S. Adm. William A. Owens.
As described in the Nov. 13 issue of Forbes magazine, in the barrel of the gun "bullets are stacked like Life Savers with explosive charges sandwiched in between."
The charges are set off when electrical contacts spark them in "precisely timed electronic sequence," much the same way an ink jet printer sprays ink.
O’Dwyer’s company now has a $10 million contract to design a .50 caliber sniper’s rifle that could fire three rounds before the rifle even recoiled, spoiling the sniper’s aim. In Australia the military is working on a 40 mm grenade launcher.
According to Forbes, in a recent test a 36-barrel gun fired bullets at a rate of a mind-boggling 1 million rounds a minute. Among the weapons O’Dwyer’s idea could produce would be super-rapid-fire multiple barreled guns that would emit a "cloud of hot metal" instead of a stream of bullets and capable of downing cruise missiles and modern versions of Kamikaze suicide planes.
O’Dwyer’s super gun has already created a cloud of hot money – though his company hasn’t produced a single sale, his stock is now worth $180 million, and he owns half the shares.
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