In 1862, Richard J Gating patented a gun capable of rapid fire. It was not the first such gun, but has proved to be the most enduring. The picture below looks at Gatling's first design, which used a hopper filled with steel tubes pre-loaded with the paper cartridges currently in use during the American Civil war. The animation is based on Gatling's patent of November 1862 [G4], but it is recognised that the second model, which saw actual action, used rimfire metallic cartridges.

Structure of a Gatling gun