Would it be possible to build a functioning double barrel semi-automatic handgun?
Let’s say instead of a Double stack magazine like many modern pistols have, but instead 2 Single Stack (the one on the left X 2 mags melded together separated by a single thin metallic wall but sharing one base plate. A slightly wider slide with an extractor and ejector on both the left and right sides.
Yes the mag would probable be able to only hold 8-10 rounds per side (16-20 rounds per magazine) but every time the gun was fired 2 rounds would be fired simultaneously. Imagine pulling the trigger once but hitting the target twice, and being able to do that 8-10 times in a row. And then being able to re-load in 3 seconds as is the norm with a semi-auto pistol.
Mechanically is something like this possible?
Why someone would want or need something like this is not part of the question.
From an engineering standpoint there’s nothing that prevents such a gun to be made.
There are several problems with this design though. For starters you will end up with a thicker, heavier gun that has twice the recoil. Also the problem with most firefights is not that the bullet doesn’t make enough damage rather than the bullets not finding their target. So it is better to have more bullets of smaller calibre.
Another issue is what happens when one barrel for whatever reason jams.
My opinion is that if a single barrel gun isn’t powerful enough then switch to a larger caliber, eg a Desert Eagle .50. If this is still not powerful enough for you then get an RPG or something
The semi-auto part of it is where you would come in with a problem. Most semi-autos are recoil operated, and the action starts moving rearward as soon as the cartridge fires. With weak cartridges, just inertia may hold the system together, but most guns use some sort of mechanical locking system that unlocks as the slide recoils, giving time for the bullet to exit and chamber pressure to drop.
Trying to fire two rounds from two barrels, with a single slide, you’d have potentially disastrous problems if the rounds didn’t go off exactly the same time. Even if you had one hammer striking two matched firing pins, variations of milliseconds in power ignition are not that unlikely. With just a slight difference, the push of the first round would be trying to extract the 2nd when chamber pressure was still high, ripping off the extractor lip of the 2nd cartridge. With a little more delay, the 2nd would be starting to extract when it fires, giving a kaboom inside the feed area as the case bursts.
Going to one trigger, two separate slides and barrels, would solve that, but be complicated and mostly pointless. And probably still have a chance for non-simultaneous firing causing feeding or cycling problems. Aside from being really odd to shoot I expect.
In any case, it is possible to load multiple projectiles in one case if you really want two holes in one shot. I made 2 and 3 projectile .44 mag and 45 Colt rounds in the past, if you want semi-autos, 45 Winmag would probably work. You can use short wadcutter type (basic cylinder shape) bullets or round balls, or get fancy and make nesting shapes.
Dog80 & Sasquatch have pretty well nailed it: not impossible, but certainly difficult, with numerous drawbacks. There’s a tried & true solution when you want more lead headed downrange per trigger pull: use a bigger cartridge.
You can get the same effect by learning to fire a ‘double tap’ where you fire two shots rapidly enough that they- b-boom- sound almost like one. Done properly, you get two holes in the target an inch or two apart.
As for simple, the first auto loading shotgun John M. Browning developed, the disconnect to stop the firearm from shooting full auto was his bigger challenge.
I’m not certain it would qualify as a machine gun. There are Derringer handguns that have 2 barrels that can be fired at the same time and they’re perfectly legal.
Practice, practice, practice. With enough practice, your wrist and arm know how to bring the sights back to the same place, and your brain knows the timing of when that will happen.
Well, there’s some Newtonian physics at work here. We’re talking two shots so close in time that they “sound almost like one” - whereas shots separated by 1/10th second would readily be distinguishable. How do your wrist and arm get the sights back on target in a fraction of that time?
Ok, I’ll take back the “sound almost like one” because it’s been a long time since I’ve been at the range and I’ve looked at a couple of videos and you can obviously distinguish separate sounds from the shots. But they do seem to be doing controlled pairs rather than true double taps in the videos. The difference being that when the gun comes down, you reacquire the sight picture in a controlled pair.
I never aimed the second shot of a double tap. I don’t know how to explain it without it sounding like voodoo but I just know when to fire from muscle memory or something. A double tap is almost automatic. If you don’t fight the gun and try to make it get on target, it will actually come back down to more or less the same spot as when you fired it. I think the key is to guide it back to exactly the same spot at the very end of the recoil instead of “in the general area” that it would naturally return to. You’re firing in roughly the time it takes the muzzle to flip up and back down.
Also, I think knowing the trigger is key for me. When you pull the trigger back on a semi-auto and the gun fires, it stays back until the slide slams forward, at which time it is pushed back to the forward position ready to be pulled again. But the trigger on most guns resets when it travels about 1/4 of the way forward. When rapid firing my guns (which I’m familiar with, I couldn’t do this with a strange gun) I only pull the trigger slightly past the firing point to fire it and let it travel just past the reset point as it cycles. I can shoot a whole magazine with the trigger only moving back and forth a fraction of an inch the whole time. I’m not sure I could pull off a good double tap without doing that.
(voodoo warning) I know that’s just being familiar with the gun and firing it at the right time, but when warmed up on a good day, it becomes so automatic that it feels like your finger stays in the right spot and the gun just automatically fires itself as it gets in the right spot and pushes against your finger.
Sacrificing a goat beforehand seems to help a lot too.
There’s a fellow in trouble right now because his firearm malfunctioned and the ATF said it was a machine gun. Their working definition is that it is designed to fire multiple rounds with one action of the trigger.
From 26 U.S.C. 5845(b): DEFINITION OF MACHINEGUN
There are revolvers that accept shotgun shells, Taurus and S&W come to mind, but they have rifled barrels and are “really” chambered for 45LC and or 45 ACP.
That double barrel 1911 .45 is, amusing. Mostly silly though. Why not just do like Ripley in *Aliens *and duct tape an assault rifle & flamethrower together?!
There’s a specific, old-school reason that double barrel shotguns exist, and a reason why no other guns have them. Namely they are designed for shooting birds (or skeet) out of the sky, something that is not easy to do even for an experienced shooter. Consequently it’s considered ‘sporting’ to give the shooter two tries to do it, but no more than two. So there’s a need for a shotgun that can shoot twice but only twice, and obviously a double barrel is incredibly simple engineering-wise compared to any other kind of multiple reloading design. Also a double barrel design gives you two ‘clean’ shots, not having to make any unnecessary motions to load another shell. Some regions actually require bird hunters who use pump shotguns to have them equipped with a restrictor plug which prevents the loading of more than two shells (three, with one chambered).
The point is there is little, no really, need for any other kind of double barrel firearm outside of wanting a rather ostentatious curiosity.