Airsoft Minigun

February 2023

PART 1: Towards the end of 2023 I started work on a pretty long project, namely trying to build an Airsoft minigun. I’ve never touched the sport, but the thought of building the end of all blasters was too enticing to pass up. It’s primarily 3D-printed but with some special hardware along the path that air flows through. I learned a lot of CAD on these tasks. Designing gears that actually meshed proved extremely difficult, and managing many parts that fit together was a new experience. PART 2: In the second stretch of the airsoft minigun project I had huge difficulties maintaining a sealed air path inside the blaster. A lack of foresight combined with sliding 3D printed parts is not a recipe for prime pressure propagation. However, with many fixes it eventually could fire pellets with speed and repeatability. PART 3: With many tweaks, full-speed rotation and consistent firing were achieved. It mostly involved a variety of changes to both shorten and physically constrain the path of air. Did it still bleed all the air in my compressor after ten seconds? Yes. But considering the project scope I’m pretty confident it was fully optimized within the opportunity space spanning all combinations of wood and 3D-printed parts.