<center><img src="http://www.hk-usa.com/images/products/law_enforcement/mp7_a1/general/mp7_01_1.jpg"></center><p>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk37O80I07M<ul><li><a href="http://www.hk-usa.com/le_mp7a1_general.html">MP7 = 950 RPM</a></li></ul>

So this thing has a cyclic rate of 950 RPM. But obviously you can't feed it 950 consecutive rounds nor could it probably handle that many without failure. So the real question is, how many consecutive rounds can it fire before something fails (or overheats)?

I'm imagining a bench test with a large magazine of 1000 rounds. Set it on continuous fire and then see how many rounds go off before it blows up. I bet the answer isn't 950.

Not that this information has much real world value. I'm just curious, plus it would show which part is likely to break and also what causes the problem. Does it fail due to heat? Dirt? Breakage?

They're not exactly known for building crap.

"The Vickers gun accompanied the BEF to France in 1914, and in the years that followed proved itself to be the most reliable weapon on the battlefield, some of its feats of endurance entering military mythology. Perhaps the most incredible was the action by the 100th Company of the Machine Gun Corps at High Wood on August 24, 1916. This company had ten Vickers guns, and it was ordered to give sustained covering fire for 12 hours onto a selected area 2,000 yards away in order to prevent German troops forming up there for a counter-attack while a British attack was in progress. Two whole companies of infantrymen were allocated as carriers of ammunition, rations and water for the machine-gunners. Two men worked a belt-filling machine non-stop for 12 hours keeping up a supply of 250-round belts. One hundred new barrels were used up, and every drop of water in the neighbourhood, including the men's drinking water and contents of the latrine buckets, went up in steam to keep the guns cool. And in that 12-hour period the ten guns fired a million rounds between them. One team fired 120,000 from one gun to win a five-franc prize offered to the highest-scoring gun. And at the end of that 12 hours every gun was working perfectly and not one gun had broken down during the whole period."

120,000 rounds in 12 hours, averaging out at 166 rpm. Try that with the M60!

Dolf Goldsmith is a friend of mine. Great ole guy, haven't seen him in a few years. He and I share a passion for Martini Henry's.