Talk:Drum magazine

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Feel free to expand--TGC55 12:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect
What the Thompson and PPS have is a spiralling magazine. A drum magazine is the type which is what the Degtarjev, the WWII soviet light machine gun has. It is a flat circular box, with the cartridges arranged inside in a radial fashion.
 * I've seen the term drum more often used to refer to the kind that stores all the rounds facing forward, rather than inward. Most often those are called "flat pan" magazines. Night Gyr 18:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Not entirely sure how useful this comment will be four years later, but as far as I'm aware, drum magazines specifically refer to the type where the cartridges are aligned parallel with the axis of the drum, whereas the arrangement seen with the likes of the Degtarjev, Bren, Lewis, Vickers GO etc where the cartridges are arranged radially around its axis are generally referred to as pan magazines. And having written that, I've just realised that perhaps I should've checked to see if the article has a more coherent explanation... --— Chris  (blather • contribs) 02:47, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

How Do They Operate?
How do drum magazines operate? They don't appear to have a spring like box magazines do. The pictures shows a large propeller-like device inside the drum. If this rotates, pushing the rounds into the chamber, what mechanism causes the rotation?Axeman (talk) 05:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The propeller is usually spring driven, if I recall. Some pan magazines are driven by a mechanism within the gun similar to belt-feed systems, but I'm not aware of a drum magazine arrangement that utilises this mechanism; I'd conjecture that most of them use a clock spring to operate the propeller in question, but that's purely speculative. --— Chris  (blather • contribs) 02:47, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

List of Firearms that can use Drum Magazines
What's the point of this section? Surely any mag-fed firearm can theoretically use a drum mag if one has been created for it. It's pretty much just a massive list of mag-fed weapons, and isn't very encyclopedic. Jellyfish dave (talk) 14:07, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree Dave, for instance, they listed the Uzi as having one, but the only drum magazines for uzis are converted from Suomi magazines. It's also not realistic to list all the firearms that were originally designed to use a drum magazine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.160.112.92 (talk) 02:38, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Contradictory paragraph
More recently double-drum designs have come into greater use. Where normal magazines put rounds in two rows, in a "double drum" two drums resting on either side of the weapon each hold one row, the two of which combine into one row before entering the receiver. Examples are the World War II era MG 15, and the modern Beta C-Mag. These systems have the advantage of storing even more rounds than a regular drum, while improving the distribution of weight. The MG 15 dates from the 1930s and was used on most German aeroplanes, so it hasn't come into greater use more recently. JoshuSasori (talk) 07:00, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

What infobox to use?
The body copy of this article is largely already what is contained in Magazine_(firearms). Do we need this article, can it be merged into the Magazine article? If not, what infobox do we need for this? Kartano (talk) 17:38, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The body copy of this article is largely already what is contained in Magazine_(firearms).
 * It isn't. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

First 'modern-type' drum magazine?
In the history section of this article it's stated that the first 'modern-type' drum magazine was the one invented by William H. Elliot in 1871. However, as the magazine isn't attached to and doesn't feed from under the bolt or chamber, as in virtually all drum magazine using guns today, I believe this claim is questionable. The first drum magazine I'm aware of that met this particular criteria is the one invented by Farquharson in 1915 or the magazine used in the LP08 Luger. There was also a drum magazine attached to the centre of the firearm that fed into the side of the chamber invented by a Lebanese called Salloum Dahdah in 1862. However, I find it dubious that no one re-invented the drum magazine in between Farquharson's version or the Luger's and Elliot's and so may have created a version that also meets this criteria in that time and so I am hesitant to make the claim that Farquharson's was the first modern-type drum magazine here. If anyone has anything they believe to be of value they would be willing to contribute to this discussion I would be interested to hear it.SQMeaner (talk) 21:13, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * There's the Accles drum magazine for the .45 Gatling gun in 1883. There's also the Broadwell 'drum' magazine for it in 1870, but that's really a very deep pan magazine. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:21, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input Andy. I knew about the Accles drum but for some reason I thought it was patented prior to Elliot's invention. As for the Broadwell drum I had a discussion a long time ago with another use on here about it and according to him the Broadwell drum is neither a pan or drum magazine or really even a magazine at all and is actually a rotary hopper, seeing as it's literally just a bunch of hoppers containing cartridges arranged in a circle and rotated manually by hand whenever one runs out of them with no follower involved. Also, another factoid I feel might be relevant to this discussion is the article linked to below which claims that the true, modern-type drum magazine was invented by Oscar V. Payne, an American designer who worked on the Thompson gun, though I'm not sure if he was aware of Farquharson's patent and thus made this claim in ignorance though I lack the mechanical knowledge necessary to tell whether Farqueharson's or Payne's magazine deserves the accolade of the true, modern-type drum magazine.

https://archive.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=1791 SQMeaner (talk) 13:16, 28 October 2023 (UTC)