Andy Griffith wrote:
but why doesn't someone come out with a $3K Gatling that still looks good?
I always liked the 1879 Gardner gun better than the Gatling. Less parts, much lighter, about the same rate of crank fire, Gardner was the first water cooled gun in history and the water cooled version used two barrels (hence one reason it was lighter than the more numerous barrel Gatling). Some Gardner's had one barrel and there were also versions with five barrels.
Some pics of the Gardner gun.....
Twin barrel water cooled 1879 Gardner reproduction. (Maxim studied and then err, "borrowed" the design of the Gardner and made it operate using recoil instead of manual cranking, so the Maxim is actually really a recoil operated Gardner).
Air cooled twin barrel Gardner gun being carried by two Brits.
Try carrying a Gatling like that!
But even the two barrel, water cooled, Gardner gun reproductions of today are in the same high price category as the Gatling reproductions.
Soooo.....something like this is needed.....
For years now I've been wanting to mount two shotguns, side by side in a wide fake receiver, upside down and hopper fed, (like this hopper fed Civil war Union Agar here).....
.....with a BMF activator crankfire trigger activator in each trigger guard where both BMF activators are joined together so you have the ability to turn one crank handle and fire both shotgun barrels simultaneously or sequentially according to how you position the cam in each trigger activator. It could look a bit like this WW2 air corps training shotgun, only with a better looking fake receiver housing the real shotgun receivers and using twin, inverted, hopper fed, shotguns.......
.....only with two shotguns and upside down using a hopper fed ammunition feeding device like the Union Agar gun. If using say a Remington 11 or Browning auto 5 recoil operated shotgun, you could even water cool the barrels. Certainly would crank out an unbelievable amount of shot shell pellets, a virtual rain of lead and be cheaper than the 3K mark you mentioned to build Andy. You could literally mow with it.
I have some experience with building things like that.
My third prototype Ruger 10/22, that's convertible in seconds from a truly water cooled to air cooled, crankfired gun with 50 rd MWG teardrop mag.
(Can't wait until that GSG 110 rd drum mag for the 10/22 gets imported around Christmas).
I used the 10/22 because it is inexpensive, easy to find parts everywhere, and fires inexpensive .22LR ammo. But it could almost as easily be done using twin inverted shotguns, hopper fed. Much cheaper than a Gatling or a Gardner. And being shotguns, actually more lead per shot downrange.
I know about those three Saiga shotguns that Red Jacket made to rotate on their t.v. show. A friend of mine just left from working at Red Jacket. But not only is it unnecessary and overly complicated to make the Saiga's rotate, they were also only using 10 rd mags. So they could only fire a total of 30 rds before reloading. Hence the need to hopper feed for more shotshells.
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Chambers are about $600 per hundred, but no extra help for cleaning afterward is included. 
