eli5 Why weren’t machine guns possible to make in the past?

Question

What stopped 18-19th century armies with guns from being able to create automatic weapons like AK-47s and Uzis?
Since they don’t use electricity I feel like they’re made with materials and technology that was already available in the 1750s, surely they could’ve put their heads together to create a machine gun and just annihilate any ops…

Thanks

In: Engineering

Answer 1

the first automatic weapon known as the “puckle gun” was patented in 1718. However as stated by others the gun making process during that time was more manual and time consuming. Thus the process of making all the parts to make a successful automatic rifle would make the weapon to costly to REALLY make on a scale to make them effective.

Now that we have the ability to machine these parts it makes these guns far more available.