The drums held 180 rounds of German 7.92 mm rifle ammunition, feeding them into the breech using a compressed spring.

The gun's relative lightness at approximately 27 kg (60 lb) without ammunition[1] led to its airborne use; a telescopic sight was mounted between the two barrels.

Gast took out patents on 21 January 1916 and 13 February 1917, describing his weapon as "a double-barreled machine gun with recoiling barrels".

However it was not felt to offer a sufficient advantage over existing machine guns to justify the expense of producing the weapon.

Years later the Gast design was copied by Soviet engineers seeking to improve firing rates of their aircraft autocannon without resorting to the Gatling gun concept or powered revolver cannon.