Hi gap,
it's great that you are still thinking about the mod!
I think your idea could work, however, you would still get 24 DCs per barrel.
The hedgehog controller always fires 24 times (i.e., 24 muzzle flashes, 24 sounds,...). At least I could never find a way to reduce this number and therefore, I could never have less than 24 objects spawned. I tried with random spawn rates,... but never succeeded
Best, LGN1