nothing special AA battery is just a one cell battery so if you bunch enough together you can make enough power to run an AEG. the difference between a alkaline batt and a Ni-MH one is that instead of the 1.2V per cell for a Ni-MH battery you're running 1.5V per cell for alkaline, and you probably just wasted 10$ of batteries for this experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AA_battery http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_ba ... iring.html
But cells are designed for different max amperage draws. So the cells they put in battery packs can provide a lot more amps than the ones you used. trade off, they are lower capacity per size and more expensive.
If you put enough of them in parallel you could run an airsoft gun.
For high drain applications the duracell you used sucks. you want to use nimh or lithium.
Yes guys I know that I would be wasting the batteries, and that they would not work well, but it was a fun little thing. most likely the only time that I do this.