The advantages of utilizing the 2‐beam Borrmann modes of a crystalline, rather than an amorphous, sample for the lasing modes of a &ggr;‐ray laser (reduced lasing threshold and higher gains above threshold, due to reduced photoabsorption and improved coupling between the lasing mode and the nuclei) are well known. We discuss here the further improvements which are obtained in multi‐beam (3 or more) Borrmann modes. These modes would be fed automatically by emitters of multipole M1 or higher located within the crystal. As an example, the 6‐beam mode which couples well to M1 emitters would have a lower threshold than a similar 2‐beam mode. More importantly, the slope of the net gain vs. population inversion density curve would be three times greater in the 6‐beam mode, allowing practical levels of gain to be reached at much lower inversion densities.