Quotulatiousness

April 28, 2021

How Does it Work: Short Recoil Operation

Filed under: History, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 19 Jan 2021

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

Correction: Browning invented the pistol slide, but not the overall short recoil system. Maxim was the first to successfully create a short recoil firearm.

Short recoil is the most common system used today in self-loading handguns, and it also used to be fairly popular in machine gun designs. The basic principle is that the bolt and barrel (in a handgun, slide and barrel) are locked together for an initial travel substantially less than the overall length of the cartridge. After typically a few millimeters of travel, the barrel stops and the bolt or slide is able to continue rearward to extract and eject the empty case. Short recoil can be paired with virtually any locking system, but today the Browning tilting barrel system is most common.

Short recoil has never been popular in shoulder rifle, as the reduction in mechanical accuracy from the moving barrel can be undesirable. In handguns and machine guns, this accuracy reduction is generally below the threshold of relevance.

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740

February 11, 2020

Maxim Pom-Pom 37mm Machine Gun

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Sep 2016

Failed to sell at auction.

“Pom-Pom” was the name given to the 37mm Maxim gun by the Boers of South Africa, based on the gun’s sound. It was a Maxim machine gun scaled up to the quite impressive 37mm caliber, intended primarily for naval use defending large vessels against small torpedo boats. This particular example is serial number 2024, made in 1889 and then sold three times before being ultimately purchased by the United States Coast Guard and installed on the USS Manning (along with a second gun, number 2026). The Manning was promptly put into military service by the Navy and steamed down to Cuba, where it participated in the first bombardment of Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

These 37mm guns could fire a wide variety of projectiles, including solid rounds which could pierce an inch (25mm) of iron armor at 100 yards and hollow rounds filled with black powder and fused to explode on impact. During World War One, they would be pushed into anti-aircraft service, with the explosive rounds being extremely effective on early aircraft (when you could get a hit, anyway).

Related:
Bethlehem Steel 37mm Gun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abEq7…
Vickers 2.95″ Mountain Gun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b53i…
Maxim lMG08/15: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbt1_…

November 27, 2019

John Browning vs Hiram Maxim: Patent Fight!

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 25 Sep 2019

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

When John Browning designed his Model 1895 machine gun with its rotary-lever gas operation system, Hiram Maxim filed suit claiming patent infringement. Maxim had filed quite broad patents covering gas pistons operation, but specifically in a linear format. Browning and Colt (who had the license to manufacture the Model 1895 machine gun) countered that the swinging lever was a different system, and thus not covered by Maxim’s patents. More to the point, they claimed that the gun would work without using a gas piston at all – and built this experimental model using a gas trap or muzzle cap system instead to prove the point.

Ultimately, the genesis of the fight was moot (the Maxim did not run well in 6mm Lee Navy, and would not have won a US Navy contract regardless of the Colt/Browning gun), and the court ultimately decided in favor of Colt and Browning. But this gun remains from the incident…

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704

November 23, 2019

Quick Look at a 37mm Maxim “Pompom” Automatic Cannon

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 21 Sep 2019

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

This Vickers, Sons & Maxim 37mm MkIII “Pompom” is on display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. The MkIII pattern is quite scarce, with less than one hundred ever made. It is built around the 37 x 124mm cartridge, firing a 1.25 pound explosive or armor piercing projectile. This one (or one of the same model) was mounted on the CGS Canada, a coastal patrol vessel built by VSM in 1904 for the Canadian Fisheries service. Firing fully automatically at 300 rounds/minute, the “pompom” (so named for the sound of its firing) was capable of tremendous firepower, although few ever saw much use in combat. Only the Boers made much use of them as land artillery, and by WW1 most were relegated to antiaircraft use.

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704

September 26, 2019

Hiram’s Extra Light Maxim Gun

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 7 Aug 2019

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

Designed in an effort to compete with the then-new Colt/Browning air cooled 1895 machine gun, the Extra-Light Maxim weighted in at just 27 (maybe 28) pounds for the gun, and 44 pounds with tripod. This may sound heavy, but it was a remarkable improvement over the 100+ pounds of most models of Maxim with mount. The water jacket was replaced with an air jacket (necessary to support the muzzle), and the whole gun was narrowed. The mainspring was moved to the inside of the receiver, allowing lighter construction but complicating disassembly and removing the ability to tune the mainspring tension to fit a particular batch of ammunition.

The concept proved to be a commercial failure, as the air cooling lacked the sustained fire capability that militaries were looking for. A total of 135 examples were made, but most were sold in small orders for testing, with no major contracts forthcoming.

Many thanks to the Royal Armouries for allowing me to film this tremendously rare artifact! The NFC collection there – perhaps the best military small arms collection in Western Europe – is available by appointment to researchers:

https://royalarmouries.org/research/n…

You can browse the various Armouries collections online here:

https://royalarmouries.org/collection/

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

August 1, 2019

Maxim “Prototype”: The First Practical Machine Gun

Filed under: History, Military, Technology, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 31 Jul 2019

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

Hiram Maxim was the first person to create a truly practical and functional machine gun, based on a patent he filed in 1883. He pioneered the recoil operating system – the concept of harnessing the recoil generated by a firearm to perform the actions of reloading that firearm. His patent was based on a lever action rifle, but his intent was to create a machine gun, complete with belt feed and water cooling. After a testbed “forerunner” gun, he built this model which he called the “Prototype”. It was meant as a proof of concept, and used in many public exhibitions and demonstrations.

The Prototype used a hydraulic rate of fire control system which could be set as high as 500 rounds/minute and as low as just one round per minute. The gun did not have a trigger as we would recognize it today, but rather a single lever like a vehicle accelerator which acted as both trigger and fire rate control. Only three of these Prototypes exist today, with one belonging to the USMC, one on public display at the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds, and this one in the NFC reserve collection at Leeds.

For a fantastic exploded view of all this guns working parts, check out this work by YouTube channel vbbsmyt:

https://youtu.be/P1SbcZQ0N5A

Many thanks to the Royal Armouries for allowing me to film this tremendously important artifact! The NFC collection there — perhaps the best military small arms collection in Western Europe — is available by appointment to researchers:

https://royalarmouries.org/research/n…

You can browse the various Armouries collections online here:

https://royalarmouries.org/collection/

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

Powered by WordPress