Well, it turns out they did. But when they requested a Martini sample rifle, the British decided to give them (without saying so) one of the trials rifles that was not chosen for British service instead of the new front-line design that had won the trials (can’t have the colonials with the best new weapons, y’know). Specifically, Nepal received a Peabody type action (with a flat mainspring, instead of the improved coil spring used by the Martini) with Henry rifling. We ran across an example of this trials rifle:

Peabody-Henry trials rifle (top) and Nepalese Gahendra (bottom)

The Nepalese made a few changes to the details of the design – they combined the lever and trigger guard, and the Nepalese stock is attached with upper and lower tangs while the British rifle uses a through-bolt. The mechanism is the same, though, and definitely not a Martini. The receiver shape is pretty clearly the same, and the sling swivel at the front of the trigger was kept.

As a side note, this explains the reason for the sling swivel there. On the Gahendra, it can easily swing back and interfere with operating the lever if a sling is not being used. Seems like a dumb design – why not mount is a bit differently to avoid the problem? Well, probably because they just copied it off the British model they had. On that rifle, the trigger guard is a separate and fixed piece, and the swivel poses no problem.

We have a some more photos of this Peabody-Henry trials gun that you can take a look at (click here to download them all at high resolution):

[Show as slideshow]

You can pick up your copy on Amazon:

Want a teaser on the sort of information you’ll find in it? Ed Buffaloe at the Unblinking Eye has a very good article on the 1905 Colt, which draws many of its references from Potocki’s book.

• Lighter weight ammunition
• No chance of ejection-related malfunctions
• Fewer operations in the firing cycle, allowing a higher cyclic rate

It also has a couple theoretical problems:

• More heat retained in the action (instead of being ejected in the form of hot brass)
• Potentially fragile ammunition
• Greater likelihood of cookoffs
• New mechanism needed to seal the breech (with standard ammo, the brass case expands on firing to provide a gas seal between the powder and bolt)

Despite numerous experiments, most notably the Heckler & Koch G11, the advantages have never been able to outweigh the disadvantages. But that doesn’t stop the idea from being pretty intriguing. We had the opportunity to take a look at a demonstration mockup of a caseless ammo rifle made by the Hughes company. Hughes is best known as an aircraft manufacturer, but also did a lot of weapons work, including designs like the Heligun (lots of aircraft-to-guns spillover used to happen – like Fairchild and the AR15). Anyway, this caseless demonstrator is pretty neat, so we put together a video for you:

Note: Some artistic license may have been taken in associating this with our return.

We’d like to give a big thank-you to all the folks who generously offered their hospitality showing us collections and putting us up for the night. We are in your debt, Jean, Jeanelle, Kristof, Joel, Serge, Mark, Dave, Tony, John, Paul, Ian, Richard (three different Richards, actually), Peter, Stephanie, Mark, Jonathan, Stuart (two different Stuarts), Rosie, Chris, Frank and Dennis.

Among many others, we had the opportunity to disassemble and study the Cei Rigotti, Mauser Volkspistol, FG-42, VG1-5, Lorenzoni repeating flintlock, and EM-2. We’ll be publishing this material and more over the coming weeks and months (it’ll take a while for us to digest all this information and write it up). We also had the opportunity to visit several small firearms manufacturers, plus tour the production shops at FN Herstal. And to top it off, we spent a day at the big gun and militaria show at Ciney (Belgium) and found some cool trinkets to bring home.

We hope to do another trip like this next year, although we don’t have a specific destination chosen yet. There are so many place with great potential, but the Czech Republic, Italy, and Switzerland are on the short list. If you can help us set up some contacts in any of those countries, we would be very appreciative. Drop us a line at admin@forgottenweapons.com!

M1914 Hotchkiss machine gun

In addition to basic stats and identifying information, this booklet includes instructions on loading the guns and spare ammo on pack horses or carts, machine gun tactics, cutaway and operational drawings, and mechanical descriptions of the guns.The only downside (for us Americans) is that it’s written in French. Still, definitely worth a look for the neat illustrations.

1909 Vickers machine gun cutaway view

You can download the booklet here:

ABC du Mitrailleur (French, 1917)

Shivering in the trenches with a Simonov AVS-36

Invading Russian never goes well, for any of the parties involved. These two certainly don’t look they’re having such a good time.

.30-40 Remington-Lee rifle in military configuration

Lee realized that successful modern rifle designs of his day would need to be well suited for the high velocity smokeless powder cartridges that were on the horizon, and he changed the Remington-Lee design to this end. Where the M1885 rifle was rear locking, the updated 1899 version used the standard Lee rear and safety lugs but also had two locking lugs on the bolt head.

Remington-Lee 1899 cutaway view (note cutout for locking lugs at the base of the chamber)

The 1899 Remington-Lee used a 5-round single stack magazine, and had no manual safety. Instead, the cocking piece was designed to be easily gripped and had a half-cock notch. Safe carry was intended to be achieved by placing the rifle in half-cock. In addition to being expensive to manufacture (thanks to the multiple sets of locking lugs, which would requires some precision machining), the main design flaw of the rifle was a lack of a recoil lug on the receiver. The force of recoil was put onlt the thin wood around the magazine and wrist, and stocks were susceptible to cracking with extended use.

We have a copy of an original Remington-Lee manual, which is primarily focused on the military model of the rifle but also includes a couple pages on the sporting version that was actually produced. You can download a copy from the Remington-Lee 1899 page in the Vault, or right here:

1899 Remington-Lee Magazine Rifle manual (English)

It was like a normal group of people having breakfast, but everyone was armed and there was a flamethrower sitting in the corner.

I dunno about you, but I’ve been in rooms like that. Never had to take on a gargoyle with a tire iron, though.

Pick up MHI, or all three books in the series and enjoy!

Simonov AVS-36 automatic rifle

The AVS-36 was made in relatively small numbers (35,000-65,000, depending on which source you want to believe) and saw use primarily in the Winter War between Finland and the USSR. At the end of that conflict, most of the rifles were collected up and warehoused, to be destroyed by 1943/44. A decent number were captured by Finnish forces and survived that way. The Finnish military was not particularly impressed with the design, but it was popular with some Finnish soldiers.

Functionally, the AVS-36 is a short-stroke gas operated action, with a locking block that slides vertically up and down in the receiver to lock and unlock. The gas system is very similar to the SVT-38/40, but the locking is quite different.

The AVS-36 is most easily recognized by its large and distinctive muzzle brake, which was actually not all that effective. It used a 15-round magazine, and could fire in either semi or full automatic mode. In full auto, it ran at about 800 rounds/minute and was basically uncontrollable (it is not coincidental that it replacement, the SVT-38, was made in semiauto only). A small number of sniper variants of the AVS-36 were made, using a scope mounted off to the left of the bore (to not interfere with the design’s clip loading and upward ejection).

AVS-36 sniper variant

AVS-36 sniper variant

We have a gallery of more photos on the Simonov AVS-36 page in the Vault.

By the mid 1920s, Browning saw ahead to the coming use of his M1919 machine guns in aircraft, particularly bombers and transports. Mounting a machine gun in a fixed position on a fighter is a relatively simple procedure, but a flexible mount in a bomber presents some challenges. For a belt-fed gun, it is necessary to either have the whole belt move with the gun, or provide a flexible guide to feed the belt when the gun is in various positions. Browning had a couple ideas to provide large-capacity magazines mounted on the 1919 to avoid this problem. In July of 1925 he applied for a patent for a top-mounted drum-type magazine (like the Lewis or DP), and a few months later in January of 1926 he filed an application for a patent on a saddle-type magazine (like the MG15 and MG34).

Patent drawing for a Browning 1919 drum magazine

Both patents were granted to Browning, but not until after his death (the drum in 1927 and the saddle in 1931). Neither device was ever manufactured, to the best of our knowledge, probably because Browning could not personally push the concept.

Patent drawings for a Browning 1919 saddle magazine

Would these magazines have made a significant difference in machine gun use in World War II? Probably not a huge one, but we can see the concept being useful in aircraft and perhaps on the 1919A6 light machine gun. They would have been neat, that’s for sure. You can download both of the complete patents here:

Drum magazine: US Patent 1,629,652 (J.M. Browning, “Cartridge Feeding Mechanism for Automatic Firearms”, May 24, 1927)

Saddle magazine: US Patent 1,800,595 (J. M. Browning, “Magazine Feed Mechanism for Machine Guns”, April 14, 1931)