[Andrew Wyatt]

I came upin a picture of an antomatic rifle in one of my books i've never heard about from any other source, and figured i'd scan and post a picture of it.

Can you name the name of the gun, its country of origin, and its caliber?


my scanner is limited in size, so i had to (crappily) scan it twice and paste them together.


http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=498583

[m14nut]

the trigger, mag and stock resemble a British enfield....:confused:

[dangerousdude]

Looks like one of those home made guns from Peshawar Pakistan.

[Andrew Wyatt]

you're wrong, so far.


m-14 nut was closer, but still not very.

[Chris Rhines]

I don't recall the name, but it is indeed a converted Lee-Enfield SMLE, .303 Brit, and if memory serves it's from Australia.

- Chris

[Andrew Wyatt]

right caliber, wrong country.

[Skofnung]

I can't remember the name, I think the name starts with "C" but it is either from Australia or New Zealand and it is in .303 British.

It was a conversion of an Enfield (SMLE) to serve as a LMG due to the shortages in the commonwealth around WWII if memory serves.

I will have to check my references when I get home from work.

[glockten]

The Charlton light machine gun, .303 British, from New Zealand. My reference shows it with a Bren magazine.

Great Googolymoogoly, what an ugly weapon!:)

[Nightcrawler]

"Build it yourself, son?" :scrutiny:

[Andrew Wyatt]

It is indeed a charlton LMG, which was converted from number1mk3s during WWII.

could you post a pic of what it shows in your reference? does the bren magazine enter from the bottom?

[4v50 Gary]

Ugly, yes. Besides the 10 round SMLE magazine, this New Zealand modificaton from Charlton's Motor Workshop could take an modified 30 rd Bren Gun magazine too. It was capable of full auto fire. But consider that the common bolt action rifle can be converted to semi-auto with some clever engineering. Outlaw semi-autos? I don't think so.

It's on page 474-475 of Ian Skennerton's The Lee-Enfield Story. There are other conversions in there too - this is just the ugliest.

[glockten]

Can't post the pic Andrew, but it shows the Bren mag in the same place as the Enfield mag in your photo.

Page 359 of Military Small Arms Of The 20th Century, 7th Edition.

[Nightcrawler]

Similar concept to that submachine gun attachment to the 1903 Springfield during the Great War.

You know what would just be AWESOME? A reliable, semiauto attachment made for a Yugo M48 Mauser, using those 20-round Mauser mags, still being able to feed from strippers. Chop the barrel back to say, 20", and replace the bayonet lug so that big pig sticker can be put on there...

*drool* :cool:

[Jim K]

Hi, Nightcrawler and folks.

The "submachine gun attachment" to the Model 1903, aka the Pedersen Device, aka Pistol, Cal .30, Model of 1918, was semi-auto, so it wasn't a "submachinegun".

The Charlton was a tour de force. While the intent was good, it would probably have been easier to just manufacture a new light machine gun. It does show, though, how far people will go to meet a challenge.

Jim

[ShaiVong]

Ugly isn't really the right word for it though. I'm thinking FUGLY. Uglyer than ugly. :uhoh:

[glockten]

Ian Hogg, in the book I mentioned above, describes it as "an almost incredible feat of adaptation" and "one of the few conversions of a manual rifle to automatic fire that ever worked properly." It had a cyclic rate of about 500 rpm.

[Tamara]

Wasn't JMB's first gas-operated gun a modified lever action?

[Andrew Wyatt]

the scan was from the illustrated encyclopedia of firearms.



say, would a bolt to semi conversion be legal, as long as it wasn't full auto?

[THA]

Philip Charlton, he converted approx 2000 from Long Lee Enfields after he recieved a patent in 1941. Plant was in Hastings, New Zealand. Weight 16.5 lbs, and cyclic rate of 700 rds/minute. Gas operated and fed with a 30 rd mag but could use the standard 10 rd Lee Enfield mag. Also several thousand were converted in Australia by Electrolux Co. I have a full description of the conversion process if anybody is interested.

[Andrew Wyatt]

no crap? can you post it up?

[THA]

Essentially the converfsion consisted of fitting a cylinder on the right side of the weapon originating at a point approximately midpoint of the barrel and extending beyond the rear of the action. This cylinder acted as a gas cylinder in its forward part and a piston tube for the remainder. The piston rod is attached to a slide which has an inclined cam that operates on the bolt handle stub pulling it ot the rear and opening the action. A spring attached to the lower portion of the piston is mounted in a cylinder below the gas cylinder and returns the slide and piston forward.The standard Lee trigger mechanism has been modified by the addition of a disconnector system. A selector is mounted behind the trigger and engages the trigger. Setting it on safe prevents rearward movement of the trigger, setting it on "R" allows the trigger to rotate far enough to the rear to allow single shots to be fired and setting it on "A" lets the trigger come fully to the rear producing full automatic fire.

Since automatic weapons were in shortage, Charlton deemed this conversion as one way to supply automatic weapons.

Ain't I smart??? I just know where to look.

[Dionysusigma]

Heck, I took one look at that thing and got shivers from how... awful it looked. Wouldn't you just love to clean it? :what: :fire:

You know what would just be AWESOME? A reliable, semiauto attachment made for a Yugo M48 Mauser, using those 20-round Mauser mags, still being able to feed from strippers. Chop the barrel back to say, 20", and replace the bayonet lug so that big pig sticker can be put on there...
-NightCrawler


Maybe the FG42?:confused: :uhoh:

[Nightcrawler]

I'd LOVE an FG-42. Unfortuantely, they're a bit on the rare side, and probably littlebit overcomplex, but they were ahead of their time. The first modern, magazine fed main battle rifle (with greater capacity than the 10 rounds of the G43 and Tokarev, and probably a better design), and it was even issued with a scope.

[Shamaya]

Can you name the name of the gun, its country of origin, and its caliber?Assault Weapon. Only evil people own them, most of whom are cultists who believe they should be able to control their own destiny by force if necessary.

[Badger Arms]

Hmmmm, Australian conversion of an Enfield No1 MK III to autoloader. Caliber .303.

[Detritus]

Wasn't JMB's first gas-operated gun a modified lever action?

not sure about that one, you're probably right.

i DO know that Bill Ruger's first Semi-auto, and the, at least external, inspiration for the "deer stalker" .44 mag and the 10/22, was a semi-auto conversion he designed and built in his late teens early 20's, from a detatchable magazine Savage 99 lever gun, back i think (not sure of date), just prior to WW2.

best way to visualize the thing would be to Think of a 10/22 built to a scale etc, such to be suitable to handle a round like 250-3000 or .300 savage.


BTW, when i saw the above pic of the Charlton, i thought it was one of those experimental, Semi-auto conversions of the SMLE from the first world war (down to the "fore and aft" pistol grips) and i somehow imagine that at least part of teh idea for the Charlton came from one of those.

[JoshM]

Desperate times, desperate measures.

The Charlton was designed to equip New Zealand's home defence force with a light machine gun, as all of the Army's firepower was in North Africa and later Italy.

Things were so bad, everything from deer rifles to binoculars were being pressed into military service.

The Australian government later halted the Charlton's production at Electrolux, so they could build another ugly and effective gun, the Owen SMG.

In NZ, I've seen BRENs, MG42s, and CZ LMGs but I'm still looking for a Charlton.

[Shamaya]

Things were so bad, everything from deer rifles to binoculars were being pressed into military service.And now look at New Zealand. Like the Brits, they didn't get the message. Ripe for the pickin'.

[ShaiVong]

Hey now that I got me an Enfield and AR-15, I'm thinking of taking over NZ next week; Anyone with me? I'll make you dukes! :evil:

[Mike Irwin]

Detritus,

"from a detatchable magazine Savage 99 lever gun, back i think (not sure of date), just prior to WW2."

Close, but no cigar.

Ruger did use a Savage 99 for his first semi-auto rifle, but it wasn't a detachable magazine version unless he modified it himself.

Detachable mag. Savage 99s didn't show up until sometime in the mid to late 1960s, IIRC.

[Detritus]

darn Just missed!! :banghead: lol

hey i WAS close.

now that i think about it, I seem to remember there was a design element of the conversion that would have stopped a removable mag from working... a rod or tube that passed through the center of the rotary magazine, if not for being WAY out of place i'd be thinking it was a portion of the op-rod....


either way a real interesting gun.

[Futo Inu]

"Great Googolymoogoly, what an ugly weapon"

Yikes. Yeah, it fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Shamaya and Shaivong, those are some purty islands. Tell you what - I'll come with ya and help you execute the coup - then I'll let you be king (symbolic) and dictator, respectively, as long as I can some ski there in the (northern hemisphere's) winter. Year-round skiin' - yes!

[Sleuth]

Not nearly as elegant a conversion as they have in the NZ Army museum in Wyooru (sp). It a great (if cramped) display of their history.

Their conversion had a simple plate with a cam to operate the cut off bolt handle, exposed gas tube (pickup near the muzzle) and return spring, used the original stock. Looked like it would work.

After the US Marines arrived, the risk subsided. In many places to this day a member of the USMC cannot buy a beer - they are free!

[AZ Jeff]

JM Browning's first attempts at harness propellant gas for cycling the action involved a modified lever action.

It employed a "flapper" in front of the muzzle (through which a small hole was bored to allow the bullet to pass). The gasses that escaped the muzzle behind the bullet pushe the flapper down/away from the muzzle. Through a linkage, this actuated the finger lever of the action to cycle the breech mechanism.

Pictures of this system appear in "Small Arms of the World", among other resources.

[Detritus]

Never got my hands on a copy of "Small Arms of the World" so i don't rightly know....

is that (the first JMB auto) the design that lead directly to the "colt-browning" Machine-gun aka "Potato digger"???

i know it had a flapper like piece under the forward portion of the barrel, that was forced downward and to the rear (hinged at rear) each time a round was fired. but from my understanding, for all intents and purposes that "flapper" WAS the "action lever" and the barrel protruded 4 or 5 inches beyound the end of that unit.

not sure but from what i've seen of them it LOOKS like there would be some form of gas port, that directs gas down onto the end of that moving lever driving it way from the barrel (kinda like the flaps that are used to keep rainwater etc out of a vertical exhaust pipe), and the leverage of a force being exerted on the end of the bar provides mechanical advantage to cycle the action.

then again as i've said i'vbe never taken a REAL good look at one only seen a few in various films being fired, just my impressions.

[AZ Jeff]

The "Potato Digger" (aka the model 1895) used a "flapper" that was actuated by gas exiting a gas port on the underside of the barrel.

Browning's first autoloader was merely an experimental modification of an existing lever action rifle, and the flapper was literally over the end of the muzzle. Thus, the Potato Digger was a bit more sophisticated than this crude experimental thing.

However, in comparing the Model 1895 to this modified lever gun, one can see how the Potato Digger came to evolve.......