Categories
I miss things like this!
The late 19th century was a productive era in firearm design. The fertile mind of John Moses Browning was beginning to show its genius. In the autumn of 1890, in the big sky country of Ogden, Utah, one of John Browning’s early concepts took shape. The following is a letter to Colt’s Patent Firearms Company from Matthew S. Browning, dated Nov. 22, 1890:
Dear Sirs:
We have just completed our new automatic machine gun & thought we would write to you to see if you are interested in that kind of a gun. We have been at work on this gun for some time & have got it in good shape. We made a small one first which shot a 44 WCF charge at the rate of about 16 times per second & weight about 8#. The one we have just completed shoots the 45 Gov’t charge about 6 times per second & with the mount weighs about 40#. It is entirely automatic & can be made as cheaply as a common sporting rifle. If you are interested in this kind of gun we would be pleased to show you what it is & how it works as we are intending to take it down your way before long. Kindly let us hear from you in relation to it at once.
Yours Very Truly,
Browning Bros.
2461 Washington Avenue
Ogden, Utah
General Barnett tests “Colt’s Automatic Gun” at the Winthrop, Md., range during 1917. Library of Congress photo.
A Hot Potato Digger
Colt’s sales literature claimed that the hammer supposedly “pumped cool air” into the chamber. Regardless, the M1895 was widely noted to heat up quickly after only a medium-length burst—making it hazardous to leave a live round in the chamber. The chamber needed to be unloaded after almost any sizeable burst, unless the gun was going to remain in continuous action. The heavy barrel was supposed to provide adequate cooling for sustained firing but was ultimately not up to the task. Another drawback was that the M1895 could not be fired from the prone position, as the forward and backward swinging of the gas-actuated loading lever prevented this. The “Potato Digger’s” action demanded a tripod.
M1895 gunners train at Camp Upton, N.Y. on Long Island during early 1918. National Archives photograph.
U.S. Army Pushback
Not everyone was impressed with the new “automatic machine gun” designs that began to appear in the 1890s. There were, of course, those who saw the tremendous firepower potential in these new arms. Unfortunately for John Browning, and for Colt, the manufacturer of his automatic gun, the U.S. Army was quite pleased with its batteries of hand-cranked Gatling guns. Military interest in Browning’s new firearm was quite limited, with some considering it something of a newfangled “fad.” Meanwhile, the Browning gun found some interest from the U.S. Navy, and an order for about 200 examples, chambered in 6 mm Lee Navy followed.
While the U.S. Navy embraced machine guns before the turn of the 20th century, the U.S. Army was still committed to the Gatling Gun and remained so for nearly another decade. The Army tested many early machine-gun designs, and the Colt gun was regularly in the mix. The Army Ordnance Board reviewed the firearm in June 1895 and wrote: “The Colt automatic gun is an ingenious, compact, and relatively light arm. Its continuous automatic firing depends upon the action of the ammunition used. It is easily pointed by hand, and its fire is completely under the operator’s control. Its rapidity of fire during the tests was about 100 rounds in 17 seconds.”
U.S. Navy Bluejackets ashore manning a M1895 (6 mm Lee Navy) during the occupation of Veracruz, Mexico during April 1914. National Archives photograph.
However, the board concluded: “The board is of the opinion that in its present form, as shown by the tests made this arm is not suitable for ordinary service and has no place in the land armament.”
Born In Navy Service
While the Navy first used the Colt machine gun in combat in Cuba during 1898, it was the Army that gave the M1895 machine gun its designation. Even so, there is no record that the Colt-Browning gun was never officially adopted by the U.S. Army. Two Colt M1895 guns (in 7×57 mm Mauser) were privately purchased by Lt. Col. Roosevelt’s “Rough Riders,” a volunteer cavalry regiment. Roosevelt was not impressed, calling the Colt machine guns “delicate and readily out of order.” Navy Colt MGs received good marks during their use in Cuba during 1898, and later in the Philippines. They proved their worth yet again during the Marine Corps’ defense of the International Legation compound in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. South of the border, Colt MGs in 7 mm Mauser were used in the Mexican Revolution, and the U.S. Navy’s Colt guns were brought ashore for the occupation of Veracruz in April 1914.
M1895 machine gun used by Mexican revolutionaries. Pancho Villa’s “Division of the North” is thought to have acquired at least two of these guns.
Canadian troops successfully used Colt machine guns (chambered in .303 British) during the Second Boer War during 1900. The Canadians retained their M1895s through the early days of World War I, using them in combat until they acquired Vickers machine guns.
The first 200 U.S. Navy guns (called the Mark I), originally acquired in 6 mm Lee Navy, were ultimately rechambered in the newly unified Army-Navy .30-40 Krag (renamed the Mark I Modification I). When the official U.S. service ammunition was changed to the .30-’06 Sprg., the Navy once again rechambered their Colt machine guns but strangely retained the Mark I Mod I nomenclature.
An M1895 pedestal-mounted aboard the pre-dreadnought battleship U.S.S. Iowa (BB-4), launched in March 1896. Four M1895 machine guns were listed as part of the ship’s armament. Library of Congress photo.
Almost The Final Straw
The U.S. Army continued to look at machine gun designs, but with an increasingly critical eye. The 1904 Report of the U.S. Chief of Ordnance describes the in-depth and rigorous testing of the M1895 machine gun versus the Maxim-Vickers machine gun. The following comments come from the “Test of automatic machine guns:”
During marching tests several of the ammunition boxes provided with the Colt gun came apart or broke. They are entirely too fragile to withstand service conditions. During the marching tests many cartridges worked loose, and a number worked out of the belts provided with the Colt gun, showing conclusively their unsuitability for service.
The two guns appear to be equally accurate at 500 and 1000 yards. The mount of the Colt was less stable, requiring more frequent adjustments of aim. The endurance of the Vickers gun, when its jacket is kept filled with water, is greatly superior to that of the Colt. The time required to insert a belt in either of these guns and to load it is about 10 seconds.
The radiation of heat from the Colt barrel seriously interferes with sighting after a few hundred rounds are fired from it. After 500 to 1000 rounds are fired continuously from the Colt gun, the heat remaining in the barrel is sufficient to ignite a cartridge in the chamber. The gas lever handle on the Colt gun also becomes so heated as to burn the hands, and as this lever must be operated to insert each belt, this is a serious defect. After firing about 500 rounds the Colt gun becomes so hot that it can only be handled with great difficulty.
After the 1904 tests, and the overall negative opinion of the firearm by the board, it appeared that the Colt M1895 had reached a dead end with the U.S. Army.
Apparently “road rage” is not a modern concept. This M1895 is seen mounted aboard a Model T Ford. Library of Congress photograph.
Resurrection In The Great War
As World War I began in August 1914, some of the European powers found themselves in need of machine guns. The Russian Empire purchased nearly 15,000 (chambered in 7.62×54 mm R), first from Colt, then from Marlin-Rockwell, which purchased the manufacturing rights and the factory machinery in 1916.
The Italians purchased M1895s (chambered in 6.5×52 mm Mannlicher-Carcano) and used them in combat against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Belgian Army inherited the Canadians’ Colt guns (.303 British) and purchased new guns chambered for 7 mm Mauser.
Italian M1895 machine gun captured by the Austrians during World War I. Photograph from author’s collection.
In America, the M1895 was already considered obsolete, but U.S. forces had so few machine guns that 1,500 additional M1895s were built for the Army. These proved useful in training America’s fledgling army in several roles, ranging from infantry units to aerial gunners. Some were mounted aboard U.S. Navy “sub-chasers” protecting Allied convoys from U-boats. Beginning in 1917, Marlin-Rockwell redesigned the M1895, replacing the “potato-digger” arm with a linear gas piston to produce the Marlin Aircraft Model 1918. The Marlin Aircraft machine gun was a synchronized firearm that was mounted on a few U.S. Air Service pursuit and recon aircraft in the fall of 1918. Pilots praised it for its reliability and high rate of fire—ultimately the U.S. Air Service judged it to be the equal of the Vickers aircraft gun. After WWI, the Marlin gun was also mounted in the first American-made tank, the M1917 (the US version of the French FT-17).
A firearm for a new century of mobile firepower: The M1895 machine gun was often mounted on early motorcycle/sidecar combinations. This is the New Jersey Mobile Battery during 1917. National Archives photograph.
Soldiering On
Even though World War I was ostensibly ended by the November 1918 armistice, the fighting only intensified throughout Eastern Europe. The many M1895s purchased by the Russian Empire, continued their deadly work in the hands of Red and White forces in the Russian Civil War. Once the communists had seized control of Russia, the M1895 continued to fire shots in anger and saw action on both sides in the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917-1921) and the Soviet-Polish War (1919-1921), as well as the Finnish Civil War (1918), the Estonian War of Independence (1918-1920) and the Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920).
On guard at Fort Oglethorpe Prison, Ga., early 1919. National Archives photograph.
Back in the U.S., the M1895s appeared in the second largest armed insurrection in American history, firing shots in the West Virginia “Coal Mine War” (1921). The Colt machine guns were owned by the coal companies and used by the strike-breaking Baldwin-Felts agents.
A small amount of M1895s (7 mm Mauser) were used in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), and when England stood alone in 1940 and was desperate for arms, M1895s were purchased for the British Home Guard, which used them during World War II.
Service in World War II: M1895 guns mounted aboard U.S. Coast Guard Jeeps for stateside shore patrol during 1943. National Archives photograph.
Surprisingly, a few Jeep-mounted M1895s appear in photos of stateside U.S. Coast Guard shore patrols during WWII. The old potato-digger fought on longer and in more conflicts than its maker ever expected. John Browning’s first machine gun set the stage for his later genius designs that would serve America through two world wars and beyond.
Belgian M1895 guns set up to provide anti-aircraft defense on the Western Front. National Archives photograph.
A M1895 in Coast Guard service aboard a converted yacht on anti-submarine patrol during 1918. National Archives photograph.
M1895 in Belgian service during World War I. Photograph from author’s collection.
The potato-digger in training at Fort Lewis, Wash., during 1918. National Archives photograph.
An aged M1895 serving with the USMC at Hankow, China, during December 1926. Photograph from author’s collection.
This rifle is being sold at Morphys on October 31, 2018.
The story of the USS Niagara is quite an odd little corner of history. It was a ship built in 1877 and acquired by the US Navy in 1898, fitted out as a water distillery and supply ship. That fitting out was not actually done by the Navy, though, but rather by a group of wealth private citizens in New York, headed by William Randolph Hearst. As an outburst of (allegedly) grassroots support for the US war effort against Spain, these men outfitted and donated the Niagara to the Navy. And the fitted it out like a private yacht, with porcelain china and silver flatware for all the officers and sailors, and much more. The arms and accouterments purchased were all finely stamped or engraved with the name of the ship, including 35 brand new Remington Rolling Block rifles in 7mm Mauser, with “NIAGARA” engraved in bold letters across the top of the receiver.
Once the outfitting was complete and the ship was in Navy service, she sailed down to Cube, stayed on station for about two months without participating in any action of note, and then sailed back to New York to be decommissioned and sold for scrap. Francis Bannerman was on hand at the scrap auction, and bought most of the small items form the ship (including the rifles). Bannerman’s catalog would list Niagara items until 1927…
SHOOTERS SOMETIMES FIB, BUT TARGETS NEVER DO
Dave likes targets which immediately show where bullets impact,
even at a distance. In this test several years ago of a Ruger semi-auto,
he was shooting low, but that group isn’t too bad for a test pistol fired offhand at 25 yards.
From the moment Birchwood Casey introduced its line of Shoot-N-C targets, gun people were in big trouble, because this is a target that simply cannot tell a lie and won’t allow the user to stretch the truth even a little bit.
It ain’t fair! No more tales from Uncle Ned about shooting sub-MOA groups from his vintage Model 94 .30-30 at 100 yards using iron sights. Your best buddy “Dead-eye” suddenly became kind of scarce at the range every Saturday morning.
Then along came Champion’s VisiShot targets, also capable of showing bullet impact spots. The deck is stacked against braggarts.
This is why I loved such targets from the get-go. From the shooting bench, one needs only to view the target through a spotting scope or binoculars and viola!, there is no need for guesswork about where to shift one’s sights, or how many clicks need to be applied, either up or down, right or left.
Dave shot this group at 100 yards using his .308 Winchester. What’s next? Three clicks to the left will put his rounds 2 inches high, but dead on in terms of windage, so using his particular loads puts him on the bull’s eye, or in the vitals, at 200 yards.
I’ve used these targets almost exclusively over the past few decades to illustrate various gun reviews, because they don’t lie. They’re great teaching tools as well as a means to keep everybody honest about their shooting abilities.
Now and then, I may substitute a tin can or a playing card for a change of pace, but at the end of the day, these high-visibility targets, which consist of a couple of layers of material that instantly show bullet strikes, are tough to beat. I wish I’d have invented the things.
Several years ago, I drove to a meadow just east of Snoqualmie Pass with my pal Brian Lull a week before the deer season opener to check the zero on our rifles. With the targets set approximately 120 yards away and slightly uphill, we both confirmed where our rifles put bullets, out of cold barrels. As I recall, I was shooting 180-grain Nosler AccuBonds ahead of a full dose of H110 through my .30-06, and my bullets were striking about 2 inches high and were spot-on in terms of windage. The following weekend, we both notched tags on Snake River mule deer bucks at better than 200 yards.
Variety
There are so many variations of these targets it is impossible to list them all. You’ll find traditional round targets with bull’s eyes, 12×18-inch silhouettes, 7- and 9-inch oval silhouettes, square 8-inch sight-in targets with a grid of 1-inch squares, and so on, and so on.
The Ruger Blackhawk can be a very accurate sixgun, and Dave
has packed his along on fishing treks or just strolls off the
pavement. He’s anchored two deer with this revolver, and the
target illustrates how this was possible.
In my work, they make for some great photos. I’ve used them with different handguns to illustrate how accurate they might be with different loads, and on occasion with different rifles I may be shooting in preparation for a hunt.
Trust me, if you’re shooting poorly, these targets will shame you into additional practice!
The only downside I’ve experienced is that they sometimes seem prone to not sticking to the target backing as well as I might like. I’ve taken to stapling them down on cardboard after pressing them down. Thus anchored, they stay put through multiple hits.
VisiShot targets I’ve used don’t have the adhesive, so I simply stapled them to cardboard. In terms of performance, they did the same thing; each time a bullet punched through, a bright yellow or orange spot appeared, depending upon the target brand.
In the Cards
I mentioned playing cards before. Sure, I’ve used them as targets and so have many other people, for a variety of reasons in the beginning, but when the smoke clears, we all ended up with conversation pieces.
Playing cards make good alternative targets.
Can you do this at, say, 7 or 10 yards?
Of course, aces are the most popular cards, followed by the various face cards including Jokers, and then you work down the numbers. I saw an image of an Ace of Spades apparently punctured by Elmer Keith, using a .44-caliber revolver, and the body of the spade was pretty near shot completely out.
If you’re shooting a .22-caliber rifle or pistol, try a business card. They’re smaller and more challenging, and anybody who can consistently punch holes through one at 25 yards is one dead-eye sonofagun! Sometime between now and this fall’s grouse and cottontail rabbit seasons, I will have been to the range with my RugerMKIV pistol and 10/22 rifle brushing up my skills.
Be prepared to go through several decks of cards once you get into the habit. It really is addictive, and if you do it right — that is, concentrate on trigger squeeze, sight alignment and your breathing — by the time you’ve gone through the first deck, your marksmanship will definitely be improved. If not, well, there’s always Friday night bowling.
The importance of these exercises cannot be overstated. One never knows when an opportunity or emergency will arise, and you will need to shoot accurately, and maybe fast. (See below!)
Albuquerque ‘Crack Down’
Following a fatal triple homicide (“mass shooting”) in Farmington, New Mexico, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller announced this summer his administration will be “cracking down on guns.”
He said so in his “State of the City” address, according to KOB News.
“We are going to triangulate existing restrictions around schools to aggressively target any crime with a gun anywhere in downtown Albuquerque,” Keller, a Democrat, stated.
This could be interesting, because New Mexico has a state constitutional provision which says the following: “No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms.”
This is what we call a preemption law, but unlike other states, New Mexico’s provision is part of the state constitution. It is supposed to prevent politicians like Keller from doing what he’s just announced he will be doing. He may, or may not, be challenged, but the bottom line here is whether anything Albuquerque does this summer will have any effect on the violent crime rate.
Crime in Albuquerque is already down this year, according to KRQE News. Mayor Keller noted in his address that violent crime is down 8% from last year and property crime is down a whopping 140%. Over the previous 17 months, he said last month, 170 murder suspects had been arrested, which is a promising revelation. No rational person likes violent crime, particularly if he or she is a gun owner, since ultimately, it is gun owners who somehow wind up being penalized.
Keep Your Wits
Who’s heard a witty saying worth sharing? Wyatt Earp reportedly said, “Fast is fine, but accuracy is final,” along with “You must learn to be slow in a hurry.”
Dave never expected to use this Model 57 on game when he bought it
about 7 years ago. But as bad luck would have it, he had to finish off a
wounded, moving buck with this handgun, and he had to do it quickly.
The gun needed to shoot accurately, and it was definitely final.
There was a line of dialogue in an old Kirk Douglas western many years ago which has always made sense to me: “Get it out fast, and put it away slow.” People who disagree, or simply laugh at the concept, have probably never encountered a bear on the trail.
“Never holster an empty gun” was a tidbit that got my attention somewhere way back in the last century. Ever try to shoot small game only to hear an embarrassing “click?” It only needs to happen once. It’s a lesson that stays with you.
Anybody else? Send replies to insider@americanhandgunner.com
Categories
The 5-Barrel Nordenfelt Gun
Categories