Lewis Gun Love Affair

:beerchug:

With thanks to member Graeme "broadarrow303" Barber, an excellent new research article about the Lewis Gun has been added to the United Kingdom - Milsurps Knowledge Library (click here).

Lewis Gun Love Affair (FULL article - click here)

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Article Extract .....

Believe it or not this Lewis gun ‘love affair’ goes back 57 years when as a young boy I visited (most weekends with my parents) my grandparents farm at Corredale near Oamaru in the South Island of New Zealand. Dad would help on the farm followed by wandering around the rolling hills shooting rabbits, with me eagerly tagging along from the age of 2 years. Any chance I could I would sneak in to the old dairy attached to the homestead to stare longingly at the picture of 'big' guns hanging on the wall. It was in fact a military training chart hanging from a nail by butchers string with a Lewis gun on one side and a Bren gun on the other. Over the years my grandfather (a WWI veteran from the Somme trenches) told me how as a Captain of the local Home Guard during WW II, he spent most Sundays training the Guardsmen in shooting SMLE rifles and machine guns on a range built on his farm. This eager young boy often re-enacted battles on the range with his brothers and cousins, asked lots of questions and got to see several other mementos of WWI and training items used with the Home Guard. My burgeoning interest in shooting and war stories must have been recognised by my Grandfather because when I was 10 years of age he gave me a No 23 grenade, a sectionalised No 36 grenade, his money and corps belts both adorned with WW1 badges and buttons and the much admired machine gun training charts. My life long interest in collecting British militaria was very much born. (article continues) .....

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Sample pics from article's extensive photo montage

Left - Lewis Model 1914 Light Machine Gun fitted with No 5 Magazine and Mk III Field Mount (Bi-pod) introduced September 1915 LOC 17483
Middle- A circa WWII modified ‘L’ marked pattern 37 web equipment Bren gun pouch with spare pawls, return springs, replacement parts, loading tools (metal and half metal/wood types), barrel spanners first and second type (modified from Oct 17th 1921-LOC 24676), clearing plugs MkI and MkII (from August 31st 1916-LOC 17938), gas regulator reamer, and bolt handle extension (an American product that fitted in to the bolt handle to assist with retracting a jammed bolt).
Right - Lewis gun in pieces and parts list - NZ Archives Wellington R224340330

http://photos.imageevent.com/badgerd...ld%20Mount.jpg(Click PIC to Enlarge)http://photos.imageevent.com/badgerd...nd%20tools.jpg(Click PIC to Enlarge)http://photos.imageevent.com/badgerd...n%20pieces.jpg

Regards,
Doug

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Attachment 86376

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Originally Posted by MG1918

Lewis Gun - who cannot love it!!

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Let me guess. People who have experience with the Vickers? But even then, there's something endearing about the Lewis.

One of the first weapons I handled in the army was a Lewis. I was still in basic training and we were doing a trooping of the color, we had a weapons display to set up. They dropped the weapons off and I was among the responsible to see that these didn't go stray, so if I was going to be there, I'd figure them out. I handled and stripped and assembled...Lewis, Sten, Bren, #1 and #4 Lee Enfield...Ross rifle... I liked it then and later when firing it.

Jim I am not a young man myself but when was this? Surely the Canadian Army gave up the lewis by the eighties?? :lol:

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Originally Posted by MG1918

when was this

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I joined in the '70's...and this was 1974. These were a group of weapons brought forward for a display as stated, and there were the other ones I described too. They came from the Regimental Museum I believe, in Calgary AB. They were just about mint. We were using the FN family then. The Lewis' I used and handled after that were privately owned.

Just like everyone else here...

You know, the Lewis had a bastard grandson, born of a liaison between the FG42 and the MG42...

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...ebc4fb01-1.jpg

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Originally Posted by old tanker

You know, the Lewis had a bastard grandson, born of a liaison between the FG42 and the MG42...

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...ebc4fb01-1.jpg

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Yes look up BULLPUP. once again a great idea before its time!

Some 50 years ago, I put quite a few rounds through a Lewis.

Doug,
Nice group photo there of the West Yorkshire Regiments Machine Gun Platoon 1917. ;)

The combination that later became the M60Attachment 98766

Pity they seemed to have cut a few corners with the significance of the MG-42 "double-shuffle" feed system that could work reliably at outrageous cyclic rates. FN seemed to be paying more attention.

Any M-60 owners tried to graft a MaG-58 / M-240 feed onto their M-60?

You can find these 303 Lewis gun cartridges around as they are not really rare, most have the 18 headstamp. The 303 Lewis cartridge case is 62mm long but still the same overall length as the standard 303 cartridge in order to fit into and function in the Lewis drum.

After the war ended in 1918 little was done with this experimental cartridge but I did read that the Pattern 1914 also had been converted to fire this cartridge for testingAttachment 98901

As an interesting side note on the Lewis, the Germans just loved the Lewis and converted a number of them to 7.92mm.
I know of one gun that remains however a 7.92 mag has shown up.
A number of 7.92 mm Lewis guns were captured at Hill 70 during WW I

The early WW2 Polish dive bomber called the Karas had a pilot with a rear gunner that used a 7,92mm Lewis and a bottom gunner also with a
7,92mm Lewis gun. I would think these were manufactured after WW1 ?

I was wrong about the crew served machine guns used on the Polish Karas dive bomber in 1939. From the photos I thought they were using Lewis guns but was wrong, they were using the Polish PWU wz 37 Vickers F with top mount drum in 7,92x57mm

A friend of mine was working on restoring a 30.06 Lewis gun before he died. As I had tried to help him to find parts I was going to have a chance to shoot it after it was done. He passed on to soon.
Note finding 30.06 Lewis parts is not easy. I understand that only 500 of the Lewis guns were made in 30.06. This was one of them.
I have always found the Lewis Gun to be something that I would love to shoot and own. Someday.

Later 42rocker

Savage was the only US contactor to manufacture the Lewis machine gun in the USA. It took Savage two years to set up production once WW1 started.
The first were made in 303 cal then Savage produced the 30-06 caliber, 16,000 produced and delivered by May 1918. By Armistice Day 34000 Lewis
guns had been delivered most being aircraft. The USMC received 6000 Lewis guns from the 16,000 delivered in May 1918.

Fully equipped with Lewis guns, US Marine Divisions that landed in France and attached to the US Army were ordered to exchange them for the French
Chauchat machine guns (Gen Crozer Chief of Ordnance made sure the US ground forces would not have the Lewis)

Thank you for the additional info. Updates are always welcome as I try to learn and correct errors.

Later 42rocker

I hoard .303 all winter to run thru my friends Lewis!
I thought the Bren was my favourite until I ran the Lewis.
I got carried away a couple of summers ago and blew thru 10 pans one afternoon.
It is like shooting a rifle. Too accurate for a medium machine gun but if you want to pour rounds into the same place it was freakin awesome!
I wouldn't have wanted to be in a static position on the wrong side with a bunch of Lewis Guns in the neighbourhood!

Got you hooked hey!!!!:wave:

Absolutely!!!