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Armour's Tools for sale by APEX
I thought some of you might like to see theese. Its a set of gauges that apparently came from a British Armory at some point. They are not listed as being for any particular rifle/weapon in APEX's site but they suggest that they may be for an enfeild. Im sure Peter could fill us in on what exactally they are for. Im also posting a link to some bren tools as well from the same site. Are both of these really worth the price? They seem high to me, but how does one really price such objects?
https://www.apexgunparts.com/product...roducts_id/242
https://www.apexgunparts.com/product...roducts_id/233
-mdrim13
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Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current. |
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01-05-2012 10:27 PM
# ADS
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All vickers machine gun. We still use them and I have a set for my guns. Being probably the last of the Vickers trained Armourers, I wonder who will certify our guns fit to fire when I've gone...............
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1996 was the last time 3 RAR fired thier Vickers that iam aware of, just spoke to the bloke who pressed the trigger.
cheers
Ned
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Surely not as front line guns Trooper......., surely! The battalions were M-60/GPMG in 69/70
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Used to be the big thing on Singleton Range for firepower Demo's, the old girl used to make all the new stuff look sick.
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they where certainly used on the line but not as the main guns. More of a demo or for austerities sake. I remember one such shoot down at pucka, I was in mortars. After we jumped in. All the rifle companies , in turn, jumped in and went into a company in defence position, we supplied the fire support when they ran through calling in for fire and also when the enemy was advancing on the position they would call in fire support. The SFMG guys had 2 Vickers in the platoon on the line. all the ammo was POF stuff in cloth belts. We even used a fair bit of old 3 inch mortar ammo that had been found in war stores. That was quite common in the late eighties,using WW2 dated mortar ammo.
And yes Muff, the firepower demo was where i got qualified on the Vickers. We did the history of the aussie infantryman. We all had to be qualified on the weapons in case some one got crook or something and we filled in. I.E. quick wardrobe change from WW1 lewis gunner to desert soldier of WW2.
The 1996 story is from a SFMG guy that was in the battalion after me but caught up with him at a service rifle shoot, got talking and the vickers came up. He said everyone was a little sad as they where finally going to withdraw the guns from the inventory but who knows if that ever happened.
I was told of another story that when they decided to use the guys a few years before me they had no-one who had ever fired them. So a WW2 rat of Tobruk was found through the RSL. he happened to be an ex vickers gunner. They wheeled him up behind the gun and they reckoned after 40 odd years this old fella played waltzing matilda on the damn thing!!! That is firing bursts to to the same rhythm as the tune!!! The old fella reckoned they used to get bored of firing normal burst after burst so they came up with different things to keep amused!!
Cheers
Ned
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In a sustained fire role, I doubt that anything can equal them, the M60 used to rattle itself apart, the old 30 cal. just had too many stoppages, but looked spectacular in a night shoot with a worn out barrel, there wasn't a great deal in belt feds in service. Won't mention the Mini mi.
Leaving the Heavies out, the 50cal was and still is great.
Last edited by muffett.2008; 01-06-2012 at 03:58 PM.
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I was involved in the acceptance trials of the Dillon Minigun. Everything about that gun just left me speechless. The awsome firepower and to fire it with 4x ball/1 tracer on a dark evening at 60 rounds per second was like nothing I have ever seen before. I remember having to just keep firing it until it broke - which it did spectacularly when the barrel burst and bullets just flew out sideways until the gun stopped. It was when I experienced that, that I realised that while the Vickers and Bren were good, the GPMG VERY good, things had moved on and the Dillon was SPECTACULAR!
If you ever get a chance to fire one forumers, leap at the chance..............
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Thank You to Peter Laidler For This Useful Post:
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Peter, I haven't fired a minigun yet, but I got the guided tour of Mr. Dillons "toyshop" last year.
Very nigh a religious experience. Nice collection of aircraft in the shed, too. And then there's the airfield adjacent to the shed; load up the ammo, mount the guns in their cradles, taxi out the door and off for some "fun in the sun".
And Trooper:
I remember the use of 3inch bombs in 81mm tubes. Something in the high six-figures of the stuff was "found" languishing in a big shed and someone decided that it would be good "training ammo": just make different base-plugs for the 81s, work out some new firing tables and voila!
There were "issues" of course. Firstly, 3" rounds are a bit of a "racing fit" in an 81mm bore and thus did not obturate terribly well and also tended to "rattle" on their way out. This was not exactly good for the bores. Secondly, the 3" round is not bore-safe; i.e. once the basic safety pin is removed, the bomb is "hot". Drop it on its nose and it will probably go BANG. The 81mm rounds have an inertia safety system that is supposed to unlock the fuzing mechanism only after it has been subjected to sufficient acceleration, i.e. launched from a tube.
And then there were the "blinds". If, as regularly occurred, one of these ancient bombs failed to launch, the drill was to disconnect the tube from the baseplate and carefully tilt it so that the bomb slid out and was caught by the number two, who would then, in a lather of very nervous sweat, carefully place it some distance away for the pioneers to gleefully demolish at their leisure.
On these shoots, the gun plumbers and sigs sat WELL back.
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