History and Disassembly of the Vickers-Berthier MkIII LMG
Forgotten Weapons
•
18m
The Vickers-Berthier was initially designed by Andre Berthier in France prior to World War One. It went through a number of substantial design changes before the war, and was actually ordered in quantity by the United States right at the end of WWI - but the order was cancelled with the armistice. In the 1920s, Berthier sold the design to the Vickers company in England, which wanted a light machine gun to market alongside its Vickers heavy machine gun.
When the British military decided to replace its Lewis and Hotchkiss light machine guns, the Vickers-Berthier was one of the leading contenders, although in the endurance trials it was edged out by the Czech ZB-33, which would ultimately be adopted as the Bren. However, the Indian Army opted to take the Vickers-Berthier, and it was put into production at the Ishapore Rifle Factory and saw substantial use in World War Two.
Mechanically, the Vickers-Berthier is a tilting bolt design with a long stroke gas piston. It has a thorough set of covers over the magazine well and ejection port, and a relatively slow rate of fire. The barrel is quick-changeable, and it feeds from top-mounted 30-round magazines, with an aperture type rear sight being offset to the left side of the gun to clear the magazine.
Thanks to Marstar for letting me examine and shoot their Vickers-Berthier!
Up Next in Forgotten Weapons
-
Rhodesian FAL - with Larry Vickers
The iconic weapon of the Rhodesian Bush War is the FN-FAL, painted in a distinctive "baby poop" yellow and green pattern. Because Rhodesia was under international embargo, its options for obtaining weapons were limited. Some domestic production was undertaken, but one large source was neighboring...
-
Shooting the Norinco QBZ/Type 97 NSR
Today it's time to take the Norinco QBZ-97 - aka Type 97 NSR - out to the range for some shooting! This is the Canadian semiautomatic-only legal version of China's new military rifle, and it is chambered for the 5.56mm NATO cartridge (the Chinese military models use their 5.8x42mm cartridge).
...
-
Mechanics and Disassembly of the Nori...
The Chinese military introduced a new 5.8x42mm cartridge in 1987, and then developed a new bullpup rifle to use it. The rifle was the QBZ Type 95, and it was a bullpup rifle with a rotating bolt and short-stroke gas piston operating system. Shortly thereafter, a commercial export version was rele...