Gear-Ratio-Accelerated? Yep, It's a Thing: French MAT 1955 Prototype
France
•
14m
EDIT: Shoot, I managed to get the gear ratio backwards. Sorry! The recoil action provides the necessary delay, and then the gear ratio provides acceleration to ensure the bolt can open reliably, akin to the accelerator in a Browning M1917 or 1919 machine gun, or a Lahti L35 pistol. Please excuse the error...
In the search for an improvement to the MAS 1949 rifle for the French military, all the French arsenals proposed new designs. MAS supplied an updated version that was ultimately adopted as the MAS 49/56, but the Tulle Arsenal (MAT) had a wacky idea of its own. In 1955, they presented a short-recoil, tilting bolt, gear-ratio-delayed system. It was an open bolt firing rifle chambered for the 7.5x54mm cartridge, using detachable 20-round magazines. Today we have one of the first models to look at, and there was a second iteration in 1956, which lightened the rifle by replacing some steel parts with aluminum. Neither was successful, much the the relief of the French Army...
Many thanks to the IRCGN (Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale) for allowing me access to film this unique rifle for you!
Up Next in France
-
Weirdest of the French Trials SMGs: t...
"EROP" was a small company based in Paris, which produced about 18 submachine gun prototypes between 1954 and 1956. These were submitted to French military trials in several different configurations first in 1954 and later in 1956, and none of them were given any further consideration after that....
-
11mm Gras mle79/83 Reloading and history
Less known than the Martini-Henry but just as active around the globe at the time was the single shot Gras rifle in all its varients. It was chambered for the 11x59R cartridge, one of the many 11mm-ish cartridges of the era and quite close to the 45-70. In 1878 the French navy adopt a Kopatschek ...
-
Hotchkiss Portative: Clunky But Durable
The Portative was an attempt by the Hotchkiss company to make a light machine gun companion to their heavy model (which had found significant commercial success). The Portative used the same feed strips, albeit loaded upside down, and the same gas piston operation, but a very different locking sy...
