Believe it or not, but this really is a Colt.

[MG34_Dan]

Here is the story and a few pictures of my "1918 Colt Vickers Aircraft Machine Gun".

During WWI, Colt had a contract with the Imperial Russian government to supply their army with Vickers ground guns chambered in 7.62x54 Russian. When the Bolsheviks took control of that government, after the 1917 revolution, the US government froze all exports to Russia. Colt was now stuck with a some 4000 Vickers ground guns in a caliber that no other Allied nation used. What were they to do?

In 1918 the US entered WWI. All this while Colt has been supplying the US military with 1915 US Vickers guns in 30-06. The new 1917 Browning Machine Gun was just starting to go into production and Colt did not want to re-tool back for 1915 US Vickers guns. So US ground troops were relegated to using a mixture of their 1915 US Vickers, British 1912 Vickers, and French Hotchkiss machine guns. They had to wait until the new 1917 Brownings begin to arrive to be re-equipped. At this same time a new requirement appeared, the need for an aircraft machine gun to shoot down German observation balloons and barrage balloons. What was also needed was an incendiary cartridge that was guaranteed to ignite the German balloons. Remember, the Germans used hydrogen in their balloons. US 30-06, British .303, and French Label cartridge bullets were all too small to hold enough incendiary to guarantee balloon ignition. But there was another cartridge that would work, the obsolete 11mm French Gras. It is just about the same length as the previous cartridges, but it had a huge bullet. That was just what the doctor ordered to hold more incendiary. Now if only we can get enough aircraft machine guns to fire this newly improved cartridge. Here comes Colt to the rescue.

Colt contracted with both the US and French governments to supply them with Vickers "balloon buster" guns firing the improved 11mm French Gras Cartridge. The "1918 Colt Vickers Aircraft Machine Gun" is born (or re-born). Colt re-worked their finished, non-exportable, Russian Vickers ground guns into 1918's by:
1) Reboring and rechambering the barrel to 11mm French Gras
2) Reworking the feed block and extractor for 11mm French Gras
3) Removing all sights
4) Removing all grips
5) Adding a new rebounding recoil assembly to handle the increased recoil
6) Cutting holes in the water jacket and trunion to allow air to flow over the barrel while in flight
7) Adding a synchronizer assembly to the trigger mechanism
8) Externally re-marking and re-numbering for the new model designation (the internal numbers were not altered)

Here is a picture of a 1918 Colt Aircraft Vickers Gun



The 1918 Vickers Aircraft Gun remained in US service after WWI into 1920's when it was were supplanted by various Browning models. Most 1918's were sold as scrap or just given away to anyone who wanted one. In the 1930's they were sold as war souvenirs for $4.00, delivered via US Mail. Many ended up in VFW halls gathering dust. Nobody wanted them. Thousands were just dumped at sea to free up needed warehouse space.

Now time passes into the 1980's and interest in machine guns begins to grow, as do their values. Vickers guns are always in high demand, but without adequate cooling these aircraft Vickers guns are useless. The thin Vickers barrels get very hot very quickly unless immersed in water. Then suddenly, as if by miracle, surplus British and Australian Vickers parts kits appear on the US market as these countries supplant their Vickers ground guns with more modern weapons. My Colt Vickers is about to be re-born, again.

She is another of my "Heinz 57" guns. The right side plate (what BATF considers to be the gun), left side plate, bottom plate, and internal recoiling assembly are all original Colt 1918. The trunion, water jacket assembly, top cover assemblies, back plate, and recoil assembly are Australian from 1943. The barrel, extractor, and feed block are Turkish from the 1930's in 8mm. I won't go into how the Turks got involved with Vickers guns or how Turkish parts get into the US. That's a whole story by itself.

Here is a picture of my re-re-born Vickers with Pat Tomlison who built my gun with parts from around the world.




More Vickers re-re-birth porn. Notice the "A" prefix serial number. Only Colt 1918 Vickers Aircraft guns use that prefix.






And finally here is a picture of her at one of our shoots back in 2005. I have her configured using a South African .308 setup. Yes, the South Africans also used the Vickers. I replaced the above Turkish parts with South African parts and I'm good to go in .308 instead of 8mm. The bulbous flash hider is British from WWII. I installed it because some pussy shooter was complaining about muzzle blast. Hey, it's a machine gun shoot. What the hell did you expect?



I currently keep my Vickers configured in 30-06 using US 1915 Vickers parts in place of the Turkish or South African parts. The Vickers Gun is beautifully designed and engineered and any Vickers part, from whatever country of origin, will just fit and function in any properly constructed Vickers. It's all plug and play. As a matter of fact a friend of mine has a Japanese Aircraft Vickers, also built with an Aussie kit, that he runs with Russian 7.62x54 Russian firing parts. I guess if you go far enough, you return to where you started.

[Collects]

Fascinating, MG34! Thanks for posting.

[Fortibus55]

Looks like a real hoot to shoot! Thanks for posting the photos.

[Gunsmoke]

If you ever get to triggertime with that gorgeous peace of living history, make sure to make a video. I would love to see that gun in action!

[MG34_Dan]

If you ever get to triggertime with that gorgeous peace of living history, make sure to make a video. I would love to see that gun in action!

Here she is firing 8mm at 3:23 into one of Mongo's video. You can also hear her barking in the background at the 50 second mark.

May 2006 Machine Gun Shoot - YouTube

[skwcoltguy]

I am not an artist, but i know art when I see it....that is beautiful! And a cool project.

[Gunsmoke]

Here she is firing 8mm at 3:23 into one of Mongo's video. You can also hear her barking in the background at the 50 second mark.

May 2006 Machine Gun Shoot - YouTube

Right....

Gent's: if anyone would try to find a better example of a man blowing of steam, he's up for a major challenge.

Beautiful!

[MG34_Dan]

Gunsmoke;

I see you are from The Netherlands. Go to 1:39 into the video to view one of your ex-patriots. That is my dear friend, Mr. Dolf Goldsmith, shooting one of his MG08's on a French AuToMato tripod. If you are unfamiliar with Dolf, do a Google search on his name to get some background. He is an acknowledged expert on machine guns. His books on Maxims, Vickers, and Brownings are considered "Bibles" for those weapon systems. As a matter of fact, it was Dolf who guided me through my Vickers saga.

[William B.]

MG34_Dan,

What an amazing firearm! That's an awesome piece of history. I'm glad to see that it's no safe queen as well.

[MG34_Dan]

MG34_Dan,

What an amazing firearm! That's an awesome piece of history. I'm glad to see that it's no safe queen as well.

We take her out every so often when the weather is nice. What an interesting and instructive experience this has been. I am always amazed how many smart people there are in this world. It's quite humbling. The learning saga on these old war horses is quite open ended.

It took one year to get her built and running in 8mm. It took another year to find the parts to get her running in .308. I even had a friend in South Africa find some original links for me. The 30-06 setup took another two years to find. During that time, I found an original, mint, WWI US Vickers barrel on eBay and then the US 30-06 Vickers feed block also on eBay from two different sellers. I found the extractor quite by chance while up in Canada. The real challenge had been getting 30-06 ammo to feed and run properly.

Original US WWI 30-06 fabric belts are much thinner than British belts and 30-06 ammo loaded onto British belts is too thick to fit into the US 30-06 feed block. I know, I tried it. While surplus British/Commonwealth Vickers belts are available @ $100, US Vickers belts are impossible to find at any price. I did find a source for WWI US aircraft Vickers links @ $1. Which means a 250 round belt would set me back $250. That's not going to happen!

After re-reading Dolf's Maxim book and Vickers book, I came to the realization that Maxim belts and Vickers belts have the same pitch (distance from center to center between loaded ammo pockets). Knowing that, I saw that IMA was selling surplus Turkish 8mm, aluminum pocketed, Maxim belts @ $30. Now that's a price I can live with, so I picked up a couple. They worked perfectly so I went back to IMA and picked up ten more. You never know when this old stuff dries up. 'Tis better to have and not need than to need and not have.