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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Shooting the Lewis Gun


maximvickers08

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Welcome to the Forum. Thanks. Always interesting to see the Lewis in action

Ian

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Thanks maximvickers, a nice post and good to see and hear the weapon in action. This is from my grandfather's brigade early in April 1918:

After very severe fighting during which enemy suffered heavy losses he was completely repulsed. Tremendous credit has been given to the Lewis Gunners & Machine Gun Company who stood to their posts in spite of the heavy shelling and kept the enemy from overrunning the trenches.

Instances are given of the whole of the Lewis Gun team being found killed alongside their guns with heaps of German dead within fields of fire proving how well they had used their Lewis Gun on advancing enemy.

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A couple of short clips of my son and I shooting my Lewis gun last weekend. As you can tell several of the pans are out of round. Causing the pan not to advance everytime.

http://www.youtube.c...u/0/dh2_dLKvXlY

http://www.youtube.c...u/1/tQqExEieKiE

Hope everyone enjoys them.

Rich

Quite a lovely and admirable piece Rich. Is it a .303?

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Thanks maximvickers, a nice post and good to see and hear the weapon in action. This is from my grandfather's brigade early in April 1918:

After very severe fighting during which enemy suffered heavy losses he was completely repulsed. Tremendous credit has been given to the Lewis Gunners & Machine Gun Company who stood to their posts in spite of the heavy shelling and kept the enemy from overrunning the trenches.

Instances are given of the whole of the Lewis Gun team being found killed alongside their guns with heaps of German dead within fields of fire proving how well they had used their Lewis Gun on advancing enemy.

While I enjoy shooting these old guns. When on the range I never fail to wonder who held this before I did? Where did this gun go and what happened to those whose lives may have depended on it. Thanks for the excerpt from your Grandfather's brigade.

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Quite a lovely and admirable piece Rich. Is it a .303?

Yes, it is .303 Serial number in the low 7000s. I think that makes its production in the first half of 1916.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ahhhh, you gun-crazy Yanks!

More seriously (as this is probably the closest I will ever get to a functional Lewis) this is interesting in showing how the gunner deals with stoppages due to a deformed magazine. Such a problem was probably common in the trenches, where guns had to put up with unpleasant living conditions.

Anytime you want to post your Vickers* gun shoot-fest, go right ahead.

* Vickers, MG1915, Madsen, Hotchkiss - whatever you got, really

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