Print Page | Close Window

Charlton 303 Machine Gun

Printed From: Enfield-Rifles.com
Category: Enfields
Forum Name: Enfield Rifles
Forum Description: Anything that has to do with the great Enfield rifles!
URL: http://www.enfield-rifles.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=5414
Printed Date: March 28 2024 at 1:38am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com


Topic: Charlton 303 Machine Gun
Posted By: 303Guy
Subject: Charlton 303 Machine Gun
Date Posted: August 28 2012 at 4:01pm
This would be taking modifying the SMLE to extremes.  Are you ready for this?


Pretty cool!  First time I heard of it was today when I came across this specimen advertised for sale in a local paper.  Cheap at the price!  NZ$9000.  It is believed to one of three examples on the planet.

Wink I would like to take the opportunity to bask in the fact that this machine gun was a Kiwi innovation. (Kiwi being New Zealander).

It was a wartime mod so no relics were destroyed.  Have a look at this link;  http://www.guncity.co.nz/303-charlton-machine-gun-c-cat-xidp129426.html" rel="nofollow - http://www.guncity.co.nz/303-charlton-machine-gun-c-cat-xidp129426.html



-------------
303Guy



Replies:
Posted By: LE Owner
Date Posted: August 28 2012 at 9:47pm
Not sure but I think they used the Lee Metford or early LE action bodies for these conversions.
 
It would be super cool if a legal semi-auto version were made available.
 
Original blueprints for the conversion were found some years ago, and offered for sale. I had downloaded the images from that site but lost them when the PC I was using got fried.
 
There were several select fire or semi-auto conversions developed, and similar conversions of several types of turn bolt action or straightpull rifles (the Ross for one) were attempted, with varying degrees of sucess.


Posted By: Cookie Monster
Date Posted: August 28 2012 at 11:51pm
Nice looking rifle very interesting ! but a Maintenence nightmare


Posted By: flanker
Date Posted: August 29 2012 at 12:55am
Wow! That's the first picture I've seen of one of these. I think they were produced as an emergency measure when there was an extreme threat of a Japanese invasion of New Zealand - weren't most of them destroyed in an accidental arsenal fire shortly after the end of the war?

-------------
Life is full of possibilities, 50% of them are likely to good....


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: August 29 2012 at 1:38am
would be easier to just stick with the Bren gun!
Hoadie

-------------
Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: flanker
Date Posted: August 29 2012 at 2:09am
Originally posted by hoadie hoadie wrote:

would be easier to just stick with the Bren gun!
Hoadie


I think they were hard to find at the time LOL


-------------
Life is full of possibilities, 50% of them are likely to good....


Posted By: Shamu
Date Posted: August 29 2012 at 2:27am
Wow so many places to get a finger stuck! *cringe*

-------------
Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)


Posted By: caseyjay
Date Posted: August 29 2012 at 4:00am
Fascinating, never heard of these thanks for sharing Cool


Posted By: 303Guy
Date Posted: August 29 2012 at 3:54pm
I had never heard of them either until yesterday when I happened to glance at a page of gunsale specials.  So I looked it up on the net and found the one on sale.  Fascinating!  I do believe these were built on MLE actions and not SMLE's as pointed out (just going by the pictures).

I'd say it would have been easier to just build a new design machinegun using LE barrels (?) rather than to modify a Lee Enfield but by now the thing is its rarity and collectors interest (not to mention the amazing ingenuity of it all!)

And indeed, one would want to keep one's fingers away from all the moving 'finger cutting off' parts!

The sights seem a little optimistic!  How would one see them with the thing jumping around during firing?LOL


-------------
303Guy


Posted By: John Sukey
Date Posted: August 30 2012 at 3:53am
Letrs not forget the Howell, a conversion of the No1Mk3 with a 10 round magazine intended for the Home Guard
Then there was the South African Reider, again with a 10 round mag
Of course there was also the Charlton Automatic Rifle, Electrolux model
The Australian self loading rifle
And last of all
The Howard Francis self loading carbine chambered for the 7.63 Mauser pistol cartridge
Last of all the Slazenger .22 Hornet on a No1Mk3 acdtion (have one of those)  not a conversion but rather built as such for hunters


Posted By: flanker
Date Posted: August 30 2012 at 4:30am
Wow! Anyone got pictures of these?



-------------
Life is full of possibilities, 50% of them are likely to good....


Posted By: Canuck
Date Posted: August 30 2012 at 5:30am
Amazing information, I did not know of their existance!


Posted By: A square 10
Date Posted: August 30 2012 at 10:07pm
very innovative and pretty complicated ,
 
oh , BTW , for those who dont know about john sukey , he probably has a copy of this in his closet somewhere , along with a copy of the others he mentioned ......


Posted By: LE Owner
Date Posted: August 31 2012 at 1:43am
Originally posted by John Sukey John Sukey wrote:

Last of all the Slazenger .22 Hornet on a No1Mk3 acdtion (have one of those)  not a conversion but rather built as such for hunters
Was that also a self loader?


Posted By: Lithgow
Date Posted: August 31 2012 at 6:21am
No they were a bolt action sporter.
They used to be quite common in Australia and you still see them for sale every now and then.
 


Posted By: Story
Date Posted: September 01 2012 at 10:13am
There's at least one gunsmith over on the weaponeer forums working on a modern semi-automatic copy of this -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlton_Automatic_Rifle
Also, as mentioned, the Canadians where trying self-loading designs based on the Ross during WWI
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huot_automatic_rifle


Posted By: Story
Date Posted: September 01 2012 at 12:53pm
Also, an Italian did an assault rifle at the turn of the century - the 6.5mm Cei Rigotti
http://www.forgottenweapons.com/cei-rigotti/" rel="nofollow - http://www.forgottenweapons.com/cei-rigotti/


Posted By: 303Guy
Date Posted: September 01 2012 at 3:48pm
That is way cool!  Thanks,  Story.  I had no idea such a thing had ever existed!  Was it ever used in combat?

I'm hoping some photo's of those other Enfield machine guns will 'appear'.  In fact, any unknown to me and perhaps rare automatic rifles and machine guns would be great to learn about - like the 6.5mm Cei Rigotti. Smile


-------------
303Guy


Posted By: flanker
Date Posted: September 01 2012 at 4:02pm
How about these?

www.securityarms.com/firearm/4915

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread805826/pg1


-------------
Life is full of possibilities, 50% of them are likely to good....


Posted By: 303Guy
Date Posted: September 01 2012 at 4:27pm
Thanks.  Fascinating!

These are they.

Reider Automatic Rifle

And the Cei-Rigotti


-------------
303Guy


Posted By: Shamu
Date Posted: September 01 2012 at 10:52pm
Those are so "steampunk"!

-------------
Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)


Posted By: flanker
Date Posted: September 01 2012 at 11:34pm
The HUOT was apparently quite good and much cheaper to make than the Lewis Gun. I read somewhere that it went into full production in 1918 but the end of WW1 closed the programme. It does look a bit less Heath-Robinson than the others.

-------------
Life is full of possibilities, 50% of them are likely to good....


Posted By: flanker
Date Posted: September 01 2012 at 11:39pm
Here's another
Farquhar-Hill rifle

The Farquhar-Hill Automatic rifle: http://world.guns.ru/rifle/autoloading-rifles/brit/self-loading-rifle-farquhar-hill-e.html


-------------
Life is full of possibilities, 50% of them are likely to good....


Posted By: flanker
Date Posted: September 01 2012 at 11:42pm
And a later development....

http://world.guns.ru/machine/brit/machine-gun-beardmore-farquhar-e.html

I have never heard of these Farquhar guns before both look pretty competent compared to the others above!


-------------
Life is full of possibilities, 50% of them are likely to good....


Posted By: John Sukey
Date Posted: September 03 2012 at 5:06am
One must keep in mind that most of these designs were due to the shortage of Bren Guns.  Especialy in Australia and New Zealand


Posted By: Story
Date Posted: September 04 2012 at 6:49am
Straight - pull designs like the Austrian Steyr and the Swiss 11 & 31 would lend themselves to semi-auto-maticising very nicely - or if the ammo they were originally chambered for had remained at dirt cheap surplus prices.

Considering the case head size of the 7.5mm, it's a shame the Swiss barrels are so complicated and proprietary from a machining point of view.


Posted By: Story
Date Posted: September 04 2012 at 8:18am
Originally posted by flanker flanker wrote:

Here's another
Farquhar-Hill rifle

The Farquhar-Hill Automatic rifle: http://world.guns.ru/rifle/autoloading-rifles/brit/self-loading-rifle-farquhar-hill-e.html


In action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXpgJ4JydN4


Posted By: 5thBatt
Date Posted: September 15 2012 at 7:17am










-------------
"the master has spoken" if he's the master, then I'm Dr Who.


Posted By: LE Owner
Date Posted: September 15 2012 at 12:06pm
Great photos!
Theres quite a collection of early semi autos on this site.
http://www.forgottenweapons.com/" rel="nofollow - http://www.forgottenweapons.com/
Including a few conversions of manually operated rifles.
Dutch Mannlicher conversion
http://www.forgottenweapons.com/early-semiauto-rifles/dutch-semiauto-conversion/" rel="nofollow - http://www.forgottenweapons.com/early-semiauto-rifles/dutch-semiauto-conversion/
 
The first gas operated semi auto made by Browning was a conversion of a Winchester Lever action. He used the downward swinging linked arm that he later developed to power the 1895 Colt machinegun.
The "potato digger".
 
Originally posted by John Sukey John Sukey wrote:

One must keep in mind that most of these designs were due to the shortage of Bren Guns. Especialy in Australia and New Zealand
Many conversions predate the Bren so they were more in answer to shortage of Lewisguns, though by the end of WW1 there were tens of thousands of Lewisguns available.
 
One British officer was against the various enfield conversions because he felt that firing at a modern aircraft (late thirties to early 40's aircraft) with a hand held automatic weapon was an "excercise in futility". Though a number of aircraft did get the nasty end of the stick when straffing troops. At Pearl Harbor one Japanese fighter (possibly two) was brought down by a BAR, one man firing while his buddy held the fore end on his shoulder for better elevation and a steady aim.
The anti-aircraft sight fitted to the Japanese infantry rifles for volley fire against attacking aircraft seems to have been less than effective against state of the art fighters of WW2, but at least one P-40 pilot counted over 200 holes in his aircraft from just behind his seat to the tail planes after coming under volley fire, with control cable hanging by a thread. The Japanese troops maintained their formation and contnued firing till all were down either dead or wounded. 
 
The dedicated ground attack fighters were usually impervious to rifle caliber MGs, the Sturmovik having thick armor plate on all frontal and lower surfaces.


Posted By: 303Guy
Date Posted: September 16 2012 at 2:27pm
On Saturday I saw a real live Charlton machine gun in our museum.  Other guns too that I've never seen before.  I also saw my first real live Spitfire and a Zero.  Not only that, there was a V1 Buzz Bomb!  I saw my first MP40 and an anti tank rifle which it was said one chap used like a shotgun to kill a German paratrooper in the air!  There were a number of LE I's too.  If I could have just one full battle dress Lee Enfield it would be an LE I.  But the No4 is my favourite Lee Enfield.

-------------
303Guy


Posted By: 5thBatt
Date Posted: September 16 2012 at 4:26pm
Originally posted by 303Guy 303Guy wrote:

On Saturday I saw a real live Charlton machine gun in our museum.  Other guns too that I've never seen before.  I also saw my first real live Spitfire and a Zero.  Not only that, there was a V1 Buzz Bomb!  I saw my first MP40 and an anti tank rifle which it was said one chap used like a shotgun to kill a German paratrooper in the air!  There were a number of LE I's too.  If I could have just one full battle dress Lee Enfield it would be an LE I.  But the No4 is my favourite Lee Enfield.
Where were you Saturday? those pics i posted above were taken on Saturday.


-------------
"the master has spoken" if he's the master, then I'm Dr Who.


Posted By: 303Guy
Date Posted: September 16 2012 at 4:51pm
I was in the Auckland museum.  I was looking at that photo of the MP38 and thought that couldn't have been the same place.  And the Charlton couldn't be viewed from all angles.  Oh, I'd never seen a real live Bren gun before either.  Where were those photo's taken?

-------------
303Guy


Posted By: 5thBatt
Date Posted: September 16 2012 at 5:27pm
Originally posted by 303Guy 303Guy wrote:

I was in the Auckland museum.  I was looking at that photo of the MP38 and thought that couldn't have been the same place.  And the Charlton couldn't be viewed from all angles.  Oh, I'd never seen a real live Bren gun before either.  Where were those photo's taken?
Waiouru, the MP38 was made in NZ.



-------------
"the master has spoken" if he's the master, then I'm Dr Who.


Posted By: A square 10
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 10:51pm
fun photos , thanks for posting them



Print Page | Close Window

Forum Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Copyright ©2001-2021 Web Wiz Ltd. - https://www.webwiz.net