Original British WWI Fluted Vickers Display Machine Gun with Tripod Original Items

Original Items. One Set Only. “The Grand Old Lady of No Man’s Land”

Twenty years ago we had 400 Fluted Vickers Guns released by former British Colonies, white today your rarely encounter them at all. This example was purchased from a private collector who had purchased many display guns from us over the past 15 years.

Here we have an original fluted jacket Vickers Gun made and used during WW1 1914 – 1918. The gun comes with the correct WWI steel feed tray, flat-nosed muzzle attachment, and has many WWI era parts marked V.S.M. for Vickers, Son, & Maxim. The barrel jacket is also marked with serial number H850 and multiple British proof marks. This display gun is made to cycle after a fashion providing additional realism. In excellent overall condition this Display Water Cooled Machine Gun comes on it’s original steel tripod and brass cross head covered in ,markings of the period. Fluted jacket retains it’s original blued finish which is most often found covered in layers of paint making this a very fine specimen ready to display.

Built with new made, BATF approved, steel dummy receiver plates incorporating most of the internal moving parts these non-guns are totally legal to own without any federal restrictions. Beautifully machined, this makes a magnificent display that would fool most experts. Complete with original tripod.

The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a name primarily used to refer to the water-cooled .303 inch (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The machine gun typically required a six to eight-man team to operate: one to fire, one to feed the ammunition, the rest to help carry the weapon, its ammunition and spare parts. It was in service from before the First World War until the 1960s.

The weapon had a reputation for great solidity and reliability. Ian V. Hogg, in Weapons & War Machines, describes an action that took place in August 1916, during which the British Army’s 100th Company of the Machine Gun Corps fired their ten Vickers guns continuously for twelve hours. Using 100 new barrels, they fired a million rounds without a single breakdown. “It was this absolute foolproof reliability which endeared the Vickers to every British soldier who ever fired one.”

The Vickers machine gun was based on the successful Maxim gun of the late 19th century. After purchasing the Maxim company outright in 1896, Vickers took the design of the Maxim gun and improved it, reducing its weight by lightening and simplifying the action and substituting components made with high strength alloys. A muzzle booster was also added.

The British Army formally adopted the Vickers gun as its standard machine gun on 26 November 1912, using it alongside their Maxims. There were still great shortages when the First World War began, and the British Expeditionary Force was still equipped with Maxims when sent to France in 1914. Vickers was, in fact, threatened with prosecution for war profiteering, due to the exorbitant price it was demanding for each gun. As a result, the price was slashed. As the war progressed, and numbers increased, it became the British Army’s primary machine gun, and served on all fronts during the conflict. When the Lewis Gun was adopted as a light machine gun and issued to infantry units, the Vickers guns were redefined as heavy machine guns, withdrawn from infantry units, and grouped in the hands of the new Machine Gun Corps.

After the First World War, the Machine Gun Corps (MGC) was disbanded and the Vickers returned to infantry units. Before the Second World War, there were plans to replace the Vickers gun; one of the contenders was the 7.92 mm (.312 in) Besa machine gun (a Czech design), which eventually became the British Army’s standard tank-mounted machine gun. However, the Vickers remained in service with the British Army until 30 March 1968. Its last operational use was in the Radfan during the Aden Emergency.