Excerpt from the 2002 book NRA: An American Legend by Jeffrey L. Rodengen.
After the Olympic Games of 1924, the International Olympic Committee had eliminated all sports not of major spectator interest and those that it called “mass athletics.” Among those events dropped under this ruling was shooting. The National Rifle Association and the International Shooting Union protested this decision and conducted an ongoing campaign to have rifle and pistol shooting reinstated, but their efforts remained unsuccessful until 1931, when the NRA Board of Directors appointed an Olympic Rifle Committee chaired by Milton Reckord and an Olympic Pistol Committee headed by Karl Frederick.
That same year, the International Olympic Committee ruled that it would bar from competition anyone who had accepted a cash prize or who had competed in a contest in which a cash prize had been offered. By the 1930s, cash prizes, though small, were still being issued for shooting competitions, and there was scarcely a single experienced target shooter in America or in the world who could meet the committee’s standards. Both of NRA’s Olympic committees were forced to draw upon unknown shooters of little competitive experience to build their teams.
The International Olympic Games Committee did not consult NRA’s Olympic committees on the arrangements of the shooting match or on the construction of the shooting facilities. This slight was further complicated when the International Olympic Games Committee announced that the Sergeant of the Los Angeles Police Department would be “in charge of shooting” at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles—despite the same committee having invited NRA and the United States Revolver Association (USRA) to assume some charge of the shooting facilities.
The result was a fiasco. Although fine for police practice, the Los Angeles Police range was neither designed nor built for formal competitive shooting. When NRA’s Olympic Rifle Committee reached Los Angeles, they found that the shooting house was several yards too near the 50-meter targets and out of parallel with the line of the targets. To attain 50 meters, the shooters had to press back against the rear wall so that men moving from one point to another did not interfere with those who were shooting. When the foreign teams arrived, most of them flatly refused to shoot until the range was rebuilt.
Although the Americans had bent over backwards to abide by the rules of amateurism, they soon found that their competitors had taken the rules more lightly. General Reckord and Karl Frederick had been associated with international shooting long enough to recognize men who had been shooting in international circles for years. Frederick had competed personally for cash prizes against a number of them. If they had protested, however, the entire shooting program would have been eliminated, so they decided to make the most of a bad situation.
The shooting events were a major disappointment. But at least to the shooting world, the events were better than no participation at all and they provided the basis on which future competition could be built.
Photo: Aerial shot of the 1932 Summer Olympics at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain.
On August 1, 1980, Director Buzz Kulik premiered The Hunter starring Steve McQueen. In his heyday McQueen was the highest-paid actor in the world. His fans knew him as the King of Cool. Three months after the movie launched Steve McQueen died in Mexico of metastatic pleural mesothelioma. He was fifty years old.
McQueen starred in twenty-nine feature films and fourteen television programs. He played cowboys, sailors, soldiers, cops, and criminals. He fought alien invaders in The Blob and chased Bad Guys in Bullitt. For all of his remarkable breadth of cinematic experience, I still feel that his final role was one of his best. In The Hunter Steve McQueen plays Ralph “Papa” Thorson, a modern-day bounty hunter.
Background
Spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned. The film critic Leonard Maltin described The Hunter as, “McQueen’s last picture and probably his worst.” I’m afraid Leonard and I will just have to disagree on that. As a card-carrying gun nerd, I thought The Hunter rocked.
Papa Thorson was an actual guy. He served as a creative consultant on the film and had a small part as a bartender in the movie. His extraordinary real-life adventures inspired the screenplay.
The 1872 US Supreme Court case Taylor vs Taintor established the basis for bounty hunting in the United States. The pertinent verbiage reads: “When bail is given, the principal is regarded as delivered to the custody of his sureties …They may exercise their rights in person or by agent. They may pursue him into another State; may arrest him on the Sabbath; and if necessary, may break and enter his house for that purpose … It is likened to the rearrest by the sheriff of an escaping prisoner.”
The role of the bounty hunter dates back to the Middle Ages. Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Oregon have outlawed the practice, while Wyoming has essentially no regulations governing it. The US and the Philippines are the only countries in the world where bounty hunting remains legal.
Papa Thorsen’s life inspired a biographical book by Christopher Kean. Ted Leighton and Peter Hyams adapted the book into a screenplay. Much of the quirkiness of McQueen’s character in the film was drawn from the real-world personality and exploits of Papa Thorson.
The Movie
The plot of The Hunter orbits around Papa Thorson’s efforts traveling the country and recovering fugitives on behalf of bail bondsmen. Papa is paid a percentage of the bond for each criminal apprehended and brought to justice. Along the way, we gain insights into Thorson’s unique personality.
Papa lives with his severely pregnant younger girlfriend. His house is a hive of activity with friends and strangers over playing cards or just hanging out at all hours. Papa makes a sincere effort to be more careful so he can support his girlfriend and pending child. Despite his best intentions, however, Papa courts chaos at every turn.
Thorson’s first two bounties set the stage. He captures a young black man played by Levar Burton and then invites the kid into his home and gives him a job. In the original screenplay, this part was to have been a dog. McQueen had been impressed with Burton as an actor and insisted on his being written into the script in this capacity. He also apprehends an enormous redneck Texan after a robust fight that destroys the interior of the big criminal’s houseboat. After the bail jumper gets the better of him physically, Thorson ends the fight with a most curious less-than-lethal beanbag gun.
One of my favorite sequences has Papa pursuing a pair of unwashed pyromaniac brothers in Nebraska. A recurring theme in the movie is Thorson’s affection for old stuff — antique cars, aged toys, and quirky household décor. When renting a car in Nebraska, he is forced to accept an absolutely gorgeous brand new black Trans Am with 78 miles on the odometer. Once he confronts the two fugitive brothers they start throwing dynamite at him, steal his car, and tear off through a mature cornfield in it.
Thorson responds by leaping into a nearby combine harvester and giving chase. The helicopter’s-eye view of the hulking harvester chasing the sports car through the cornfield punctuated by copious dynamite explosions is action movie gold. It breaks my heart to see that classic sports car blown to smithereens, but it makes for a truly epic chase sequence. As an aside, one of the primary Trans Am cars used in that scene was serendipitously discovered in an Illinois barn in 2018.
Thorson later gives chase to a gun-happy fugitive in Chicago. Thorson’s primary sidearm is a standard GI-issue M1911A1 automatic pistol. The Bad Guy initiates their exchange with a Remington 870 12-gauge equipped with a “Law Enforcement Only”-marked top-folding stock. He then leads Papa on a merry rooftop chase across Chicago and onto the El all the while shooting it out with a Walther P38 pistol. Papa prevails when he forces the fugitive to drive a stolen car off the top of a high-rise parking garage into the river below. This iconic scene was subsequently recreated some twenty-six years later for an Allstate Insurance commercial.
Throughout it all, Papa and his girlfriend are hounded by a creepy maniacal drug addict named Rocco Mason played masterfully by Tracey Walter. There is an intentionally vague backstory concerning Papa’s having taken Mason to jail at some point in the past. Mason is out for revenge and is inexplicably equipped with a full auto M16A1 rifle replete with an AN/PVS-2 starlight scope. Despite being as big as a generous loaf of French bread, the AN/PVS-2 represented the state of the art at the time.
The climactic showdown finds Thorson’s pregnant girlfriend, Dotty, kidnapped and taken to the school where she teaches. Dotty is secured to a chair and used as bait to lure Papa close so Mason can kill him with his M16. Thorson claims to be unarmed but actually has a .25 ACP pocket pistol secured to his ankle. Mason discovers this weapon and forces Papa to discard it.
Mason machineguns a security guard and then chases Thorson through the school. Papa leads the lunatic into a chemistry lab after he turns on all the gas taps. The bounty hunter then rolls a laboratory skeleton toward the unsuspecting Mason, causing him to loose a long full-auto burst from the hip. The brilliant muzzle flash from the automatic rifle ignites the gas and blows him to smithereens allowing Thorson to rescue his girlfriend just in time to take her to the hospital so she can deliver her baby. Fade to black.
The Guns
The beanbag gun shown early in the movie was an MB Associates Stun-Bag launcher. This thing looked a bit like a Japanese knee mortar, featured a rifled 36mm heavy plastic barrel, and fired via .22 Ramset blanks. A 12-gauge version was called the Prowlette. MB Associates were the same guys behind the Gyrojet rocket guns. A subsequent gas-powered version called the Trebor Prowler Fouler used high-pressure nitrogen cartridges for power. Standard 12-gram CO2 cartridges could be used for practice.
Because it had a large bore, rifled barrel, and gunpowder charge the BATF classified these Law Enforcement tools as Destructive Devices requiring federal registration. The projectiles were pancake-shaped fabric bags filled with lead shot. As a darkly fascinating sidenote, these weapons were tested against baboons and pigs to assess their efficacy. They actually didn’t work terribly well. I can only imagine the poor slob whose job it was to chase angry baboons around trying to shoot them with beanbags.
The Arma 100 Bean Bag gun is essentially the same thing marketed today that runs off of compressed gas. The gas-powered versions are not considered weapons in the eyes of the BATF and are sold through the mail. They run about $200 online.
Dotty’s pocket gun appeared to be a nickel-plated Beretta Jetfire or similar clone. She never fired the gun, but Papa did pop the magazine out and then back in to show her how it works. This little pocket gun utilized a classic Beretta-style slide architecture and carried seven rounds in the magazine. Similar single-action pistols were sold under a variety of trade names such as Targa, Titan, and GT27.
Papa’s M1911A1 was the most remarkable combat pistol of its age. The product of the inimitable mind of John Moses Browning, the M1911 and the .45ACP round it fired changed the way the world used handguns. Heavy, powerful, bulky, and loud, the M1911 reflected the ethos of the nation that birthed it.
The M1911 was a single-action autoloading handgun that fed from a seven-round single-stack box magazine. The gun was recoil-operated and optimized for right-handed operation. A few minor upgrades standardized in 1924 led to the redesignation M1911A1. These pistols served US forces throughout WW2 and into the 1980s. I was issued WW2-era M1911A1 pistols when first I donned the uniform.
The Walther P38 was introduced in, you guessed it, 1938, and pioneered any number of advanced features that are considered commonplace today. The gun fed from an eight-round single-stack box magazine and featured a novel single-action/double-action trigger most commonly found on the wheelguns of the era. The slide-mounted safety dropped the hammer safely over a loaded chamber. In this configuration the gun could be carried with the safety off and fired via a long, heavy double-action trigger pull. Subsequent rounds were fired single-action.
The magazine catch was located on the heel of the grip in the European fashion, and the single-stack magazine limited the gun’s onboard capacity. However, the P38 was a trim and effective combat tool. The P38 is still found in many of your less well-funded war zones even today.
The M16 was originally developed in the late 1950s as a speculative effort by the ArmaLite Corporation. ArmaLite was a tiny little subsidiary of the Fairchild Aircraft Company. Eugene Stoner and a few others adapted state-of-the-art aerospace technology and materials science into a revolutionary combat rifle.
Before we started hanging so much bling on them, those old M16 rifles were quite trim, light, and svelte. A basic M16 only weighed about 6.5 pounds unloaded. These early guns were driven by a radical direct gas impingement system that was both simple and accurate. An M16A1 cycles at around 750 rounds per minute and in competent hands remains quite controllable on full auto.
Hollywood Ordnance
In 1980, digital graphics were not a real thing, so all of the muzzle flashes and gun effects had to be undertaken in the real world. This is done by the cinematographer “over cranking” the film speed to catch the muzzle flash in every frame. When Papa unleashes his beanbag gun we get a slow-motion shot of the beanbag projectile slamming into the belly of a big fat shirtless guy. That looks like it likely hurt. The cinematic effect is to render the perp immediately unconscious.
I am ever impressed with the screen presence of a simple unadorned M1911 pistol. Thorson carries his in the internal pocket of a GI MA-1 flight jacket. I’ve carried a gun this way before, and it invariably sags badly. For the scenes wherein he did not need a weapon McQueen’s character clearly was not packing one in his jacket.
The foley sound effects used for Papa’s M1911 are deep and throaty, projecting a great deal of authority. In one scene, Thorson kneels around a corner and empties a magazine from the hip down a hallway. McQueen then executes a textbook magazine change, dumping the empty mag and slamming in a fresh one before dropping the slide via the slide release. McQueen runs his pistol like he knows it and reloads at the right times.
The violent fugitive Anthony Bernardo burns a few rounds through his Remington 870 before abandoning it in favor of his Walther P38. The sound effects for the P38 are not as impressive as are those of the M1911, and he shoots this gun forever without reloading. In close-ups, sometimes the hammer is back and sometimes it’s not.
The real gun star of the movie is Mason’s M16A1. A previous non-firing shot involves an early SP1 AR15 with a three-prong flash suppressor. The later live-fire scenes are done with a real-deal full auto M16A1 with a birdcage flash suppressor. Normal people don’t care, but arcane stuff like that is the reason I get up in the morning.
When it is time to rock and roll Mason&rsquo’s M16 spews some simply epic muzzle flashes. The first real burst produces a single big ball of yellow fire. The final scene that touches off the gas in the chemistry lab involves the coolest multi-lobed starburst muzzle flash. Considering they shot that scene in real time I was duly impressed.
Ruminations
While not necessarily as pervasive a gun movie as some others, The Hunter nonetheless showcases some sweet firearms. McQueen was both a Marine and a gun guy (even was the owner of a transferable machinegun; an American 180 which fires .22 LR from a 177-round pan magazine), and his weapons handling skills were spot on. Rocco Mason’s muzzle flashes from his M16 fired on rock and roll warrant running the movie back and forth to appreciate them fully. If you’re looking for a great way to rewind after a hard day at the office or you need something to pass the time while you run your reloader pull it up on Amazon. The Hunter is a personal favorite.
The Remarkable Life of Papa Thorson
Ralph “Papa” Thorson was described by his biographer as, “The only man I know who can do a bastard’s job with taste and come off looking like a nice guy.” Standing 6’2″ and weighing 310 pounds, this rugged professional bounty hunter was also a champion bridge player, a church bishop, a recognized astrologer, a trained criminologist, a child nutritionist, and an inveterate consumer of classical music.
Thorson received flight training while in the Navy during World War 2 and did indeed live with a longsuffering woman named Dotty as was depicted in the movie. He took in stray people as a matter of course and officiated at weddings in his capacity as a church bishop. In 1968, he lived across the street from Jimmy Doohan, the actor who played Scotty on the original Star Trek. Over the course of his career Papa bagged some 5,000 bounties to include Squeaky Fromme, a member of the Manson Family who was later arrested for attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford.
Of his peculiar profession Thorson had this to say, “I relied on … a condition … which happens when I confront a situation I’m not exactly sure of, a dream-like state where everything moves in slow motion. Fear is not permitted because the territory around me is my own. I control it. I expect to succeed. I’m sure of it. Not cocky, but convinced. It’s almost as if some secret force jacks up my perceptions. It’s a twilight zone. I enter it just moments before the confrontation. It might be the reason I’m still alive.”
Papa Thorsen was killed by a car bomb in 1991. The specific details were never clearly established.
Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen’s mother was an alcoholic and his father a transient stunt pilot for a barnstorming flying circus. After being shuttled around among sundry family members McQueen became heavily involved in gang activities and petty theft. By age fourteen he was remanded to a California institution for incorrigible boys.
McQueen matured somewhat while there and returned many times after he found success to encourage the students and bring them gifts. He eventually signed on with the Merchant Marine but jumped ship in the Dominican Republic where he supported himself as a bouncer in a brothel. He subsequently drifted from job to job, working as both a carnival salesman and lumberjack in Canada. He was once arrested for vagrancy and spent thirty days on a chain gang.
McQueen enlisted in the Marine Corps at age seventeen and was demoted seven times for behavioral problems. He once went AWOL and subsequently resisted arrest, earning himself 41 days in the brig. After this experience, McQueen seemed to get his life in order, at least a bit. He saved a five-man tank crew during an arctic exercise after their tank broke through the ice and sank. He also served on the honor guard aboard Harry Truman’s Presidential yacht.
McQueen studied acting via the GI Bill after leaving the Marine Corps and supported himself as a car and motorcycle racer. He did his own stunt driving in his movies, some of which was quite audacious. Playing the lead on the popular TV Western Wanted: Dead or Alive was his breakout role.
The antique toys shown in the movie came from McQueen’s personal collection. McQueen kept the 1951 Chevrolet Skyline he drove in the movie. That car sold at auction in 2013 for $84,000.
After a lifetime spent in empty hedonism, Steve McQueen eventually found Jesus. During his final years, he came to know Billy Graham and was active in the Ventura Missionary Church. His spiritual journey was cataloged in a posthumous documentary titled, Steve McQueen — American Icon. Kenneth R. Morefield of Christianity Today said the film, “offers a timeless reminder that even those among us living the most celebrated lives often long for the peace and sense of purpose that only God can provide.”
About the Author
Movie Guns Editor Will Dabbs, MD is a mechanical engineer who flew UH1H, OH58A/C, CH47D and AH1S aircraft as an Army Aviator. He is airborne and scuba qualified and summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six times…at the controls of an Army helicopter. After eight years in the Regular Army, Major Dabbs attended medical school. He works in his urgent care clinic, shares a business building precision rifles and sound suppressors, and has written for the gun press since 1989.
Bullet selection is always an important consideration when preparing for a hunt. However, choosing the appropriate bullet literally becomes a matter of life and death if you’ll be hunting dangerous game like cape buffalo.
The good news is that most of the big ammunition companies now offer several different lines of ammunition that are specifically designed for hunting thick-skinned, dangerous game. In particular, Nosler manufactures its Safari Ammunition line specifically for those hunters.
Before going into detail on Nosler Safari Ammunition, I’d like to provide a little bit of background on the sort of bullet performance hunters pursuing thick-skinned dangerous game (cape buffalo in particular) really need while they’re afield.
You’ve probably heard it before, but it bears repeating here: cape buffalo are really, really big and really, really tough. As a point of reference, a big bull can weigh twice as much as a mature bull elk.
Buffalo have thick hides, dense muscles, and heavy bones that are known for defeating lightly constructed bullets. Since buffalo are often encountered at close range and in thick cover, the margin for error is very small and more than a few hunters have lost their lives (or spent time in a hospital) as a result of poor bullet performance.
With this in mind, heavy for caliber, controlled-expansion bullets are essential for hunting buffalo. In short, you want a bullet that will reliably expand to a certain point in order to cause lots of tissue damage, but not expand so much that it won’t reliably penetrate deep enough to reach the vitals.
At the same time, most professional hunters recommend chambering a good quality expanding bullet for the first shot and loading non-expanding bullets for all subsequent shots. This is because the first shot will most likely be taken at a broadside or slightly quartering angle.
Since those shooting angles minimize the distance a bullet must penetrate to reach the vitals, expanding bullets are better choices because they make a larger wound channel, cause more damage to the internal organs of the buffalo, and are less likely to exit and unintentionally wound another buffalo in the herd than non-expanding bullets.
However, follow-up shots will most likely be taken at less desirable angles and expanding bullets do not typically penetrate quite as well as non-expanding bullets of the same caliber and weight. For this reason, non-expanding bullets are better choices for follow-up shots because they can be relied upon for the necessary amount of penetration to reach the vitals from non-ideal angles.
So, most dangerous game hunters need a mix of good quality controlled-expansion bullets and non-expanding solids that shoot to the same point of impact. Fortunately, product lines like Barnes’ VOR-TX Safari, Federal Premium’s Safari Cape-Shok, Hornady’s Dangerous Game Series, and Nosler’s Safari Ammunition are all designed to provide that sort of performance.
Nosler worked in partnership with Norma Precision to manufacture its Safari Ammunition. This ammo pairs their legendary Partition Bullet with Nosler Safari Solid bullets of the same weight that also shoot to the same point of impact.
On one hand, the Partition delivers rapid and violent, yet controlled expansion that is deadly on all manner of game from impala and whitetail deer all the way up to moose and eland. It’s also a good choice for initial shots on buffalo.
On the other hand, the Nosler Solid bullets are tough, flat-nosed, homogenous projectiles that can be relied upon for deep, straight-line penetration through thick muscles and heavy bones of even the largest creatures. These projectiles are wonderful choices for follow-up shots on buffalo as well as for shots on smaller game like steenbok and duiker to minimize damage to the hides.
Nosler Safari Grade ammunition is currently available in the following cartridges and bullet weights: 9.3x62mm Mauser (286gr), .375 Flanged (300gr), .375 H&H Magnum (300gr), .404 Jeffery (400gr), .416 Remington Magnum (400gr), .416 Rigby (400gr), .450 Rigby (500gr), .458 Winchester Magnum (500gr), .458 Lott (500gr), .470 Nitro Express (500gr), .500 Nitro Express (570gr), 500/416 Nitro Express (400gr), 500 Jeffery (570gr), and .505 Gibbs (525gr).
So, if you’re looking for the right ammo to take on safari with dangerous game on the menu, then you should really consider using Nosler Safari Ammunition. This is some versatile rifle ammunition that you can depend on when the chips are down.
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About the Author
John McAdams is a proficient blogger, longtime hunter, experienced shooter, and veteran of combat tours with the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to his work for MultiBriefs, John started The Big Game Hunting Blog and Big Game Hunting Adventures in order to help others fulfill their hunting dreams. Be sure to subscribe to his show: the Big Game Hunting Podcast.
Machine gun “Hotchkiss” M1909 Infantry model. Next to it is a barrel with trunnions for a tripod, leather ammunition for cartridge cassettes and the cassettes themselves for 14 and 30 rounds
“During the Russo-Japanese War, an English military observer, future general, Ian Hamilton said: “The only thing the cavalry is capable of in the face of machine-gun nests is to cook rice for the foot soldiers.”
Barbara Tuckman, The Guns of August
stories about weapons. Creation of an air-cooled machine gun arr. 1900 was a great achievement for both the Hotchkiss company and the French military, who were able to understand that in addition to Maxim machine guns, other systems have the right to exist, and they are in many ways no worse. However, having received this heavy machine gun on a tripod, they immediately realized something else, namely, that they would absolutely need another machine gun – lighter and more convenient for use in cavalry and infantry for fire support in conditions where heavy machine guns are used will be impossible. This is how the idea of a “gun-machine gun” arose, which, however, has already found its embodiment in the Madsen light machine gun. But the French army could not take it into service due to the need to unify weapons.
On the left is a machine for stuffing cartridges into a cassette, on the right – for correcting bent cassettes
That is, the new machine gun had to copy the old one, but at the same time be lighter, more transportable and have the same cartridge supply system with the easel machine gun. To solve this problem was entrusted to the same designers of the Hotchkiss company – the American Lawrence Bennett (or, as he was called in the French manner – Benet) and his French assistant Henri Mercier. And they successfully coped with their task. So a machine gun was born with three names at once: “Hotchkiss” Mk I, “Hotchkiss portable” and the Bene-Mercier M1909 machine gun. In general, Adolf Odkolek could only rejoice, because it was his idea that was also embodied in this machine gun, which, by the way, was mentioned in all British instructions for firing from this machine gun.
The Hundred Day Offensive, August-November 1918. Soldiers of the Royal Horse Artillery, attached to the 1st Cavalry Division, fire at a German aircraft from a Hotchkiss M1909 machine gun mounted on the limber. Transport convoys were favorite targets for German pilots and were provided with such anti-aircraft protection. October 8, 1918 Photo archive. Imperial War Museum
The production of the machine gun began at the Hotchkiss factory in Saint-Denis in Paris in 1909, but in 1914, due to the threat of the capture of the city by the German army, it was transferred to Lyon along with the factory. The next year, the British government decided to produce this machine gun under license at a factory in Coventry. By the end of the war, more than 40 M000s had already been manufactured there.
US Army machine gun platoon
At the same time, the production of a machine gun was launched in the United States at the enterprises of the Springfield Arsenal and at the Colt company. However, total production in the United States was only 670 units. It may not seem like much, but for the US Army of that time it was a significant batch. Here it was named “Bene-Mercier machine gun, caliber .30, model USA 1909”. The American model differed from the British machine guns by the presence of a bipod on the barrel and an emphasis on the butt, as well as an optical sight. Well, he also had his own caliber, American. Also, for Colt machine guns, from the gas valve to the front sight, the barrel had an unusual very small faceted cut, reminiscent of the wall decoration at our Kremlin Chamber of Facets!
TTX English and American machine guns “Hotchkiss” М1909:
Hotchkiss Mk.I and Bennet-Mercier M1909
Caliber: .303 British (7.7x57R); .30-06 (7.62×63)
Weight: 12,8 kg; 15 kg
Length: 1190 mm; 1244 mm
Barrel length: 565 mm; 610 mm
Feed: 9, 14, or 30-round rigid cassette tapes or 50-round semi-rigid tapes; hard cassettes for 30 rounds
Rate of fire: 500 rounds per minute; 550 rounds per minute
During the First World War, it became fashionable in the American army to mount M1919 machine guns on motorcycles.
It is interesting that the Hotchkiss, adopted by the French military in 1909, for some reason, was not first used as an infantry weapon. 700 copies of the machine gun were handed over to the fortresses of Verdun, and after the start of the war they were used on some aircraft, and then … in tanks Mk V* purchased from the UK.
Machine gunners on motorcycles. US Army, 1916
The British .303 Hotchkiss Mk I variant produced in the UK at the Coventry factory was issued to some cavalry regiments, while the Mk I*, with its wooden stock replaced by a pistol grip, was widely used on British tanks.
And in this photo the armor plate is removed
It was also used in the armies of Belgium, Sweden and Mexico. And in the armed forces of France and Great Britain, the M1909 machine gun was used not only during the First, but also during the Second World War. They armed the Australian Light Horse, the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade, the Camel Corps and parts of the Duke of Lancaster’s Yeomanry. In 1915-1917. it was used in the Sinai and Palestine campaigns. And in the same 1916, the American army unsuccessfully tried to use four M1909 machine guns against Pancho Villa’s Mexican rebels during the latter’s raid on the city of Columbus, New Mexico. Initially, the press said that they refused to work due to design flaws, but later it turned out that the machine gun crews simply were not trained to handle them.
British Royal Navy in 1942. A machine gunner on an escort vessel is on watch during the passage of a British convoy across the Atlantic. Ammunition machine gun “Hotchkiss” M1909 from the drum shop. Photo archive. Imperial War Museum
So, American machine guns often broke drummers and extractors. Due to the difficulty of replacing broken parts at night, the press began derisively calling the M1909 “daylight weapons”, because in the dark, soldiers often inserted one important detail upside down. Major Julian Hatcher was assigned to study the problem, and he found that almost all cases of delays in firing and machine gun failures were caused by … human error, that is, poor training of machine gunners.
A warrant officer at a Hotchkiss machine gun on a USS. US Library of Congress
After the soldiers learned a little, the M1909 began to be considered a completely effective weapon. That’s just the production of this machine gun in the United States was discontinued before the First World War. Only a small part of them ended up in the army, because of which, after entering the war, their release had to be urgently resumed.
Sir Edward Patrick Morris, Prime Minister of Newfoundland, visits the Panzer Corps Ordnance School at Merlimont, July 2, 1918. Photo archive. Imperial War Museum
Experts note that, although, in general, Hotchkiss portable machine guns during the war years were in the shadow of other, more commercially successful systems (for example, the Lewis machine gun), they themselves were simple in design and fairly reliable samples. An important advantage of these machine guns was massive barrels, which allowed (in case of emergency) to conduct effective continuous fire up to 1000 shots without changing the barrel or cooling down (and usually the shooters were recommended to pause in firing after 200-300 shots).
Machine gun “Hotchkiss” M1909 with an L-shaped butt, cartridge cassette and tripod support, which is fixed not on the pins of the barrel, but on the barrel itself. Used by the British Army. Photo morphyauctions.com
What were the design features of this machine gun, which, in fact, became a reduced copy of the Hotchkiss machine gun, but at the same time retained its high fire performance?
The machine gun consisted of the following main parts: (1) a barrel with a gas tube; (2) a gas regulator that screwed into the gas tube from the front; (3) bolt box; (4) forearm, which is the casing of the gas piston; (5) gate nut; (6) handles for fastening the bolt box to the butt; (7) cocking handles; (8) trigger stock; (9) bipods (on American machine guns); (10) stock supports
Machine gun completely disassembled. Noteworthy is the exceptionally massive gas piston, which passes into the bolt carrier. Their diameter made it possible to place a return spring inside. And although the piston was hollow, the significant weight of this part helped to significantly reduce the recoil and thereby increase the accuracy of fire, which was especially emphasized in the manuals for using the machine gun. Lightweight stock used by the British Army
Scheme of the Hotchkiss M1909 machine gun (below in the version of the tank machine gun)
The machine gun had a fairly short, but at the same time, a massive barrel with fins up to the gas chamber, which consisted of twenty-five flanges that created a large cooling surface. Under the barrel was a T-shaped gas valve with two holes: front and rear. Through the rear hole, the powder gases from the barrel after the shot pressed on the cup-shaped piston head and threw it back, but the front one served to divert part of the gases into the regulator chamber. It was available with graduated positions of the piston screwed into the chamber, and the rule was this: more space inside, less gas pressure force; the enclosed space is smaller, the gas pressure force is greater.
Variants of stocks for a machine gun. Photo morphyauctions.com
A barrel lock nut attaches to the front end of the receiver and screws onto the barrel to lock the barrel to the receiver. An external spring steel lug provided with undercuts or teeth that fit into the teeth or teeth on the receiver and prevent accidental rotation when fired. Front two recesses for dismantling key for disassembly and assembly. To the left of the indentations, you will find the arm guard that hooks onto the right shoulder of the arm guard and holds the arm guard in position. The barrel stop restricts the movement of the barrel in the lock nut. Inside the lock nut are three sets of interrupted flanges; they fit into matching flanges on the breech, and the deep threads on the inside fit into matching threads on the receiver.
Muzzle, front sight and head of the piston-regulator. Photo morphyauctions.com
The barrel was locked by a rotating clutch, which was put on the breech of the barrel and could turn on it. On its inner surface there were three strips of intermittent threads, and exactly the same threaded strips were in front of the shutter. When the shutter moved, the protrusion on the coupling moved in the figured groove of the gas piston rod. At the same time, the clutch turned and, depending on the direction of movement of the piston and the bolt back and forth, either locked the barrel with the bolt or unlocked it. In the latter case, the barrel moved back, extracted the empty cartridge case and at the same time pulled out the next cartridge from the cassette for the next shot.
A set of tools for servicing a machine gun. Photo morphyauctions.com
Shooting was carried out, like many other machine guns of that time, from an open bolt, single shots or bursts. The choice of fire mode is carried out in an unusual way: by turning the L-shaped cocking handle around its axis. At the same time, when shooting, she remained motionless, which, of course, was convenient.
Three positions of the shutter handle: “A” – fire bursts; “R” – single shots; “S” – on the fuse. On the left, a lever with a threaded head is clearly visible. By unscrewing it, you can easily separate the stock from the receiver
Sight shifted to the left and feed mechanism cover. Due to the presence of a handle, an overheated barrel could be replaced relatively easily. The machine gun sight was also shifted to the left and graduated in yards, from 100 to 2000 yards – even numbers were on the right, odd numbers on the left. The normal firing range was 900 meters. Photo morphyauctions.com
On the right side of the receiver is the housing of the cassette feeding mechanism with cartridges, which is closed from above with a lid on spring hinges; a flat spring keeps it closed. Its main detail was an L-shaped vertical rod with a “tooth” at the end and two V-shaped cams placed on it, which fit into the cutouts on the body and at the same time fall into the corresponding grooves of the bolt frame.
Due to this, when the frame moved back and forth, the vertically standing lever made movements perpendicular to the axis of the barrel and with its “tooth” (at the same time it fell into the cutout on the cassette with cartridges) shifted it in the direction from right to left. The lever is spring loaded. Therefore, in order to insert the cassette into the receiver, it was necessary to lift it by pressing on the protruding end from below so that it itself rose up. The cassette was inserted on the right. In this case, the cartridges should have been under the cassette.
Machine gun “Hotchkiss” M1909 British production. Export version 1934. Total length: 1010 mm. Total weight: 12,5 kg. Barrel length: 597 mm. Caliber 7,92 mm. Royal Arsenal, Leeds
TTX machine gun “Hotchkiss” Mk I
Weight: 12 kg
Length: 1,23 m
Barrel length: 64 cm
Ammunition: .303 British (British), 8mm Lebel (French), .30-06 Springfield (USA), 7×57mm Mauser (Brazil and Spain)
Calibers: .303 (7,7mm), 8mm, .30 (7,62mm), 7mm
Firing Rate: 400-600 shots per minute
Maximum range: 3800 m
Power type: 30-shot cassette
PS This machine gun is more difficult to see in the cinema than the same “Lewis”, but there are still films where it is present. These are the following films: “La Bandera” (1935), “All is calm on the Western Front” (1979), “The Seventh Satellite” (1968), “Dauria” (1972), “My Destiny” (1974).