Light MGs
Beardmore-Farquhar manual
Sometimes you can have a good idea, well executed, and well promoted – but just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Beardmore-Farquhar machine gun is an example of just this unlucky […]
Light MGs
Light MGs
Benet-Mercie 1909 manual
The Benet-Mercie 1909 was the first light machine gun adopted by the American military. Although named for two designers, the Benet-Mercie was basically a Hotchkiss Portative machine gun chambered for the .30-06 cartridge. The guns […]
Light MGs
MG13 manual (in Spanish)
German machine gun designations are pretty easy to understand – the two digit number is the year of adoption. MG34? 1934. MG08/15? 1908, and modified in 1915. Easy, until you stumble over the MG13, adopted […]
Light MGs
One More KE7 Manual
So just this past weekend I ran across another KE-7 manual, this one with a bunch of plates and a great full cutaway diagram. Figured I’d put that one up on the site now, since […]
Light MGs
SIG KE-7 Light Machine Gun
The KE-7 was the product of two Swiss designers, Pal de Kiraly and Gotthard End, and was introduced in 1929 by the Swiss manufacturer SIG. It was a recoil operated design and fired from an […]
Light MGs
Czech ZB-30 Manuals
After a few year of production, the ZB26 was given an overhaul and redesignated the ZB30. The two designs look externally very similar – the only distinctive way to tell them apart is the addition […]
Light MGs
Czech ZB-26 manuals
The Holek brothers began what would ultimately become a very successful light machine gun design in 1923 with the production of a prototype gun. It was refined over the next several years and adopted by […]
Light MGs
Spanish Ameli LMG
One of the less well known firearms in the roller-locked family of designs is the Spanish Ameli (a contraction of “Ametralladora ligera”), or “Special Purpose Assault Machinegun”. Developed in the late 1970s by CETME, the […]
Light MGs
Madsen Light machine gun
The Madsen was the first successful light machine gun, entering production in 1902. It saw much use, but was an unusual design – basically a fully automatic falling block action. It used a top mounted […]
Light MGs
T12 Light machine gun
We don’t have very much information on the T12 – it was an experimental US belt-fed light machine gun in the early 1930s, with a flapper locking system similar to the DP series of LMGs. […]