Meet the Charlton Automatic Rifle , this example is a locally made reproduction, nearly every one of the original lot of 1,500 were destroyed in a postwar fire!
Saturday 17 December 2011
Kiwi Ingenuity and Automatic Rifles
In the Second World War the number of automatic rifles were always low in New Zealand and Australia due to a small number of precision firearms factories in the region. (One really, at Lithgow in Oz.) So a machinist in Hastings came up with a conversion for the ubiquitous Lee Enfields. Changing a very reliable bolt action rifle into a selective fire one! Basicially a gas port is added halfway along the barrel and and action rod is attached to the bolt, so every time you fire, it cycles the action, reloading and cocking it.
Meet the Charlton Automatic Rifle , this example is a locally made reproduction, nearly every one of the original lot of 1,500 were destroyed in a postwar fire!
Meet the Charlton Automatic Rifle , this example is a locally made reproduction, nearly every one of the original lot of 1,500 were destroyed in a postwar fire!
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Thats awesome.
ReplyDeleteIs it a non-working replica?
Cheers
Jason
Nope, it works mate.
ReplyDeleteJust not allowed to fire it.
Very interesting. So you would still need to repeatedly pull the trigger? You couldn't just 'hold-down' the trigger and have it blaze away?
ReplyDeleteThey were in fact capable of fully automatic fire.
ReplyDeleteSelective fire means the capability to switch between semi and fully automatic by flipping a switch or selector.;-)
Fully Auto!... suits you Sir! ;-)
ReplyDelete