Great photos of submachine guns, machine guns and pistols .....

I hope this is the correct place. James Julia Inc,, Oregon , is auctioning off Elmer Kieth's arms collection.

http://jamesdjulia.com/373_shs/

It comes up first and not WW2 related but scroll down and you will come across the military weapons, continue and you will fine finely photographed Civil war era Colts, etc.

If you are interested in WW2 weapons or fine firearms in general I think you will enjoy these. I just stumbled upon this auction.

Gaines

DO SCROLL DOWN !!!!!!!!!! Some great photographs, MG 42's, etc, in beautiful detail.

 

I will say this is really neat! Thank you for sharing this Gaines!


This is awesome!

 

The Browning museum at Rock Island is also worth visiting in that regard if you are anywhere near it. I seem to recall it's a few hours drive West of Chicago.

 

lwd, did Browning have any formal engineering background or was he just plain inventive ? Fascinating man. Hard to believe the M-2 is still being made and still in service. Other than the Russians, I believe, did any one else have a similar 50 cal-12.7mm machine gun in ground service ?

 

I did a little search on that and I could not find any immediate examples of weapons similar to the 50 cal. But I will still look around some more.
I'm not exactly an expert on types of weapons, so there might be something out there similar, I just haven't seen it yet.

 

I recall ( That is a dangerous concept !) that the Russians had a 12.7 mounted on wheels and was a infantry weapon. the Germans had a 12.7 but I only recall it being used in aircraft. Given the popularity og the M-2 I am surprised it was not matched by similar weapons unless the Axis preferred a 20mm in lieu of a 50 cal.

 

In a way they might have been comfortable with their own standard machine gun which was the MG42 and felt there was not a really important need to design another weapon that could match against the 50 cal. Thats just what I believe if that is what you meant by "matched."

 

Nearly every single semi-automatic pistol today works on the Browning tilting barrel design that he came up with about 1902. In over 100 years nobody has been able to think up an improved design. He also dreamed up the double stack mags used in most pistols today. He came up with that about 1925, in his first drawing for the Hi-Power pistol.

The M2 is a truly great design and is also approaching the century mark. There are variants out there, but no improvements have come along because it was essentially perfect as he first drafted it.

 

That is what makes it such a great weapon.

 

What a collection,

I'm suprised it is still together since Keith has been gone for a long time. Loved reading his stories as a kid.

Britian, Italy and Germany had a .50s too but not nearly as widley used as the Browning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_.50_machine_gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breda-SAFAT_machine_gun&redirect=no

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_131_machine_gun

 

I thought this museum used to be called the "Browning Museum" but apparently isn't now:
http://www.arsenalhistoricalsociety.org/museum/
it's the one I was talking about but there is another in Utah that I haven't been to:
http://theunionstation.org/museums-2/john-m-browning-firearms-museum/

I actually don't know much about Browing but here's the wiki page for those in the same boat. It has links to a fair amount of more detailed info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Browning