Paying Hiram Maxim to basically "stay home" feels like the scene in Trailer Park Boys, when Ricky tells Jim Lahey "I'm gonna pay you $100 to f--k off."

Wait, Othais. Theres people who actually skip to the shooting segment?! Who would skip the best part?

In addition to Squib, towards the end of each video or at some point in the video, you could show scrolling list of firearms with pictures that have not been procured yet for filming. And in doing so alert anyone who has the gun into offering it to you. That said, a great episode.

The mechanism is usually just called a sliding rod crank. No fancy official name. :)

Again, fitting. I am currently elbows deep in research about early Maxim machine gun adoption in Romania along with some other fine folks, for example Razvan Bolba, whom you know. Let me tell you, it's one complicated matter. While the main machine gun was the 6.5x53mmR Md.1910 (with some Md.1909 thrown in for good measure, which were bog-standard DWM 09 commercial models) there's also the Md.1908 cavalry, which is a German MG 08 with a fluted water jacket and a tripod that looks like cross between the US M.1904 and the DWM 09 commercial, and, finally, a variety of test articles from 1906-07 including naval machine guns with landing carriage (like that of the Maxim 1887 "World standard" or the US M.1905 wheeled mount) and even a copy of the MG 01 "wheeled sledge mount"... Oh, and we also had dog pulled machine guns, like the Belgians.

One of the reasons why Britain didn't have many machine guns is the size of the British Army. Even if you include the Indian Army, the British Empire had substantially less men under arms than the Continental powers. For Britain, the Army had always been the second force with the Navy soaking up the numbers and investment. The Army was for defending Britain and enforcing control over the colonies against native and other Imperial powers. In addition, Britain, out of the great European powers was without conscription, though there was a very strong militia movement which was turned into the Territorial Army. There were other reasons but actually considering the size of the British Army in 1914, they had more machine guns per man than the others. They just didn't have many men.

That Protestant joke is funnier than I feel like it should be

That squib idea sounds really great. Yes I like Maes shooting and discussion, but the real turner for me is the in-depth history you Othais provide.

Great episode guys. Sorry I didn't respond on the first day, but this got me through three days of runs on the treadmill.

I can't be the only person who recognizes how funny you are when you want to be. Your humor is so dry you could store guns in it WITHOUT Cosmoline. Great work. Also, Mae . . . you're a war-winner.

As far as I've ever been able to discover, the tightening bit you mention is just called a sliding t-handle.

legend has it that one day, c&rsenel will run out of WW1 guns and make a series for WW2

This is definitely my favorite version of the Maxim. Particularly for its use in WW2. There’s a great video clip of two Russian soldiers pulling it while on skis 🎿

actually for me, the firing of the guns is the cherry on top of the cake...not the the main reason i watch it…..i love your shows because you provide the mechanical insights and the historical context ...pls dont be mad at me Mae:)

So 50 minutes to research the show then six days working out where and how to sneak up on WAR WERE DECLARED. Just kidding love the show and respect the massive work that goes into it.

If Othais doesnt sleep, no one does.

If you watch this at 90x speed, it's practically a "Minute of Othais & Mae" video.

It’s kinda crazy seeing these things make a come back in the Ukraine war.

You have hooked me on the history of all guns Thanks for all the research and wrk to share this with us Thanks bro you're ok in my book

I am so bloody envious of Mae. So many MGs.

Loved this Maxim two-parter. The more historical overview, the better. :)

I'll take the skipped animation and tear down to see May's big ol' grin. As always, great episode.

Love the show, Thanks Othias, Mae and Crew.

IT'S HERE!!! YAEHHHHHH

Othais, you are a great story teller... I love to listen to you!

I just love those different face expressions of Mae with different machineguns. It's like watching good actor playing characters from different countries. :-D

One other thing to keep in mind, in combat one of the early lessons learned by all parties is the use of tracer rounds. With tracer, it is relatively easy to 'walk' the rounds on to the target. WRT the differences in design effort between the vertical (elevation) and horizontal (traverse) controls. The elevation is essentially selecting the target range. In a setup with defined beaten zones, being able to traverse freely is an asset. Of course on a narrow range with a low berm, down range safety is the most important issue. Keep up the good work. My personal experience with machine guns was limited to M60 and M2 fired on what was essentially an unlimited range 10 miles of clear down range, and a 90 degree firing arc.

Two of you make a good team and I really like the info and history you bring.

Two brilliant episodes. So much background, man, your research gets better and better.

I know by the time it comes around we'll all be old, but holy shit I can't really wait on the C&Rsenal videos on the road from the MG08 to the MG-42.

Pure awesome videos as always guys! Much love!

Superb work Othias and Mae.

Your welcome glad to help.

Now we need series of videos about WW1 infantry 37 mm guns. :D

Arguably the most used and longest serving variant of Maxim's design. Still in use today!!

Getting to the end of the third hour of the most detailed documentary ever made on the history of the Maxim, and feeling a little disappointed that it's over. That's gotta be peak C&Rsenal...

Great work Guys! You are extremely important for keeping the knowledge of those pieces of world history alive. Once you are done with WWI can you please consider releasing all of the Primer episodes DVD or BluRay? I'd pay it's weight in gold to add that to my collection of historical documentaries.

Thank you guys. Awesome and informative!

While there are probably multiple names for the sliding T-handle that adjusts the fire rate on the Maxim, and is also seen on tools like the common c-clamp, as a retired machinist and gunsmith I have heard it called a "tommy bar." Another great episode from O&M, thanks, folks!

lol poor Mae would make a jelly blush with all the wobbling she did when firing the MG08/15, great vid

What strikes me as even crazier than the power of a modern machine gun is the fact that swathes of soldiers in WWI on all sides of the conflict charged into lines of these MGs (and that's not even considering other small arms, tanks, artillery, and poison gas) knowing exactly what was awaiting them. I feel like their bravery and heroism can never be overstated. I can say with all honesty that I don't think I could ever do that.

I’ve been on that ride in Blackpool pleasure beach! It’s actually pretty chill. For somewhere that’s such a tacky seaside dump there’re some pretty sweet rides and rollercoasters lol

There are just enough really obscure firearms that without the Squib episode we probably wouldn't get any episode. ALL HAIL THE SQUIB!

The spade grips are currently still the best grips to have on vehicles. I'm a Guards unit soldier in my country and we have many kinds of jungle terrain attack vehicles which houses tons of other weapons like grenade launchers, FN MMAG and M2 Browning. Those FN MAG can be a real pain to fire if it's not on an automated mount as the buttstock is on your shoulder, you need to hunk the gun around to fire even at a small corner and that's way worse if you're firing from the passenger side in a attack buggy that we have even on a vehicle bipod or from a open turret like the Humvee. The M2 Browning has a higher recoil obviously but when it comes to aiming from a vehicle, the spade grips works wonders as you don't have the buttstock impeding you, you can just swing it around without much issue and you don't lose much accuracy for the MG be it if you have buttstocks or spade grips and because you can turn rather quickly for spade grips which is very useful for vehicular warfare, spade grips are still being used.

another awesome episode!

Fantastic documentary.

I recently went to the Royal navy museum of naval firepower and they have a Vickers gun training simulator on site. The gun is not properly fixed on a tripod, it is probably similar to the "free shooting" you talked about. With no recoil, no water in the water jacket and in a air-conditioned room I still find it quite hard to aim the thing through the aperture sight. I believe the sight was probably only used in pre-sight, since you literally need to put your face on the handle to even see the sight.

The queen is now with us, thanks guys&Mae. I will miss the shooting badly, but to have fiat-revelli and villar-perosa/ovp18 episodes: go squib!

C&Rsenal , Has the Power ! To Educate & Entertain , Out Standing !

There are several points talking about the Russian Maxim gun. Soviets made a strategic decision to stick to their rim cartridge amidst of the major industrial reconstruction of the country mostly for economical and logistical reasons (see the Italians) and that in the hindsight has proven to be a major engineering obstacle to construct a light or universal machine gun all the way till the end of WWII so much so that in their desperate attempts to counter the German machine gunfire they created a quite unique pistol caliber LAD machine gun which they never put in production as an intermediate cartridge was already in development. That was arguably bad tactical decision as the intermediate soviet cartridge hardly saw any combat in that war. Tachanka was first of all a medium to deliver the gun to combat field not to fire from it as shooting from a spring amortized cart was very much alike shooting from a small boat bobbing on waves. It was shot from a cart mostly in the moments of emergency and in a specific tactics to counter a sudden cavaliere attack. Yet the image became iconic for mobile horse armies on the communist and anarchist sides of the civil war and was immortalized in the famous post-civil war soviet song Тачанка (Tachanka). For your potential future episode of the soviet maxim in WWII there is the best possible song of that time Два Максима (Two Maxim) - The Maxim Machine Gun - the machine gunners WW2. About two “maxims” - a gunner (Russian name Maxim) and his gun who were both injured in the battle and both returned into the ranks to continue to mow down the enemies. As of shields and carrier. Yes, many gunners did not like it but to claim that German designed tripod was substantially better is also far from the reality of the actual combat situations. There is quite a bit more story behind it. You guys really have to work on the “would I have taken this gun into combat” conclusion part of your videos as an opinion of a range shooter with some abstract notion of military tactics is interesting but far of being sufficient for that.

New shirts look amazing. Can’t decide which ones to get.

I know I am super late to this party but in the future if you wanted to "free wheel" a mounted machine gun safely, one possibility is to use some kind of frame to limit the traverse of the gun. A window prop from a shooting match comes to mind. If the barrel of the weapon is going through this frame, it would allow you to freely traverse the gun in a confined space

Squib sounds like a great idea. As much as I like seeing you play with mechanisms and watch May put many riflemen to shame, I come here as much for the story before the story as anything else.

May hip firing the BAR is the most ludicrous thing I have seen, great video as always haha

Did anyone else feel a tiny adrenaline rush when they got the notification?

The use of the sights is something I've had trouble with when it comes to machine guns as well. My first time with an FN MAG, out of years and years of shooting other things I got a nice sight picture, comfortable position, loaded the bipod, and ripped off a short burst. Had no idea at all where I hit. Did it again. Same deal. Target was a sherman hulk on the range at about 600m, give or take 50. Took me almost half the 100 round belt to go "Hmmmmm...." and put my head a bit higher to be able to see the tracer impact. Worked much better. And that was with bouncing along with the gun. I imagine you could train to know the gun better, but I sure as hell haven't had enough time.

C&R , Never disappoints .

One (relatively) minor caution when firing any Maxim is to keep fingers clear of the rapidly-rotating locking arm/charging handle. They close with a force that can easily sever fingertips...

Squib sounds like such a good idea it’s almost brillant

@1:03:20 the adjuster "thingy" is called a sliding t-handle or t-bar

grab the pole with your right hand. so many unintentional innuendos when taking about how easy/hard the different guns are to move.

Brilliant Maxim Videos, thanks.. Could you do a technical description of he Interrupter mechanism that was used to fire these thriu he propellor arc of rotary engine ww1 aircraft. Slow 1300 max rpm means getting sync between 6 or 7 rounds a second, thru the prop arc in aprox 0.05 seconds, synched to miss the prop, It appears, to me, with snch gear directly operating the trigger transfer bar/ only rapid 2 round burst firing could be employed.. Was this mechanical system effective and Reliable/Safe for the Pilot?

I want to see you cover the Perino model 1908!

I haven’t even finished watching the T-shirt announcement video... sheesh.

Once again, Mae looks happy when firing pretty much any firearm...

Question on the sights. With them being offset and the expected ranges that these were initially thought to be operated at, is there any provision to compensate for that offset as range increased either mechanically or in training? Was it just assumed that it's a machine gun at X meters, it's good enough?

Oooooo the MG08/15. Does Mae also put on armor and march around firing it from the hip?

58:31 this sounds to me like this was even a problem when these guns were new. I can’t count how many period films I’ve seen where some guys pulling the empty side of the belt while someone else is basically guiding the belt in on the other side preventing the belt bouncing back in forth.

If you had had 10 seconds of actual battle experiance it will make you a believer in the armor shield. As THE machine gun in any locality you are are the bullet magmet for that whole area. However having said that it limits observation in the traverse, so it makes your loader that much more important to observe what is flanking across your field of fire and telling you look/fire right or left.

YAY "ACCIDENTAL" HOTCHKISS GUN FOOTAGE! Been waiting for that weapon for quite some time. My only other question is...Where is the 1870 Gasser?

how is it tracking between targets? Seems built more to aim on a fixed position, like a bunker, than to aim at individual troops on the move

I would like to hear more from Mae in these episodes.

Miss Mae, happily Maximized.

XBox/PlayStation controller as a Maxim Gun spadegrip analogue isn't a comparison that's ever occurred to me, but it totally makes sense. XD

You guys are getting up there on subscribers!! Any thoughts on whats next after 11/11/11???

Hey bro are you working out! Been ages since I've watched teh show and you are looking great!

Gun episodes without Mae ? no no no no no ... how about you make them the "Hour of Mae" episodes ? And Othais can do the shooting segment :-))

The British number is not so bad given that it had a very small army. Great Episode!

Thanks for the Birthday episode.

How do you feel about the trigger safety on the Russian Maxim, which is different from the MG08?

I've read in the fiat-revelli italian original manual that the fiat-revelli machine gun itself, differently from its competitor perino (which by the way proved itself in military test to be better than the vickers), could be fired in case of emergency without the tripod because the assence of a muzzle booster; is it an actual thing? To me it seems quite probable, but it sounds like a commercial; so maybe if you can find and test a fiat-revelli you could find it less shaky.

What to do with a WW1 machine gun? Try not to be on the receiving end of one? Seems like sound advice to me.

History lesson A+

Lemme tell y'all I read a book about Mr. Maxim written by his son all about growing up with his genius father before he abandoned the family and went to Europe and from what his son wrote about the man and his amazing intelligence, sharp wit, sense of humour, & outspokenness I'd bet diamonds to donuts that he said just that very thing. His son also made it clear his father was very open about his thoughts on the foolishness of religious beliefs. I can't remember the exact title but the book is available free online and shouldn't be difficult to find with a quick search. Definitely worth a read the man had a gift for practical jokes amongst his many other abilities.

13:33 its running just like a typewriter amazing kit

Nice series about Maxims. Please make something about the LMG Parabellum 14 and 14./17. This light machine gun was used during WW1 on aeroplanes, armored cars and even by ground trups. It will ne interesting with Maxim / Spandau compare. Please film the night shooting by this MGs, it could be interesting. 🤔 Best regards, Piotr

Damn look at the smile on Mae's face. Most fun you can have with your clothes on!

Also in the picture you are using for Maxim, he is wearing an Ottoman medal on his neck. Im not sure about the details though..

Othais, will you talk about the MG08/18 in the MG08/15 episode?

I don't see the need for any sight at all except for distant/indirect fire because you are trained to "walk your shots up" to what you are targeting due to the gun rising/moving with every shot.

interesting feedback on the mounts

At 10:30 you show a photo of machine-gunners of the 39th Tomsk Infantry Regiment. That's the unit I reenact for WWI

Team grows => More people to hump ammo for you. This is important in combat with crew served weapons.

Hi C&Rsenal can i ask a question? Will you cover weapons like the winchester Model 1907 or the Reminghton Model 8?

You used sg-43/pkm belts?

For squib, you can put in segments with dinosaurs instead, still Mae compatible.

I think the squibs idea will work well for you, but I really want to see Mae play a role.

Nice to see all Maxim Machine Guns Have the same water Leak, Great Show Again. Nice to Next Machine Gun

From what I've read the Maxims have a nice "Oh Crap we need stuff that goes bang" life in WWII akin to Gras and Martini rifles in WWI. I've seen a picture from Aachen of US troops over running a still smoking MG08 in 1944/5. You guys ever find a working Schwarzlose everything I've ever read describes that bizarre thing being kept around right to 1945. Italy even found it equal or superior to newer domestic designs in combat.

When will you guys get into the semi autos like the RSC 1917 or Mondragon