#firearms prototype

Wiley T. Moore’s Belt-Fed BAR

In December 1933, Wiley T. Moore patented his design to convert the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle into a belt-fed light machine gun. Moore designed the weapon while based at the United States Army Air Corps’ research and development center and armourer training facility at Wright Field, Ohio. 

Moore’s design sought to improve on the BAR’s rate of fire which is inherently hampered by its 20-round box magazine feeding system. Moore hypothesises that: 

“The gunner just about gets on this target when it is time to reload. These frequent interruptions have the effect of disarming the gunner for considerable periods of time during which he is exposed to the deliberate aimed fire of the enemy. Under these conditions the gunner naturally develops a tendency to reopen fire before the gun is properly aimed or directed and as a result his efficiency is impaired and a large amount of ammunition is wasted.“

Moore felt that with thousands of BARs already in the US Army’s inventory it was a logical step to attempt to convert them to feed from belts with “a minimum substitution of parts and without requiring extensive modification of the retained units or interfering with the standard characteristics of the gun.”

Carl Gustaf Prototype Belt-fed Light Machine Gun m/1937 (source)

The operation of the firearm is not altered by Moore’s conversion, however, a ‘feeding box’ is added to reliably feed the belt into the weapon’s action (see image #4). Moore’s patent explains that the weapon’s belt feed was linked to the piston with a slide which has a feed pawl mounted on a pivot pin. As the action cycles the piston acts on the feed slide which cams the pawl left to right to pull the belt into the action. A round was then stripped from the belt and fed into the action as the bolt returned home. Moore’s patent stipulates the use of disintegrating links, a system that he himself had patented in 1933.

Moore’s conversion also added a pistol grip, much as the Colt Monitor and FN’s Model D. FN also experimented with developing a belt-fed variation of Browning’s design with Rene Laloux filing two patents in 1935 and 1936. In 1937 the Swedish firearms manufacturer Carl Gustav developed a cumbersome looking prototype belt-fed version of the Swedish Army’s Kulsprutegevär m/37 light machine gun, it was not adopted. Moore’s BAR conversion was not adopted either, it is unclear if the design was formally tested. In 1934 the US Army Ordnance Corps had evaluated and apparently rejected Moore’s T12 Light Machine Gun. later during World War Two Colonel Wiley T. Moore became the chief of the engineering group of the Small Arms Division. 

Sources:

‘Gun’, US Patent #2032376,W.T. Moore, 03/03/1936 (source)

Experimental .45 ACP Owen Submachine Gun 

Evelyn Owen chambered his third prototype in .45 ACP. His first workshop prototype, built at the Lysaght factory in Port Kembla, chambered .32 ACP. The move to .45 ACP was no doubt influenced by the use of the Commonwealth force’s use of Thompson submachine guns. 

The third model was the first to position the magazine on top of the weapon, rather than the left-side feed of the .32 ACP prototype. This top-feed layout would be used by all subsequent prototypes and the final 9x19mm production gun. The vertical magazine had the benefit of being gravity assisted, helping feed reliability. 

Owen and his team built at least two .45 ACP guns, the first pictured above appears to be an early model as it shares the same pistols grip shapes, butt stock profile, magazine release and trigger assembly with the earlier .32 ACP prototype. However, the location of the cocking handle has been moved to the top of the receiver tube, spring clips holding the barrel in place are replaced by a screw thread beneath the receiver and the overall length of the receiver has been reduced. The second prototype featured has a trigger assembly more similar to the final adopted weapon, both its plastic grips also have the finger-grooves seen on later guns. The third model prototypes are the first to have the recognisable Owen profile. 

The third model was followed by experiments to chamber the weapon in the British revolver cartridge .38-200. This necessitated a curved magazine due to the tapered and rimmed cartridge. This was tested as it was the Commonwealth’s standard cartridge. The final prototype, like the British STEN, chambered the ubiquitous 9x19mm round. Following testing of all of the prototypes during 1941, the Australians adopted the Owen in 9x19mm. The Australian War Memorial centre holds examples of all of the prototypes.

Sources:

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