#kynoch

Kynoch Cycles

The Kynoch Schwarzlose Machine Gun

In 1907, the British ammunition manufacturer Kynoch began selling a licensed version of the Austrian Schwarzlose machine gun. The gun, designed by Andreas Wilhelm Schwarzlose, was also adopted by the Austro-Hungarian military in 1907 as the M.7. 

The Kynoch Machine Gun was based on Schwarzlose’s patent and as such slightly differs externally from contemporary Austro-Hungarian guns. A gap between the water jacket and the receiver’s top cover is immediately obvious in Kynoch’s gun. The Schwarzlose used a toggle-delayed blowback action and had an interesting cartridge oiling system to aid feeding and extraction. The Schwarzlose had the advantage of a fixed barrel, unlike the recoiling barrel of the Maxim. Unlike many other machine guns of the period the Schwarzlose had a pair of folding grips.

Austro-Hungarian machine gunners manning M.7/12s (source)

To aid in the marketing of the new weapon Kynoch produced a manual to accompany the launch of the new machine gun. It explains the gun’s action and shows its versatility of deployment. The manual also lists the weapon’s attributes such as being “extremely simple and has very few parts”, “...can be taken to pieces as far as usually required in less than ten seconds”, “There is only one main spring in the whole gun, and this needs no adjustment, unlike other guns“ and “The weight of the gun with water jacket is only 22.6 kilograms”. There is also an excellent photograph of the weapon disassembled, this can be seen above. The Kynoch Schwarzlose was probably chambered in the standard British .303 round feeding from 250 round cloth belts. 

Schwarzlose’s patent (source)

How successful sales of the Kynoch Schwarzlose’s were is unclear, however, it seems likely that production was halted before the outbreak of World War One. During the war Kynoch focused on ammunition prodction and after the war in 1926, Kynoch and Nobel became part of Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd.

Sources:

Images Source

Kynoch Machine Gun, ForgottenWeapons (source)  

Machine Guns of the Two World Wars, J. Walter (2005)

Schwarzlose’s patents #1 #2 

The Kynock double trigger revolver,

In the second half of the 19th century William Trantor was one of the major pistol manufacturers of England.  Throughout his career Trantor designed and produced a number of single action and double action designs, at first cap and ball muzzleloaders but later revolvers using self contained metallic cartridges.  Trantor retired in 1885, but that same year rented his factory to one of his employees, a man named George Kynoch.

One of Trantors most unique designs was a double action revolver with two triggers, one was a double action trigger which rotated the cylinder, cocked the hammer, and discharged the round with one trigger pull. The second trigger would spin the cylinder and cock the hammer, but not fire the revolver.  This made the revolver into a single action, with a lighter trigger pull which increased accuracy.

After Trantor's retirement, Kynoch created his own design which improved upon the Trantor revolver.  First he modified the design into a break open action rather than a solid from.  When opened an ejector would eject empty cartridges from the cylinders.  Then he modified the revolver into a hammerless design, with the hammer being enclosed within the inner workings of the pistol.  A later model further improved the design by placing both triggers within the trigger guard, thus improving safety.