Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian, I am here today at the Cody Firearms Museum,
a part of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.
We're taking a look at some of the cool guns that
they've got in their extensive gun collection.
And today we have like the biggest and the last hurrah
of David Marshall William's gas tappet system.
Now, if you recognise his name you probably
recognise it from the M1 carbine program.
We have a series of videos looking at
several of the different guns that ... Winchester, with him,
developed using that system. And this is the biggest one,
this is a .50 BMG experimental anti-tank rifle
developed by Winchester during World War Two.
It uses David [Williams] gas tappet system, and John Garand's rotating bolt basic action.
... In fact when I first saw this, I saw the the action chunk right here
and I thought it looked like ... a kind of odd version of one of those, like,
double or quadruple scale training M1 carbines. And lo and behold it
kind of is an M1 carbine style of gun, just scaled way up for .50 BMG.
Now, there's an interesting question as to why exactly Winchester did this.
This was developed 1943-1944, and by that point there were lots of Browning M2 heavy machine guns
anywhere that they were needed. The things were in mass production, there were plenty of them,
they weigh more than this, but you know, they're not necessarily a whole lot less portable.
Those things could go pretty much anywhere.
The US Army didn't have any particular need for a .50 calibre anti-tank rifle,
because they had actually acquired a number of .55 calibre Boys anti-tank rifles
from the Inglis company in Canada, and that was enough to take care of any US Army need.
But apparently this was actually tested by the Canadian military in 1944.
So it may be that the Canadian military, despite the Canadian Inglis company producing Boys anti-tank rifles,
they may have been looking for something that both used the standard .50 BMG case, which they had plenty of,
and also something that was semi-automatic, as opposed to the Boys bolt action system.
So reportedly this gun was never tested by the American military, but it was tested by the Canadians.
And apparently it passed all the tests in flying colours. This gun has definitely been fired quite a bit.
I believe this is the only example that was made, although they made a couple magazines.
The magazine ... has a number 3 floor plate and a number 2 follower in it.
But ultimately before this thing could potentially be adopted,
the whole program was cancelled because the war ended, so.
Now the other interesting twist here is that Winchester did in fact
look at getting into the vehicle business at the same time.
Apparently they made a prototype of what they called the Tank Killer, which was like a 4 by 12 foot,
little, probably two-man, anti-tank combat car, for lack of a better term
(something like a British Universal Carrier), specifically to mount this gun in.
And now that's also kind of a weird thing, because by 1944, as an anti-tank rifle,
this would have been pretty much totally obsolete, like all of the other anti-tank rifles in existence were at that point.
The PTRS, the PTRD, the Boys, the German GrB-41s and 39s. All these things, even the 20mm guns.
... You know, if you can fire the thing from an effectively shoulder fired rifle,
it's almost certainly insufficient to do significant damage to a modern tank by that point.
So, seems like a bit of an odd project for Winchester to have taken on.
But they did, and we have the first-hand ... evidence right here.
So let's take a closer look at a couple of the bits, I'll show you how it works, and take a look up close.
OK, so it's a little bit goofy, but the one gun that I really have handy here for a size
reference is this .30 carbine chambered Thompson submachine gun.
But that should give you a rough idea of just how ridiculously huge this anti-tank rifle really is.
And here's another good scale comparison. This is pretty much a standard
Winchester Model of 1917 rifle rear sight, because presumably they have those things still lying around,
compare that to this, which is the same part that you have on an M1 carbine.
Thing is massive in every way, weight is something at, or just north of, 25 pounds.
Alright, let's take a quick look at operation. So we have our bolt here.
You can see that it is a two lug rotating bolt, right there. Very much like the M1 Garand or the M1 carbine.
This was developed ... on the basis of David [Williams] tappet gas system,
so this looks very much like an M1 carbine operating rod.
It does have a pair of recoil springs in the handguard here underneath.
Although this unfortunately I can't take off for you to show,
but a pair of springs under here, along with a gas port in the barrel.
According to one source I read, the recoil spring setup in this made it "almost recoilless",
which I find very dubious. Maybe in conjunction with the weight, but I don't know, I'm skeptical of that claim.
Alright, there's the magazine in place. Our magazine release
is this sort of triggery mechanism on the front of the trigger guard.
So I pull that in, and then slide the [10 round] magazine out.
The safety is this gigantic thing.
When we pull this out and rotate it up about 45 degrees, it actually rotates this sleeve into position, right there.
That prevents the bolt from opening any farther than this, which prevents it from chambering a round.
Having the safety engaged also ... disconnects the trigger. So that's your safety.
Everything on this rifle runs very smoothly, I was quite impressed. The bolt runs very smoothly,
the safety works smoothly, the magazine actually isn't that difficult to insert or remove.
Now the disassembly procedure, I believe, involves this pin and this pin.
But those appear to be stuck in place, and I don't want to be the guy to take a hammer to them here.
So we're going to leave that alone. The one thing I can show you is on the back.
Up here we have a button that allows the stock to hinge down on this huge pivot.
And then this allows us to remove the safety mechanism, the shroud, the bolt,
all of those parts would come out the back.
However, I believe what's going on is that the trigger assembly, the trigger frame,
is locking these pieces in place. So until I take this out, that won't come out.
This looks like it would also be an option to make the thing more convenient, a little bit shorter, for transport.
But I don't think that's actually the case, because that's as far down as it goes,
and once you've got it in this position this thing really becomes pretty bulky as well, so.
I suppose maybe if you really needed to cut a couple inches off the overall length of this thing, you could do that.
But I don't think that's the initial purpose, I think it's just for disassembly.
Thank you for watching guys, hope you enjoyed the video.
This is certainly a gun that has gotten very little recognition, I believe this is the only example of it.
And very cool to be able to check it out here at the Cody Firearms Museum.
If you're ever in the vicinity, or going to be travelling to Wyoming, you should definitely
make sure to plan some time into your schedule to visit the collection here.
They have a phenomenal gun collection and very well displayed.
And, of course, if you like this sort of content, please consider checking out my Patreon page.
It is funding from the fine folks who contribute their buck a month that
allows me to travel to places like Wyoming to bring you guys cool guns like this.
Thanks for watching.