hi guys thanks for tuning in to another
video on Forgotten weapons comm I'm Ian
I am here today at the Rock Island
auction house I'm checking out some of
the machine guns that are coming up for
sale in their December of 2015 premier
auction and this particular one is a
Madison light machine gun though I
believe the proper pronunciation in
Denmark would be Masson with a silent D
at any rate these I find these guns
fantastically interesting these are one
of the very first if not the very first
commercially and militarily successful
light machine guns ever developed they
were first produced in 1902 and the the
models that were manufactured date all
the way up to 1950 they had a new model
in 1950 so a extraordinarily long
lifespan of this gun in successful
commercial and military use so pretty
cool there
the very first patent for these was
issued in 1899
in Denmark to a guy named Julius
Rasmussen and he actually transferred
the rights to that patent over to the
Danish recoil rifle syndicate which is
better known today as the Madison
company the US government actually
tested these in 1902 or in 1903 at that
time the guns were they were still
pretty pretty new and needed a little
bit more development at that point they
still needed lubricated ammunition when
the US government tested them the gun
they had they had they had 600 rounds of
ammunition with it so they did kind of a
demonstration shooting not a formal
complete test and the gun ran very well
for those 600 rounds now I don't want to
spend all that much time today on the
history of this gun there are some
interest we're going to skim over the
the highlights of the guns history but
what I really want to do is take this
apart and show you internally how it
works because that's what really makes
these cool guns I should point out there
were over a hundred different variants
of these guns made Madison would
manufacture them for anybody who is
interested and so they offered them in a
vast number of different calibers barrel
lengths bipod configurations you name it
they'd be happy to make a specific order
for you for
your military or or paramilitary
organization now the first major
military use of a Madsen gun was in the
russo-japanese war 1904 1905 and there
were some instances there where Russian
units defending in placed positions with
Madsen light machine guns were able to
wreak havoc on attacking Japanese
cavalry and some of the European
observers who were there watching the
fighting noticed that and it made an
impression on some of them not enough
for there to really be a mass
development of light machine guns before
the First World War but if you read some
of their reports some people started
recognizing the tactical utility of the
light machine gun as early as 1904 so
primarily in World War one these were
actually used by Germany they didn't
have any new production of them but they
acquired a substantial stock of the guns
and they actually had specific units
built around madsen light machine guns
and those units served in combat
basically until all the guns were were
lost in combat they weren't able to
replace them at any point because they
weren't getting any new production but
they used them as long as they could and
any rate I think we should pull this
thing apart now and take a look at the
internals all right so we'll start on
this side of the gun we have our big
Madsen logo and then this is the
Portuguese crest and a serial number we
have our selector our fire selector down
here top is safe and then one of these
is Semyon one is full and I'm not sure
exactly which is which however the
magazine is a point of interest on the
Madison as it does not have any feed
lips it's just an open box for today's
shooters that comes in handy in that
magazine like this one which is designed
for 30.6 can actually fire accommodate
eight millimeter Mauser equally well
because there's no feed lip that it has
to conform to so this big flat spring
holds all of the cartridges in the
magazine until you put the magazine into
the gun
this is a nose in and rock back style of
magazine so we actually have this hook
on the front that hooks through the
receiver and then as I lock this
magazine in you can see that the big
spring is cantilevered or is wedged out
right there and now it rides alongside
the receiver of the gun so now the
follower is free to push cartridges down
into the receiver and we'll see exactly
what they do in there in a moment when
we pull the gun apart our magazine
catches right here very simple to use
all right on the opposite side of the
gun we don't have a whole lot going on
but we do have one very important
feature and that is the charging handle
here this is a non reciprocating
charging handle and it only pops back
about that far now you'll notice when I
charge the gun this port popped open
this is your ejection port and it has
this dust cover to keep things clean
when you charge the gun it automatically
opens that if you have it closed and you
fire around it will also automatically
open it and there is a little spring
catch here to hold the charging handle
in position it is non reciprocating now
we can move on to disassembly all right
our basic field stripping is going to
involve rotating this lever vertically
up then our top cover pops open and we
can take a look at the internals of the
gun
one thing that is remarkable about the
Madsen is it's very short receiver
length this is a gun design that
actually does not have beyond the short
recoil it doesn't have a forward
backward cycling bolt instead it has a
bolt that cycles up and down very much
like a martini-henry or other
falling-block tight action so that is
the full length of how far the barrel
goes and on firing it goes forward like
that
now let me pull the hole all the guts
apart and we can get a better look at
exactly what this thing is doing that
allows it to use about a one and a
quarter inch travel to cycle about a
3-inch long cartridge so the next step
is going to be taking this pin and
pulling it all the way out like this and
then I can pivot open that lets me pivot
open the bottom of the gun and I can
reach in here and pull my reach and
barrel mechanism completely out alright
in order to understand how the Madsen
operates all we really need is this
assembly right here this is what does
all the work
it looks pretty funky but once you
understand what it's doing it's actually
remarkably compact and efficient so we
have this is our cartridge rammer this
is our breech block moving up and down
and then this guy right here this piece
right there
that is our extractor and ejector at the
same time so what we have we have a port
here in the side and the magazine sits
right here just to the right or just to
the left of this side of the action a
cartridge from the magazine is pushed
down into this position and then there
is a curved finger that just pushes in
like this that pushes the cartridge
through this port when it does that we
are in let me get this in the right
position so this is the position
everything is in when we're feeding so a
cartridge gets pushed through this port
in the receiver into this little channel
in the breech block and from there it
can slide straight into the chamber
keep that out of the way you can see the
chamber right up there now as the gun
cycles this lever this rammer lever is
cammed forward and it pushes the
cartridge into the chamber and then the
breech block pops up so at this point
when the breech is up in this position
it prevents the cartridge coming
backwards and it has a firing pin that
is now in line with the primer so this
see it's actually right about let me
show you this first you can see right
there the breech face and the firing pin
so that lines up with the chamber right
about there at this position the gun
fires and then as this is recoiling
backwards we have our extraction and
ejection which takes place now this guy
if I pull this all the way down all
right if I pull this all the way down
the little lip right there is our
extractor so this piece rotates about 90
degrees and you can see in this position
the extractor is actually underneath the
rim of the cartridge flush up I don't
know if we can see it any better yeah I
think you can quite see it from that
angle but the extractor is on the
opposite corner of this block it's right
up in here it's under the rim of the
case and when the gun is cycling and
extracting this piece get scammed
backwards like that which causes it to
pull the cart the empty case out and it
flips it down this smooth surface right
here so that is your basically your
ejection trough so the empty case comes
out there and it spits out the bottom of
the gun through that port that opens
when we run the charging handle now this
is all happening because the breech
assembly is moving back and forth with
it goes forward when you fire and it
comes back
under recoil when when you fire and then
each of these elements this pin this
square hook and this pin these are all
controlled in little cammed grooves on
the inside of the receiver so that as
the bolt as this whole assembly moves
back and forth
these are specifically controlled in
vertical travel up and down same with
this guy up and down and this guy pivots
on a square block as it moves back and
forth
so all that puts each of these moving
pieces under strict specific control so
that they do what they're supposed to
complicated enough one of the cool
upsides of this whole system is because
the breech each of these breech blocks
is already head spaced to a barrel in
this assembly and all you have to do is
pull one captive pin to pull this whole
barrel and breech assembly out the back
of the gun that is the quick change
barrel mechanism for the Madison is
simply pulling this entire breech
assembly and replacing it with a new one
for shooters today you can actually use
this to change calibers as well so
typically the the guns that are
available today including this one will
be set up with either an 8 millimeter or
a 30.6 barrel assembly and to change
from one to the other caliber all you
have to do is switch this assembly your
magazine is actually usable in both
calibers and there's nothing else on the
gun has to change to change calibers
well thanks for watching guys I hope you
enjoyed the video I hope I have conveyed
some new appreciation for what is not
necessarily regarded as a particularly
pretty looking submachine gun but I
think it's a real sleeper very
interesting mechanical design and
remarkably effective and reliable for a
gun as old as this really is so if you'd
like to own this one or another one
there are actually several in this
auction coming up if you take a look at
the text link in the description below
that will take you to rock island's
catalog page for this particular gun you
can see their pictures their description
and place a bid online if you would like
thanks for watching