Hi guys, thanks for tuning in for another video on ForgottenWeapons.com
I'm Ian, I'm here today at the Rock Island Auction house
Looking at some of the guns they are selling in their upcoming February of 2016 regional auction
And today I've got
Kind of a different sort of video for you
This is a machine gun I've always wanted to take a look at but we're not going to be disassembling this one
Because of the condition it is in, However
This has a pretty impressive, and, uh, kinda pretty sobering story behind it
Now
This is a St Etienne model of 1907 French heavy machine gun
This particular example was manufactured at the Châtellerault Arsenal in 1916
And this is one of the machine guns that was the mainstay of the French military forces during WWI
They had this gun
Adopted, obviously in 1907
And this was
One of these days I will get one of these
in really good condition that I can take apart and show you guys the inside
Cuz this is a really funky
Complex and interesting machine gun, um, it's also a very expensive machine gun to make
It's not the most reliable machine gun ever developed, in fact to the point that
It was this machine gun that caused the French to finally acquiesce and buy machine guns
From a private concern, namely, the Hotchkiss company
Hotchkiss sold them
The model of 1914 heavy machine gun which was produced in very large numbers
Larger numbers then these guns and used during WWI
At any rate
What is
What is sobering and interesting and just really neat to see in a sort of dark way
Is
This side of this gun. So what you can see out there is the fact
that this whole thing has been poorly taken care of
And it is, has a lot of rust on it. Someone has started to try and take it apart here
And I believe up here as well
They haven't gotten very far, you'll see why in a minute
So let me go and flip this around and let me show you what's interesting about this guy
Alright so here's the side that really tells the story about what happened to this gun
It took a total of seven bullet impacts
Here's three of them
And then as we scan accross the rest of the gun
Got another bullet impact there
We have
There are two, or possibly three more up here
This thing took a burst, presumably of German machine gun fire at some point
Did not end well for the gun
No idea how it ended for the crew, hopefully they managed to escape without severe injury
The crew of course would have been back
behind the gun here. It is missing its pistol grip
Which would have been bolted on to the back there
This would have been the mounting for the rear sight
I believe someone has tried to disassemble this
Because you can see a bullet impact right there on the bolt
And i suspect that's this
This hole
And someone has managed to move the bolt forward a bit
This is (laugh)
This machine gun has been rendered thouroughly inoperable from battle damage here
And really
Gives us a very sobering reminder what actually happens
In warfare. This is kind of WWI exemplified right here in this artifact
So like everything here at Rock Island this is coming up for sale, but this is still legally a machine gun.
Becuase while it is obviously not serviceable, the receiver has not been destroyed to a legal standard
Hasn't been chopped up into pieces
However this is obviously a deactivated, a inoperable gun
I don't think anyone will ever restore this to full functionality
There might be a couple parts someone could take off this to use on a functional example of a 1907
But
With the war damage to it, boy it's a pretty interesting piece of military history here I think
So
Little bit heavy to hang on a wall, but for the right person this would be a very cool thing to have
Really put stark contrast of what war is really like
So if you think you're the right person to have this
Take a look in the description text below
You'll find a link to Rock Islands catalogue page on this
You do have to go though a NFA process to purchase this, but it is a fully transferable gun
Check it out. You can take a look at their description and their pictures and if you like it place a bid here
Live in person or via the web on their website. Thanks for watching
Now I know that some people are going to ask what this deal is up on the muzzle of this thing
That is a piece of trench armor actually
Which is intended to protect the gas system back here from shrapnel damage, of course
It didn't do any good in this case because this appears to have taken fire 90 degrees perpendicular to the gun
I'm sure there is a very
Interesting story as to how that came to pass
No way of knowing what that story is