[ .303 Lewis Gun at the Range ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and courtesy of Morphy's
we're out at the range with a Lewis gun.
It's been a long time since I was out at the range with a Lewis gun,
like on Forgotten Weapons I haven't posted a shooting video of a Lewis gun
in like six years, I think more than that.
And that is entirely too long.
Now, of course, I had a chance to do some shooting with a Lewis during Project Lightening
... a collaborative project with C&Rsenal.
If you haven't seen that and you think the Lewis is cool, you'll love Project Lightening,
so I'll have a link to that whole video series below in the description there.
But, it is high time for me to get myself behind a proper Lewis gun again.
Now this particular one is really quite interesting,
in that it is ... USN marked, but it is in .303.
And as a general rule the US did not purchase .303 ground Lewis guns.
However, there was a small purchase of them made by the Navy.
And I've been unable to find any good information about how many,
what serial number range.
I can't authenticate that this is actually a US Navy Lewis,
but I think it might actually be.
And it has also been fitted out with the ... well, not heavy duty, the solid mount,
that the US Navy and the US Marine Corps had in lieu of the wibbly, floppy British bipod.
And that is one of my main complaints with the Lewis gun, is the British bipod kind of sucks.
This thing's not perfect, this is ... totally a World War One sort of light machine gun bipod.
It's way heavier duty than it needs to be, but it's really stable.
So I'm excited to give it a try with some shooting.
So, that's it, I'm tired of talking about it.
I want to actually put some rounds downrange here.
Alright, here we go.
This is also actually a rather high mount.
Oh come on you, don't do that to me.
Whoo!
Alright, so the Lewis is a fantastic steampunked-out machine gun.
We've got spinning plates, we've got ejecting brass,
we've got bolt handles flying back and forth,
we've got gas getting spit out all over the place.
It is just a magnificent ... experience of a gun to shoot.
Alright, one thing I'll say here is that this bipod is rather tall.
So I can't sit on both elbows, I have to kind of prop myself up to use it.
Which, it's one of those things that I think people would look down on today on the range,
it's like, "Oh, this bipod's too tall."
But most actual field use in, say, World War One,
was not taking place on a nice, flat, pleasant range like this.
It was taking place with taller grass, with lumps and rocks and bumps, and changing terrain.
And a taller bipod is actually I think generally a good thing
for being able to clear obstacles, and be able to actually establish fields of fire.
We see it with a lot of light machine guns.
The British original Lewis bipods were actually fairly short, but they could be extended.
And when you look at, say, the French Chauchat bipods they're quite tall.
And of course this one's quite tall.
I always wanted to see if I could actually shoot a Lewis standing.
We did shooting from the hip on Project Lightening, but never actually from the shoulder.
This probably won't go so well, but we'll give it a try.
The Lewis is such a, frankly, chunky, heavy gun that it's not all that difficult to control it.
The weight's heavy, holding it up takes some effort.
But controlling the recoil, not that big a deal.
And these were actually used from the hip.
Typically from the hip it would be used with a sling, which I don't have on this one, but.
Also from the hip you have to make sure that the charging handle
does not hit your body and jam the gun.
Whoo!
Alright, shooting from the shoulder or from the hip is fun and all, and exciting.
But the proper way to get proper good hits,
and effectively utilise the gun is from the ground mount.
So, got a fresh new drum.
And I just like shooting these so much I'm going to dump this drum through it too.
Speeds up a little bit there at the end when there's less mass to resist turning in the pan.
I hope you guys enjoyed the video, thank you very much for watching.
Thanks to Morphy's for the opportunity to come out here and
get a chance to do some more shooting with a Lewis gun.
One of these days I just really need to have one of these myself.