WW1 Vickers gun info.

[rmamarshall]

Dear All,
I am trying to restore WW1 parts to my August 1918 Vickers gun. Though Dolf Goldsmith's book is invaluable, it sadly remains silent on a number of questions I need answered if I am to do the restoration accurately:

What is the correct Great War type of plug for the water jacket? One of my plugs is the ordinary brass, the other looks to have been fibre but the covering has falled away, leaving only the brass body. I presume therefore that my gun originally had the fibre plugs, but was the all-brass variety around by the end of the war (I imagine this type is more easy to source than the former)?

On feed blocks: When exactly did the steel versions stop being issued, and the brass substituted? I note there are two types of steel feedblock, one with slightly smaller cut-out for the fingers - did the enlarging of this take place during the war, or after?

Tangent sight slides: Was the MkII** slide being issued by 1918? Period photo's are very bad at showing any of these minor details.

Any help greatly appreciated: as a WW1 uniforms and personal equipment man, I am a bit out of my depth here,

Richard

[Richard Fisher]

Hi Richard

sorry for the long delay in replying. I should have perhaps made a holding post but I wanted to ask a friend of mine a couple of your questions before I posted a response. He has confirmed what I originally believed.

This is all circumstantial with no hard proof and the only place to find hard proof is in the General Routine Orders and Lists of Changes - both of which I do not have sufficient copies of.

Firstly, the plug seems to have been fibre throughout the war. The only brass plugs I have are marked VAC so will have been 1930s-onwards production. There seem to be fibre plugs around or there certainly were plenty when ABI Militaria were in business and they can't have all dissapeared.

The milling out of feedblocks is, in our opinion, a local armourer-carried-out job which would have taken place during the war and would have been an easy and simple job to do when feedblocks were out of the gun. I now have a number of milled and un-milled blocks so it doesn;t seem to have had a 100% hit-rate but I would say any steel feedblock is appropriate for the 1918 period (I also have some early brass ones that are VSM marked).

By Mk. II** I think you mean Mk. II* and if you do then I would think that these were around late on in the war as I have several VSM marked examples.

I hope this has helped and once again, I am very sorry for the delay.

Richard

[rmamarshall]

Dear Richard,
Many thanks for your reply, has cleared up a few things I wanted to get right. My gun now sports a steel feedblock, and just needs a couple of fibre plugs to return it to WW1 appearance. (Two minor parts also need exchanging for VSM examples, and the wheel on my tripod is the post 1920's cut out version). Now for ammo belts and tins, steam hoses and bags...

Richard

[Richard Fisher]

No problem Richard, glad to be of help. I have just received a load of WW1 stuff and will post some photos at some point. If you have any more queries then feel free to ask and I will try to respond wuicker next time!!

Regards

Rich

PS - Ever in the Swindon area then feel free to pop in, just drop me a line the day before or so.