Experimental Fiat-Revelli Magazine
May 18, 2015 Ian McCollum Medium MGs 16
Apologies; we have a pretty brief post today. I’ve been moving into a new house and things got a bit hectic. At any rate, I did happen to notice this photo from Max Popenker of an experimental magazine for the Fiat-Revelli M1914/35 machine gun:
It’s like an amalgam of machine gun magazine and slide projector carousel
It would appear to be an attempt to increase the potential of the gun for sustained fire, by dramatically increasing the magazine capacity and also using a heavy fluted barrel instead of the standard (and rather light) 1914/35 barrel. This carousel type magazine would probably hold something like 200 rounds – each column in it is a stack of five, and I can count almost 20 columns on this visible side. Now, the standard Fiat magazine box inserts on one side, cycles through, and is removed from the opposite side. That’s not possible with a continuous circular mag like this, and I suspect the gun was altered to allow the magazine to be loaded from the bottom. My guess is that the little tab at the front of the underside of the receiver is a release catch to allow the mag to be removed.
On a second note, thanks very much to all the folks who shared information on WWI German trench armor in the comments to Saturday’s post! I’m much obliged, and that information will be a great help in determining what exactly to do with the reproduction armor that is on its way here.
