Light machine guns were largely ignored before the Great War,
but that doesn't mean they were non-existent. In Denmark, by example, one design had been in development for two decades. Hi, I'm Othais. And this? Well, this is the Rekylgevær 1905, otherwise popularly known as the Madsen light machine gun. It's pretty wild-looking and obviously sticks out in some odd directions. But, let's see if we can fit this thing down in the light box. With an overall length of 44 inches, this gun’s shorter than some of
the rifles we've dealt with. But it does weigh more at 26 and 1/2 pounds. This is, of course, a semi- or full-auto light machine gun. And, therefore, has a 25 round, single-stack magazine. This particular example
is in 7 millimeter Mauser. However, just about every cartridge was available for this gun, at one time or another. Now, of course, in order to discuss this guy, I will first have to provide a bit of background history. And, this time,
our story will actually begin in Denmark. Some people may be surprised to hear me start this off with the Scandinavian tropics, because many know that Denmark had a neutrality policy
as far back as the early 1700s. First, trying to be neutral is not the same as succeeding at it. Danish neutrality was not entirely respected or upheld, over the centuries.
The most recent bout of warfare had been the Second Schleswig War, in which Germany dealt Denmark a crushing defeat
and took a massive swath of land. Well, the fallout was extreme and far-reaching. Our chief concern, however, is that it created a strong interest in updating Danish small-arms technology.
And, within that particular field, we see a further consideration of rapid-fire guns - notably, the 10-barreled Gatling gun. With a small number purchased in 1868, these would serve as test pieces for a number of experiments, most centered on fortifications. Defense would become the focus of Danish marshal neutrality. This would culminate in a massive project to re-armor Copenhagen,
which had actually long been a fortress city. But, it had fallen behind the technological curve. The new walls
at Copenhagen would be fitted with artillery. And to protect those guns from, you know, infantry and other attack...
Well, maybe something like the Gatling could help. No, not really. It just wasn't doing the job, and the overall defensive
construction stalled for a number of years, anyway. This was mostly due to a schism forming in the Danish government.
The more conservative politicians wanted military spending in fortification, and the more liberal voices
didn't think the spending was justified. They didn't see the fortifications as being a real guarantor of Danish neutrality.
In the end, only one chamber of parliament approved the necessary funds. And, so,
the conservatives had to finance the works using a series of provisional laws. Basically, they were back-dooring it.
So, the bulk of fortification work would not begin until 1886, which actually put them at the cusp of some more modern technologies. In 1889, they would actually adopt a repeating rifle, the five-round, bolt-action Krag-Jørgenson, which chambered an 8 by 58 millimeter rimmed cartridge -
their first small bore smokeless ammunition. Ballistically, it had been a huge step forward for Denmark, and was,
for the time, thoroughly modern. The same cartridge would be used with the Gardner, twin-barreled,
manually-operated, rapid-fire gun. This may seem dated to regular viewers of our show, but don't forget: The Gardner was widely considered the best of the pre-Maxim machine guns. Interestingly, this gun would remain in inventory until 1943 Remember, by the way, the whole intent here is to provide a rapid-fire gun that can sweep the ditches and other hidey-holes,
which might provide cover to enemy infantry that managed to get close to the Danish defenses. So, yeah, you can mount something like the Gardner in a few good,
over-looking points; but it's hardly the most mobile or flexible system. It also required manual operation to fire, and a fairly large support team. Our story really begins when two members of the Danish army, well,
they decided that they could do better. Vilhelm Herman Oluf Madsen, who had been born in Copenhagen in 1844,
would later seek education at the army cadet Academy. Graduating in 1861, he was appointed an infantry second lieutenant,
which is how he found himself in the aforementioned Second Schleswig War. Following that conflict, Madsen would further his education, graduating the Danish Military College in 1868 and joining the artillery
as a lieutenant, that same year. He was immediately put to work at his alma mater as an instructor,
thanks to his talent for mathematics. Madsen would attach himself to a number of commissions during the
Danish rearmament, and he rose to the rank of captain in 1879. Most notable to us today: In 1881, He took a seat on the artillery committee, overseeing armament
for the fortification of Copenhagen. It was in this role that he was exposed to various early machine guns and, likely is how he met Julius Alexander Nicolaj Rasmussen, also born in Copenhagen, though way back in 1838. Son of a machinist, he would attend school in Viborg, before working and studying with a foundry
in Aarhus. That would be the famous Frichs Maskin fabrik, which had expanded
from steel and iron processing, into producing parts and machinery. When the Copenhagen rifle factory
was opened in 1866, Rasmussen joined up and became involved in the development and production
of the Danish Remington rolling block. He must have impressed someone, because, in 1867, he was appointed foreman of production. The man knew how to
make a rolling block. In 1883, he took on the title of factory manager. So, both of our guys were involved in arms research.
Both were being sent around the world to visit the best of the best in firearms production,
both in Europe and in America. And, somewhere in all of that… Well, they became interested in recoil,
as a concept. Credit for who first conceived of a recoil operated gun?
That's actually trickier than you might think. Patents go back into the 1850s, but the theory has been mentioned all the way back into the 1600s. People knew there was energy to be captured there. Luckily, our show cares more about the practicality. And, at this time,
the king of recoil was Hiram Maxim. His automatic gun, however, was only revealed publicly in 1884 and, supposedly, Madsen and Rasmussen began their experiments the year before that.
Though, they were well behind the Maxim gun, itself. Basically, the Danish team were still tinkering with concepts. They assembled a number of test pieces to judge the power available in
recoil operation. And, from there, they attempted to capture it effectively, putting it to work unlocking an action - any action. Apparently, a wild number of designs were partially investigated,
and then rapidly dropped. This process was, apparently, mostly Madsen and Rasmussen running through various ideas together,
and then having a small team of gunsmiths execute and test them. Eventually, they would net a successful base design. One of the gunsmiths responsible went to find Madsen, telling him that
the latest attempt had actually managed to fire 100 rounds without a single failure. On their way to the shooting range, Madsen apparently promised this gunsmith one cent for each successful shot.
And after 50, or so, were discharged, Madison declared. “It's good, It's good. It’s excellent.” And halted the demonstration … like a cheapskate. In 1886, the Danish forces would begin assessing a pair of bolt-action rifles.
As we know, this would lead to the adoption of the aforementioned 1889 Krag. But the artillery wanted Madsen and Rasmussen’s gun produced for the trials, as well. While they doubted it could be
a replacement for an infantry shoulder arm, they were eager to see how it performed with the new smokeless ammunition,
and just how far the design could be pushed, if properly invested in. Now, at this point, the Madsen was not quite the
same gun that I have today - nowhere near, as a matter of fact. This was a shoulder-fired rifle, which was
designed to function as both a single-shot and magazine-fed semi-automatic. And, boy, that magazine is interesting. It is, essentially a fold up stripper clip thing, or perhaps more properly, a hopper. Essentially, it's a rigid vertical guide, which the shooter can load with six rounds,
on some sort of separate cartridge clip. I haven't been able to isolate what one of these would be. If that clip is not withdrawn from the action, these 6 cartridges remain in reserve, with the gun used as a single-shot. As such, it can hold one in the chamber and one in the tray, kind of like a Lebel. Should you fully load the gun and remove that barrier, you would be rewarded
with eight shots of 8 by 58 millimeter rimmed at the ready. To get that firepower. You just had to lug a roughly 52 and 3/4 inch rifle, weighing just under 11 pounds, with you wherever you went.
Also, it had a folding bayonet. That's kind of neat. The internal mechanism is often compared to the Martini-Henry. Which is fair, as it uses the same tilting block in order to lock up. I will say, however, that I favor another possible explanation. Given their travels to the US, I don't think it's a stretch to consider that
Madsen and Rasmussen may have been influenced by the 1884 Spencer slide action shotgun; which also uses a tilting breech block, and, in a point over the Martini,
is cammed up and down by pathways cut into, or otherwise mounted on, that same locking block.
It’s a very similar concept. However, the Spencer block does dip down to extract and then ejects upwards,
while the Madsen Rasmussen flipped up to eject downwards. I should also point out that the Danish army did not call this a machine gun. Interestingly, like the French, they had called the Gatling, and the Gardner,
and things like that ‘mitrailleurs’. But, for the Madsen Rasmussen, it was the ‘rekylgevær’, a recoil rifle. Interestingly, this was at the time used in the manner that we would say
sort of an “automatic rifle” - the phrase that brings to mind a shoulder-fired auto loading gun. Although, in the Danish case,
not necessarily fully-automatic. However, as the Madsen Rasmussen morphed into the gun that we have here today - clearly a light machine gun. So, too, would the meaning of the term rekylgevær,
which came to be the term for any light machine gun, regardless of how it functioned,
into the 1930s. Which is when a more standardized terminology was put into effect
by the Danish military. Anyway, 70 of those autoloading infantry rifles would be ordered for trials.
However, production would be dropped altogether, due to delays. Most of which were brought on by the fact that
Madsen and Rasmussen had to oversee the rifle development and testing, as well, plus the associated travel for inspection, research, and sourcing materials, for the regular bolt-action rifles. Instead, only one gun managed
to make it to the musketry school. But, their report on that firearm to the War Department was glowing, or at least complimentary enough, that production was ordered, again.
This time, 50 test pieces. These were tested by the Second Regiment’s 18th and 22nd battalions,
where it was put up against the Model 1867 Remington rolling block. Now, the conclusions
were fairly obvious to us, today. The single-shot Remington was more accurate at long range, singular fire, but the Madsen Rasmussen was an incredible improvement in overall firepower and rapid loading. Most of the problems with the new recoil gun
had more to do with unfamiliar troops who did not hold it firmly enough for the action to properly cycle.
Additional faults were found in the magazine, which was too sensitive to changes in positioning of the gun,
as it relied on a gravity feed. Some other problems were found with its overall cost, complexity, and the fact that it was relatively more susceptible to dirt - though not as much as initially anticipated. Now, because of the way the gun
was configured for that single loader requirement, the 1888 had to be double charged - a lot like a Maxim. For your average soldier, it's a bit like playing that shell game with a live round. Overall, the gun could not currently be fielded reliably to the infantry,
is the short answer. But it was certainly more advanced than expected. So, while it obviously didn't defeat the Krag, this new recoil rifle again proved it was worth further development. Artillery officers present noted that, despite being too heavy and complicated
for infantry use, it may be just the thing for fortifications. Madsen and Rasmussen happily took to work on a heavier version of their gun. The extra weight would not be an issue, because these would not be
supported up at the shoulder by the shooter. Instead, a stirrup style mount would be used, kind of like what we saw in our
Hotchkiss Portative episode, although much, much earlier in history. Mounts could be placed around the fortifications, for the guns to be carried to,
when needed. Once fixed in place, troops could more easily manipulate the guns for loading and firing,
and deliver a more accurate fire, and not exhaust themself in the process. The mounts and guns could also
be pre-aligned, and the arc of their travel fixed in daylight. So that, during the night... Well, they could be used to blindly sweep known potential defensive positions
for the enemy. It would also be nice if the mounts could disappear or fold down out of sight, and out of the line of fire until they're needed. The sticking point there was the Madsen Rasmussen’s
vertical magazines set up over the action. So, a 50-round belt system would be trialed.
Unfortunately, it proved to be unreliable. Some sources claim the model 1893 is a true machine gun,
using fully-automatic fire but period sources for fire rates seem to indicate that they were semi-auto-only,
just like the previous 1888. 200 of these heavy recoil rifles would be ordered for production, but only 86 were ever made. By the way, the 1893 took its model number from the start of its
production process. And, by the time it was ready in 1899, it would actually borrow some improvements from an entirely
separate line of development, leading to the use of a 20 round vertical magazine and a rotating cartridge interrupter. Previously, the Model 1888 had provided the means to singularly load a cartridge,
with a magazine held in reserve. Now, the 1893 was a magazine-only gun. Which meant you had to only charge it that one time, eliminating a lot of confusion. Both systems still had to have some
sort of cartridge interruper, though, meant to prevent all but one cartridge from
entering that feed at a given time. Alright, gang. I have some dummy cartridges - not real at all - and I want to show you a concept that is feed interruption. Which is that all these cartridges are being pressed in by a spring.
Okay? And, we want to pull one cartridge off the stack without...
See how that second one is kind of binding up on my finger? That's gonna be a problem. So, what we want to do, is we want
to have a system in which this presses up, and then we lock them out. They're pressed up against good old pokey, and this can feed
without any additional pressure. This is critical to the function of the Madsen Rasmussen. And so,
there was a couple ways of doing this tried. The first mostly resembles, well, something like this - scissors. There was a, sort of, fixed side and then an outward. So, it'd be your fixed side and an outward arm that would get in the way.
And that would allow only one at a time. And so, in that system, you would have this cartridge feed You have this cartridge feed. All the pressure would come in. And the scissor would close. And you'd feed one off. And the scissor would open. ...Which,
obviously, I gotta kind of back that up to show it. And then that would, they stack up, there'd be pressure. The scissor would close, and then
you'd have the feed. That was a pretty good system. But it's also fairly complicated and finicky. But it did the job. Instead, they had to try something else out, and it kind of looked like this - not entirely, but kind of. And what it basically was, was a controlled feed, in a tumbler style. So, we grab one at a time, and allow them to feed. Now, at first, it wasn't quite as ‘tumbler’ as these.
It was a little bit more of a hand in play. But, in the long run, this would actually be the system that won out in Madsen design -
being able to feed one at a time more properly, through a semi-drum, like a quarter of a drum. But, in between this being the second version-ish, and definitely the fourth version, there was a third version.
And that's the one that's on our gun today. And, even though I'm getting ahead of ourselves, I want to show it to you now, so there's no confusion later. That looked like this.
It really is just a arm, a vertical arm. Although, this one is from overhead, and on the gun it's from underneath.
But, same idea. We have all these rounds. They want to feed. We're not gonna let them in, until suddenly we
do let one in. That one hits the wall, and, therefore, when this arm comes back down, this one gets backed up.
This one gets fed. They're all pressed in, obviously. This one makes it to the wall - which I don't have a level there - but would make it to the wall. These get chopped back off.
This one feeds. You get the idea. This system is very particular to the 1905 pattern that we see in the Great War. And then never again, because it does represent some issues
that we'll talk about later. But, when you're thinking about Madsen Rasmussen’s
1888 era, talking about kind of a scissoring thing, when I talk about sort of everything else we get this guy. And then, for one weird period, we have this, which stands out. It's uniquely World War one, which is kind of cool, because
you can recognize it in photos pretty quickly. Now, these arrangements were, as I said, borrowed from
another line of development - one which sought to adapt the original 1888 design into something more useful for the Danish Navy Before I get there, however, I have to check in on Wilhelm, who, in 1895, received a new title: Director of Artillery Technical Services, which was a freshly made
position directly under the Ministry of War, and consolidated much of the Army's procurement programs.
Okay, back to the Navy. They liked the idea of a man-portable semi-automatic rifle, and instead of trying to make the gun heavier, they'd rather find out if it could be made more reliable,
at the same size or even smaller. The result would be the recoil carbine model 1896. The word carbine
being used here to differentiate it from the artillery's heavy 1893. This new guy sported a 10-round detachable magazine. ...Wonder where that went?... And fed straight into the chamber,
as we mentioned before, on the other gun. Despite acceptable trials performance, only 60 of these guns would
be made for the Navy, who rarely if ever used them, due to their complicated nature. Now, that should have been a failure for the model 1896, but its
compact design and reasonable performance piqued the interest of other departments. Actually, the artillery, all over again. They decided they could use that same smaller carbine for the
Copenhagen sea fort. I'm gonna abuse a new language. Middelgrundsfortet. This more isolated fort might, particularly, benefit from the rapid fire of an automatic gun, And, since the troops weren't expected to go on the march,
the extra weight and necessary maintenance of such a gun wasn't a huge challenge. Plus, space was at a premium. So, getting the same or greater firepower,
with fewer men, was a huge bonus. Artillery trials reveal their experiences with the 1896 were actually excellent.
Overall accuracy was comparable to the Krag. But, whenever you were under a time constraint, or dealing with a moving target,
say a small enemy boat, well, actually, hits rose considerably with the recoil carbine. So, it's a pretty good fit. The artillery did reject the naval 10 round magazine, and, instead,
opted for a fixed 5 shot magazine, which could be topped up from a clip. 150 pieces would be requested, but, by the time the dust settled,
only 50 were delivered. While that makes only 110 pieces in total, the 1896 may very well be the first official autoloading rifle to be adopted for military use. Those low numbers, by the way,
may have also been affected by politics. You see, in 1894, the liberal opinion had largely won out in Denmark.
Construction of fortifications dragged to a halt. Pressure was also put on the small arms budget. By 1901, both chambers of parliament were under liberal control,
and they went to work shutting down the marshal expansion programs. Now, it's no surprise our man, Madsen,
had been in favor of the fortification of Copenhagen. Yes, he benefited from it materially, but he was also one to put
stock into military technologies. However, during the unrest, he had largely withdrawn from the political push on the right, believing that before
Denmark could properly fortify, it would need the broad support of the population. Perhaps because of this perspective, he would be appointed
Minister of War, in 1901. So, military spending is being cut. And the fortifications are all but done. And, Madsen now has a big political appointment to keep him very busy. This should have been the end of the development of the recoil rifle, if not for the fact that, back in 1898, a handful of businessmen -
the owners of the Danish Oriental Trading Company Limited - sought out the rights to sell the recoil rifle abroad. Which they succeeded
in purchasing from Madsen and Rasmussen, who also received a guarantee of royalty payments. They would form a company under the trade name Rekylriffel Syndikatet,
but would reorganize in 1900, becoming confusingly, the Dansk Rekylriffel Syndikat. I would just like to point out that ‘The Recoil Rifle Syndicate’ is
one hell of a cool name. They immediately purchased examples of the 1893 and 1896 guns,
and requested permission to have some 120 recoil rifles produced by the Danish armory. The funds to cover such production would actually aid the military. And so, the project was greenlit. As production began to slowly trickle along, it served to keep
development of the Madsen Rasmussen recoil rifle alive, even after the Danish government had moved on.
Their representative would be one lieutenant Jens Theodor Suhr Schouboe. Later in 1905, he would even become the director of the syndicate. You may recognize his name from a pistol of his own design and, thanks to his assistance in filing the British patents for the Madsen Rasmussen,
many people believe he's the true inventor of the gun. However, our trusted reference material points out that development
was really a matter of Madsen, Rasmussen, and a handful of armory gunsmiths. This patent is the gun they designed. And, yet, it was filed under Schouboe’s name, for
the syndicate’s use. While improvements would follow, it appears they were largely done under direction of Rasmussen, with armory personnel.
Madsen himself, however, was out of the design game. Now, this is where things get a bit hazy. I know Sweden trialed a syndicate rifle in 1900. And Norway was settled on the same 6.5 millimeter cartridge.
And trying to woo both nations, they incorporate a handful of improvements. But I'm not sure how many of them were accomplished and when
they were accomplished. In November of 1901, Wilhelm Madsen would write to his successor, the current director
of Artillery Technical Services, asking him to investigate the improvements in the recoil rifle and see if they could be used to create
an effective portable machine gun for the army. His main thrust, as always, had been to finally have the best possible fortification autoloader. We can see the radical changes from the old mechanism in this 1902 British patent, again filed with Schouboe as the agent.
While the arrangement has been spread out somewhat, split between the 1893 in the 1896 in scale, the big changes include a simplified breech block, which no longer carries the milled guide track. Instead, it just has a stud which engages on a plate set in the receiver wall. This initial plate had 2 guide levers, which sprung up and down to guide
the breech block onto the correct path for the direction of travel. Honestly, just about every system in the gun received some sort of tweaking, if not an outright overhaul. Without the previous models in my hands, I can't really look into every bit of it for you today. The newly reinvented recoil rifle was put through trials in 1903.
While these had started as a simple, you know, upgrade to the already issued fortress rifles; once again, another branch of the military became interested in
what the heck was going on. This time, it was the cavalry. In 1902, they had begun trials with the Skoda, Hotchkiss, and Maxim machine guns. Madsen flexed his authority to order a cavalry-specific version of his gun be included. So, the new recoil rifles were produced in small trials numbers in three configurations. The fortress test centered on tripod mounted guns using water jackets for cooling.
The cavalry also made use of a tripod, but trialed both water and air-cooled variations. Since the artillery was really just comparing the new 1903 pattern to the old 1893 pattern, there really wasn't much debate. The end result would be the model 1903 for artillery use - a gun very similar to ours today. With a bipod positioned
near the middle of the barrel, though, air cooled, and feeding from a vertical magazine. Unique to its role, it also retains the trunnions - allowing it to be
mounted in place - and has a longer barrel protruding from the shroud. This model would be the first to feature a
fire selector, which was really just a trigger block, preventing a full pull to the rear when semi-automatic was desired. Initially, fewer than 500 of these guns would be ordered for production. But, thanks to a growing anti-aircraft role that would expand to just shy of
1,500 by 1919. I should also point out: This was all pretty costly for a program under an anti-fortification government. It's interesting to note that some of the costs for all of this were offset by
selling surplus Danish rolling block model 1867s, putting that old technology to use in one last way, I suppose.
Returning to the cavalry trials of 1903, they did have something to compare the Madsen to - most notably earlier variations of two guns that we've already seen in the show,
the Hotchkiss and the Maxim machine guns. Both what we would now consider to be heavy machine guns.
Each of these behemoths, at that time, would require their own carriage or pack horse, plus an additional crew to man them.
The team required to run a single Hotchkiss could man three Madsen Rasmussen recoil rifles.
The Maxim gun had a cost of 4,000 kronor, before accessories. The recoil rifle, in total: 210. That's a lot of savings. In addition to the economic benefits, the recoil rifles were outperforming their bigger brothers. Sure, the Maxim and the Hotchkiss were better at sustained fire
without overheating. Long range, heavy use. But a cavalry mounted machine gun
wasn't expected to be a siege weapon. It wasn't an artillery replacement. The point was to be light, fast, and adaptable. When running a variety of short bursts, and especially when changing positions rapidly, the Madsens were just as reliable,
if not more so, and way more convenient. And so, the model 1903 for cavalry was adopted. While internally nearly identical to the artillery model, this guy sports a shortened barrel, no mounting trunnions, and
a hinged shoulder support. The bipod is set further forward. Initially, 55 guns would be ordered, and were meant to provide three recoil rifles per cavalry squadron, 15 squadrons at a time, and a 10 gun reserve. That number would later
rise to 4 guns per squadron. And, by 1919, some 79 cavalry 1903s would be in service. All right, I know we're getting well into this episode and we've just now made it to something that even looks like our gun today.
If you're wondering why such a deep dive, well, it's because the Madsen really is an extremely early light machine gun.
Which saw a lot of development and trialing. ...All before we see any of the competition
really hit the stage, at all. I mean, the US was still arguing about adopting a Mauser-style rifle at this point. It's a really unique arm story and one worth knowing. So, the model 1903 sets up what we see as a Madsen light machine gun. And, for Denmark, it would be enough to last beyond the Great War period,
which is really all we're covering today, anyway So, if the Danes are done with this gun, how did we get the model that I have here? Well, it's back to those commercial sales through the recoil rifle syndicate.
- Which is still the coolest name. - They look to adapt the new 1903 model for worldwide sales. And the big hump? Well, that would be making it run with rimless ammunition. You see, rimmed ammunition had been simpler to extract mechanically, and had been the sticking point on using that drum-style cartridge interrupter. So, the recoil rifle was modified to include an oblong tipping ejector. Which looks nice and clean on this patent drawing, but, in the actual gun,
that needed a bit more reinforcement. So, we get the tell-tale nut at the base of the receiver. The rotating arm responsible for driving the cartridges into the chamber
was also simplified, reduced from 2 pieces to just 1. It necessitated a corresponding rise in the action cover,
giving the 19:05 an easily spotted “double hump”. The lower portion of the lid now presses on a single, large flat spring.
This provided the downwards pressure necessary on the breech block. That pressure meant being able to drop those fiddly arms on the earlier 1903’s guide plate, which is now just a static piece of
shaped metal set into the side of the receiver. Now, there was one more final change in the rimless 1905, but, unfortunately, it's a little hard to see in those diagrams. Thankfully, however, we have a 1905 right here. So, we can take a closer look. Now, you may notice that the 1905 pattern of Madsen Rasmussen
recoil rifle has a lot of bibbly-boops all over it. And I'm gonna walk you through them, so that you're not confused
in case you find yourself short of light machine guns in the Great War. Number 1,
this is your charging handle. So, if we rack this guy back... Not only will it ready the action, which is now locked open -
and I'll tell you why in a moment - it also opens up our ejection port cover. So, the ejection port, of course, is where all the spent rounds are going to fall out. And if we look down in there,
the lower part of our feeding arm kicks open this particular cover, whenever we rack the action to the rear. That way, you can walk around
with her nice and sealed up, without muck and mud entering this big ol hole. And then, when you're ready for action,
you go ahead and lay down, rack this back, and this guy falls open. If the gun is charged rearward,
if it's open, this thing can't even be closed. The gun must be forward for you to
snap it back shut. Let me get this guy.... Oh, by the way, this is, This is now no longer under spring tension. If it feels like it's in your way,
and you want to leave it locked open, you just push it forward. It rests on this little clip, there.
Should stay in place, unless you really yank it back. So, flip this guy over. And on the other side, there's a lot more going on.
But for now, just focus on this guy. He has a finger piece here. He's got a little bit of a round projection down into the magwell, and then he’s got a finger
that we can't see, that goes through and connects with our breech-block. Now, what it's doing is it's holding the whole action to the rear ... in that sort of recoiled state. So, the barrel and action have come back a little bit, and our breech block is now being cammed one way or the other. This is preventing the barrel from going forward. So, what we're gonna do is, if we were to load this gun from the magazine. And, as a matter of fact, I do have a magazine here. Our rounds, or even the follower, which does distend a little bit -
more on that in a second - that's going to press on the inside of this guy and kick him out. Or, we can grab him with our finger here,
and go ahead and lift him out of the way. That's going to allow things to go back forward into battery. Which,
by the way, is when we can seal that back up again. Well, mostly this guy's got a little old. You can tell.
Sometimes it doesn't like to click shut. So, this really is what you would consider to be a slide lock on a regular handgun. The rest of this gun might seem a little straightforward.
If you’re used to Russian guns, you’d have some guesses. But, unfortunately, you'd be wrong. Because, this is the trigger.
This, however, is not a safety. It's a trigger block, of sorts. But, what it does is it prevents the trigger from going all the way to the rear. In this position, at this depth, the trigger fires the gun once, semi-automatically. And then, if we were to leave this out of our way
and keep pulling the trigger, it's going to fire automatically. Now, with this folded, in the fully automatic setting, that doesn't mean that every pull of the trigger results in
full automatic fire. Instead, you can very easily fire this gun a single shot, and never accidentally set off a burst, with this in the folded position. You must, very consciously, pull past the midpoint to keep this
gun going auto. So, you can sit there and pow-pow-pow As a matter of fact, you don't even have to, like, let off. you can go pow, pow, pow, take a moment, and then if you decide you want full auto, you can keep pulling
to get that full auto. Or, you can let back off and go. [trigger pull] Continue in semi-automatic. It makes it a little difficult to get high accuracy on, sort of, burst fire,
because there is that sort of weird double rhythm - a ‘pow pa-pow pa-pow’ -- ‘pow pa-pa-pa-pow’. You see this on things like the P90, as well. But, overall, I think it works well, because this gun works
better in semi-automatic, anyway. If you're looking for the actual safety, that's this lever right here. That's it. It works down inside the trigger group, internally. Not on the trigger, itself. If we're looking... for the rest of the gun... in terms of what's going on,
just aesthetically, let's go down to the front. So, we have our, mid point. Lower barrel. Rear sight. So, it's forward of all this mess up here. But, it is a good tangent rear sight, based off what I think is
the 1894 Krag, at this point. Not a lot of guns were using this sort of hard tangent rear sight.
Although, it becomes much more common in World War 2, because it is very strong and reliable. It’s slide adjustable up to 2,000 meters.
So, we come further forward. We're gonna get a look at the bipod, which is not attached,
on this particular gun. Although, from period photos and other examples, I know that they had
a spring clip that would go between these two legs and it held them pinched together. And, when they're pinched together,
they can't actually fall away from the gun. It seems that's just gone missing on this. So, they tend to flop around. A bit of a pain without that clip. But with it, it would have been perfectly acceptable. These guys fold out and are caught at the front. So, you can't lean into the gun. Because, if you did, it would fold up on you. You can let the gun lean back and it eats up some of that recoil.
At the far end of these guys, we have a spike for setting down in the dirt. And, we had this
cantilevered sort of oddly shaped piece. What it's doing is it's giving us a lot of surface area, so that the gun
does not sink down into the mud or muck. This has actually worked. The Madsen was very stable about not sinking,
when other guns would when we were in the wet Carolina mud. Now, this is also a telescoping bipod. It has two positions that it can click past. That's accomplished by these little spring
sort of shaped detents that you push back in. Then you can push the gun back down to its lower setting.
And then, if I get my way to the front... And, actually, let me spin this around, so you can see it better. So, this is an awkward shape to handle in front of the camera. We have the underside of our bipod and you can see that there is a
little bit of left/right play, maybe 30 degrees. That's so that you can have a high or low side without too much trouble, be able to mount it on uneven terrain or a hill. Works out pretty well, in my opinion. And then, if we get to the front,
we're gonna see that we have our muzzle, our shroud, and our front sight. Which is also partially protected on either side, but not over top. Still looks like
it's nested down in there pretty well. Very unlikely to be damaged. And again, since this is a recoil operated gun... If I can get this to where you guys can see it, and it's a little stabilized... You'll see that, yes indeed, that barrel
does retract when I retract the action. So, there is a little bit of movement there. Not long recoil, but short recoil. Okay, let's get this back up front. Ooomph! Sorry boys. At the rear of the gun, we have sort of a swan neck stock, rear sling swivel. During the war, most of these would have a bit of a wood hook down here, for your offhand to rest on. This one does not. It's an earlier model. And, they
may even have a monopod that had a screw setting, so you would just turn this thing like a wind-up music-box and it would just start pushing out a monopod. This one does not have that, either. But, it does have our
shoulder thing, what goes up. So, if we look at the top of this thing... It's hinged. And, this guy just pops and springs into place locks in.
Looking at it from the side again, you'll see that your shoulder can rest up in here. Well, maybe your shoulder.
I'm a little too big for this thing. So, I tend to leave it folded. I notice no discomfort. And, you would leave it folded for a lot of things
where you had to aim, maybe upwards, because this is really not going to help you aim upwards.
It's gonna be better for a level or downward shooting. Again, don't forget, these things were thought to be used on fortresses,
as well as by cavalry. So those were the two major roles. Let me get this. Oh. To the rear... Now, of course, that's not how it was used.
But that's just how they thought of it. If we're looking at the mid point of the gun again, I want to point out how weird this magazine feed is. We have this open basket of a magwell, and there's an interrupter system in there
that we’ll kind of see in a minute. And, it's going to allow only 1 cartridge at a time to feed into there. And if we open this guy up, we can see, operating the action,
there's gonna be... Yeah, see this arm up in here? See if I can get him to move again. There, it goes forward. Right there. Here, he comes back. There's that arm. That arm’s just
shoving those cartridges into the chamber from the side. It's also the lower half the arm is what opened up our ejection port. So, that's going to push them in. There's a cut off in there, so only 1 is being pushed at a time. And, we also have this spring sitting on a hinge, this flat spring is just pushing down on the breech block. That's all it really does. More on that, in a moment. With this cover open,
by the way, I should tell you, there's not a lot that you're getting in terms of utility out of opening the top of this gun. You can barely see if the cartridge is chambered. I mean, you really got squint in there to see the back end of a loaded cartridge. The action does not flip up, as you just saw. So, you can really only lubricate and vaguely inspect from up here. You really have to
take the gun apart to do any work on it. You can't ... it's not like a Maxim, you know. You can't go into
the top and get work done. You have to break open the rear. But, turning back to our mag well... I want to explain. You see how deep this is?
That creates a very unique situation for this gun. And so, it has very unique magazines. This is the magazine as it should be, empty. And, here, are some 7 millimeter snap caps, because
this one is in 7 mil. In order to load this magazine, I have to hold on to the follower and push it back through this spring that's right here, on the side of the gun. Or, I lift it myself, since I don't want to beat it up. And, then, all of our cartridges have to snap past this same spring.
You can, kind of, ease on it, to make it a little bit better. But, of course, if you accidentally go too far, it's just going to
throw everything back out of the system. The follower can come all the way out very easily, and you notice it
has a second shelf. That second shelf is so that it can be caught by the spring in an intentionally distended position.
And there's a reason for that. I want to show you. Let me get a couple of rounds in here, real quick. So, we’ll go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Okay, five dum-dum, not real at all rounds. And, I'm gonna get this guy
over here. And, I'm just gonna go ahead and load this mag, which is really pretty fiddly. It's got to be toed in at the front. And then, as we close it down, you're gonna see this spring is pushed out of the way. And, eventually, this will lock over. Now, if it's a poor fit, this guy
will not drive himself all the way to the rear. And… ah, boy, that's flimsy. You see how delicate I'm being with it? These mags, 9 times out of 10, we go to shoot them and they
fall off the gun. Because, at the bottom corners, they're really getting worn out after a hundred years of service.
And this is some soft material. I mean probably brass or tin. So, we can see there's... Well, you guys can't see, but I can see.
Let me get this spun around. This is a big gun to spin around. There is a slight load indicator, at the rear of the magazine. It's a little tiny window here,
that just tells you a couple more rounds are coming. But, I don't know how useful that is, because... Let me get this back up again. Whenever you release this gun. So, we'll push this paddle. Or, the mag, rather.
We’ll release the mag.
We’ll push the paddle. It has retained, you know, some rounds. They’re still in the mag. It's being held in by this spring that's sprung back in the way, but
you notice there's still some rounds in this hopper. Two ... Let me get that out. Two rounds can float in that hopper. And, without proper spring pressure,
the gun will jam up on them. So, reloading and not paying attention to what you're doing reloading, this gun... There's a lot of ways to accidentally end up with one in the chamber and not expect it. If you ever encounter one of these guns, do not count it as inherently safe
until you've triple, quadruple checked. They have a very weird feed system. All right, let's talk about disassembly.
Alright, I made some room now. Like I said, you can get some access through this cover, not a lot. There's a singular spring in there, that we already saw. Let me flip this over and we'll talk about what it's doing,
as we disassemble part of this gun. This plate right here is actually a separate piece that is very important to the function of this gun and timing of it.
And, they've interestingly left it as a separate piece, so that it can be serviced independently.
So we've got a small, very-losable screw. And then, this guy lifts off. And once I'm in there, there are some hieroglyphics. Look at this thing. This is actually the timing of the gun. This is what's handling our breech block If I move it aside, you'll see there's a spud here that interacts with it. And I'm gonna show it to
this front camera, and then I'm gonna flip it around. Because, remember, it's supposed to be down in there. And... So, imagine the gun’s facing this way, now, because I've had to spin this
so you can see it. But, our spud will travel into … Where am I at..? Our spud will travel into the gun and it'll be carried upwards,
whether it likes it or not, drop down, the spring tension will push it further down, to bring it back, back up and back the way she came. So, in that regard, this thing's timed with a single spring, in order to drive it up and down
at the appropriate times for the gun to run. This is a very simple system, compared to the previous that had those two fingers
that told it which way to go, and were acted upon by outside forces. Very, very simple. Big improvements. I'm gonna set these little fiddly bits aside.
We'll get further into the gun. Let me spin this around. ...Whack my own tripod, because this bipod is the devil, without the clip on it. Here's our takedown screw. So, I'm gonna pop this guy around a few times... pull her free, and then the gun just breaks in half. I'll fold it up. She'll come apart. The rear side of all this is our trigger group. Let me get where we can see it. There's not a lot going on there, and none of it really comes out
for field disassembly. So, we're going to talk about this when we have x-ray specs. Instead, let's look at this barreled action, because this is the part that
everybody gets excited about. Get this guy out of our way. Especially keep that spring out of our way. And we'll pull... basically our breech block, our barrel, and essentially a barrel extension -
not unlike a C96 pistol. It's all one big thing. I'll pull that out of the action And then let me get this big old shell out of the way, because I have
limited space available. Okay. Barrel, and action. So, what we have here is the breech block itself - it’s the tipping thing
that you're seeing now. Then we have... This is that feed arm that we saw, this end of which shoves the next cartridge in.
And, at the bottom end of this... This is what was impacting, see how this would come around and
kick open our ejection port cover. Over here, is our extractor. And this is actually, sort of, the most interesting thing, because it's just,
all it is, is a little boot that flicks the cartridge out. Let me see if I can get where you can see it. So, that little booty would just
kick that thing out. Kick it out. Kick it out. This thing is the biggest pain in the butt when you put the gun back together,
because you must depress this, and tip that. And, if you get it just right - you get used to it when reassembling the gun - you can get
the gun to do the depressing part and you've got to get a fing… a thumb in there, and really get that flush. It's so that it'll feed in. I usually end up having to hook the finger on it, and shove it in. This whole piece right here is the thing that really slows
this down, when people talk about this being a quick-change barrel. This is a medium-speed-change barrel. Very exciting, compared to anything else. But, not as quick as
you would hope, because there's still some little micro things you have to do to get this gun assembled.
Also, don't forget while you're doing that, at a minimum, you have to remove this thing. And this is very small, so it can
go flying and get lost pretty easily. Okay, so we feed in here. When this guy's aligned, we’ll fire.
When she pops up... Okay? Then this ejector has the ability to boot out that spent casing.
The next casing can get fed in as she comes down and realigns. And that's the whole thing. That's the up-and-down of it
for the breech block. Nothing too complicated there at the rear, we have a strike point
for being able to discharge, which carries through the lower part of this block. Which is actually in the more upwards position. That allows the firing pin to come into alignment. I know you can't see that here. That's going to be something that
we’ll see better in our animation. Overall, if we're talking about it as a disassembled system, I think it's acceptable,
especially for its time period. But, you know, we've got this, we got that, we have the the big barrel shroud, and then we have a bunch of little fiddly bits. So, there's some limitations there also. I want to make sure since, because of our earlier conversation,
to show you one more piece. This is something that we actually had to remanufacture to repair this gun. Thank you, Mark, for that effort. But, the part I want to talk about lives down inside the mag well, right about here. And, it's gonna be very hard to show you on any camera. But, essentially, it's this little flippy bit right here, and it has
very little movement to it. But, boy, is it important in terms of stacking up which Cartridge is next, and when. It allows things to rest where they should rest,
and not enter the action too soon. I know you can't see it well. So, I'm going to get you a photo. Again,
it's like our slicer analogy, earlier. Except, it has to have a rear tab to hold it into its guide, like
guided up-and-down position. It also has to have that square hole in it, to allow our, essentially, slide lock ... although, this is not a slide. Our action lock open has to be able to reach through it, in order to make contact with the inside of the breech system. So, again, I think accidentally said “breech block” earlier.
The “breech block” is actually floating in here. It's sort of this barrel extension, that it rests right in that square,
and locks this sucker open. So, pretty critical. And, yet, what a wild part, like a weird way to do that. Obviously, there's some limitations on how strong that can be,
and I'm not surprised that that part was missing. It's probably broken on this gun. We managed to come with a kludge that
will hold this thing together and fire for our purposes. So, we're actually gonna try again to make a perfect representation of it. Although, he'll probably need two or three of them, when we make the one,
because I don't have high hopes. Even this one's starting to show signs of torque, because of how much energy is sort of, dropped on this little piece. And, I think this might be the
Achilles heel of this design. And I feel like Madsen Rasmussen agrees with me, because this design did not last long.
They went back to the drum style that we saw earlier. It's weird how fast I can get these back together. I know this looks kind of like a weird mess of parts. Like I'm showing you little bits and bobs and trying to visualize
how they actually interact. It's pretty wild. But, luckily, our friend over at Vbbsmyt has helped us out. [Voiceover (Mae)]
Now, Rob built this animation from a slightly different model he had available. So, there may be a couple minor differences, but the major concepts are here. Our 1905 trigger group is a bit different, but the safety is identical. It's just a lug turning in front of the sear, preventing the release of the hammer. Looking at the gun in action, you can see the vertical, single-stack feed, with the cartridges having
displaced the action lock, as they are fed into the gun. Also note the recoil spring lever, in green. This drives the barreled action forward after each shot. To the left, is the hammer, with its own smaller spring. In pink, we see the cartridge interrupter, which keeps the next round in the magazine from dragging on the breech block and from entering the feed prematurely. Once through the gap, the cartridges are pressed forward by the rocking feed
arm, delivering them to the chamber. The breech block rises to seal the action and align the firing pin. The hammer is released to
fall on a rocking arm, here in baby food yellow. This transfers the blow to the firing pin, in red. Because this is a tilting block, the firing pin is never aligned with a primer, unless the gun is in a locked position
- making for a natural out-of-battery safety. From the other side, we can see the guide plate, in green, which directs
the breech block up and down, thanks to the stud, in red. Note the overhead spring, in burgundy,
which provides constant downwards pressure. There are, essentially, three positions for the breech block: Low, for feeding in a cartridge. Medium, for aligning the firing pin while locked.
And high, clearing the way for ejection. The ejection system is fairly complicated, with a tipping arm, here in blue,
that throws spent cases from the action. A spring-powered finger keeps the ejector under pressure, to remain vertical.
But, a shaped lug at the bottom of the receiver forcibly tips it as the action recoils. Once our ammunition is expended, the pressure on the locking arm is released,
and it's free to spring its lower projecting lug into a notch in the barreled action, locking the gun open.
All right, let's get this into my hands for a demonstration. [Music] [Warp 9, engage] [Machinery crashing] [Angry hammering] [Roaring chant of 10,000 cockroaches] [Music] (Othais) Okay, this gun is pretty dang cool, but I do have to let you guys know
something a little less happy. Vilhelm Madsen lost his job. It seems he was never quite adept at the political stage,
and his appointment didn't last long. He became the Minister of War in 1901, and was forced to resign on
Christmas Eve of 1904. He had become embroiled in scandal. Basically, Madsen had put the
finishing touches on some of the Copenhagen fortifications. He had moved some magazines to the western wall and sold the land
that they'd previously occupied, to pay for the construction. To him, it was a net-neutral move, that better organized Copenhagen's defense.
The government and their voters... They saw it as more military expansion. But, for now, that matter floated on by. But, during the Russo-Japanese War,
he tried something similar, again. And, this time, with barges and crew quarters. He also, sort of got into a bit of a pissing match with the Navy,
over putting a gun on the Nodre Ros lighthouse. The backlash was extreme and he was forced to step down. His resignation also kicked off another round of political upheaval. It was a pretty heavy effect on the government. But that's another matter,
for someone else, honestly. That's really not our focus. Surprisingly, despite all of this,
Denmark was not done with his recoil rifle. Sure, interests flagged for a bit. But by 1906, the question of an automatic gun for the infantry was brought back up. And, surprisingly, the
Madsen Rasmussen received pretty broad support. That's because, as a machine gun, it gave the smaller Danish army more firepower per man. And, it was light and mobile, and required few dedicated troops to manage;
again, as compared to the world-renowned Maxim, which was the standard at the time. Experiments would be carried out with bicycles and motorcycles. And one particularly good idea was forwarded by First Lieutenant Halvor Jessen. Since the barreled action is so easy to remove, Why not issue several spare, so that when the gun grows too hot to keep firing, you can just quickly strip it out and throw a fresh, cool set in? Now,I can't prove that was a design choice made by Madsen and Rasmussen. But, by happy accident, this may be the first quick-change barreled light machine gun. Over these years, a new telescoping bipod was introduced, which allowed
the gun to be used from a seated position. Guns were also fitted with a monopod in the stock, to help stabilize when the bipod was extended. And a fin-like gripping aid was carved out of this stock at the bottom, allowing
the shooter to better control the gun with their off hand. They were also fitted with an improved cartridge stop system that actually
went back to that old tumbler style. Which more positively prevented a lone cartridge being left behind in the action on lock-open. And the fire rate was slightly reduced for more accurate shooting.
Just a reminder, these features were added to the Danish government 1903 models, not the improved 1905. The Danish government never adopted that one.
The new pattern went into trials in 1914, but they were cut short when War Were Declared. [Woodpecker sounds] The overwhelming need for automatics during World War One had the Danish Army press the trials guns directly into service. And, they even pulled from
artillery stocks, to make more. But, none of those 1903/14 patterns were actually used in the Great War,
because Denmark remained neutral. I just really wanted to wrap out that bit of development history for you.
...Also, kind of, had an effect on this gun. Now, this is the most advanced Madsen in the Great War, this guy right here.
The 1905 pattern. Whether it picked up little extra names here or there, it doesn't matter.
This is the gun we're talking about. Most, however, would adopt that off-hand support - that bracing thing -
you'd see a monopod at the rear. This guy still has the telescoping bipod, though. So, we're somewhere near early production, but we've still picked up
some of the updates, just not all of them. These guys were used by a myriad of nations, in small numbers.
And we're going to explore all of that, in our next episode. That's gonna be along with the who, the where, and we'll get Mae to demonstrate
a little further. And we'll have a nice conversation about how things went. But, for right now, this is where we're at. If you're super excited to see more of this gun, don't forget we did do Project Lightning with it. But, before I go, I want to make sure, right here and now, that I thank my friend
Folke for his help in locating some reference material, and our gun donor Claus, who had let me have this thing
for a full year. Which was necessary, because I have to thank Mark for fabricating that make-do part … and I can only accomplish that, because
Alex Mackenzie, who is the Curator at the Springfield National Historic Site, was kind enough to dig up a partially-dismantled example of one of these,
which still had that piece, that we were missing. And he kindly sent along what we needed to replicate it, roughly. It really takes a village to keep this idiot going. So, thank you all for participating. Alright, gang. If you're watching this fairly fresh, then you'll know that, sometime around February 22nd - that weekend of - is the show of shows. I am gonna go stick my nose in there on Saturday,
and then the gun show, on Sunday. So, if you happen to be around, say hello. There's no planned events for it. It's a bit of a hodgepodge, getting up there.
I'm gonna be running back and forth very quickly. So, not a lot of planning into this one. Now, and in addition to that,
if you're a patron or you're a run SubscribeStar, keep an eye out for, of course, our post-show ‘Unloaded’ podcast-y thing. Mae and I believe are going to be
discussing a little bit about what a modern state-level gun collecting organization should or should not be. Very curious how people feel about that sort of thing again.
You can catch that on SubscribeStar or Patreon. Okay. Have a good one.
