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Background:
The machinegun
is unusual because it is the only successful military machine gun working on
the delayed blowback system before H&K systems at 1950.
Mechanism (private collection)
The machine gun
has got its name after its constructor Andreas Wilhelm Schwarzlose
(1867-1936) who lived in Charlottenberg, Germany. It was first produced by
Steyer in Austria 1902.
The machine gun
has a small number of moving parts and a fixed barrel. It saw service during
both the Great War and WW2.
This is a water
cooled Medium Machine Gun (MMG).
The Schwarzlose
Machine Gun M1907 was an extremely simple mechanism compared to other famous
designs like Maxims. It was easy to make and proved reliable. The designer
had managed to solve the problem with a delayed blowback system. The problem
is that the breech starts moving backwards immediately as the cartridge is
fired. The gas pressure is still very high and the walls of the cartridge
case are expanded towards the chamber, which will cause very high friction.
At the same time the extractor starts pulling out the empty cartridge case.
The problem was solved by using very strong recoil springs and recoil parts
together with a very short barrel. When the bullet left the barrel the
pressure dropped while the kinetic energy of the recoil parts continued to
pull out the empty cartridge case and reload the gun. The Schwarzlose
machine gun has a device for oiling each cartridge to ease the reloading
cycle. On each stroke oil was squirted into the firing chamber to lubricate
the incoming cartridge case.
1912 some
changes were made to the feed system and this change was called M1907/12. It
had a straight top receiver and a simplified oil pad system instead of the
pump mechanism.
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