Wanted: Vickers .50 tech data

[Lynn Eades]

The nomenclature for these guns is: "Guns, Machine, Vickers, .5-in., MkV"
(not just .5, but .5-in)
This I believe is a rimmed cartridge. Can someone please confirm or otherwise.

The various guns were:

a MkI, a Mk IVA, a Mk IVB, A MkVI, a MkVI* and a MkVII all in .303-in.

In .5-in. there were a few MkI guns,(trials in M.G.carriers) then a MkII in dual mounts in armoured cars. Then there were a few MkIV with 303 sized mounting slides built. These suffered breakages which lead to the development of the MkV gun.

The Mk II,Mk III,and MkV .303-in. guns were air ministry guns while the Mk III .5-in guns were special to naval requirements.

This all from a 1940 publication,(training pam) "Machine gun handbook (technical) Vol.1 Pamphlet No.1."

There is a detailed description of the MkV gun, in this book if required.

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Lynn Eades

This I believe is a rimmed cartridge. Can someone please confirm or otherwise.

Originally Posted by Tony Smith

Some good reading by Forum member Tony Williams HERE

Confirmation for you here, Lynn,

[Dave lean]

Hi Lynn, thanks for the additional info and clarification. This subject seems to have caused quite a degree of interest with members and others. You will forgive this old grunt for being lazy and simply referring to the weapon as a .5 in all these exchanges as typing in its correct nomenclature every time will result in my developing RSI....Some very good leads and helpful info is coming in on this weapon so I am confident that very convincing examples can
now be made. Once I have sufficient detail I will start work on all four Vickers and post progress as I go. cheers Dok

[Lynn Eades]

Hi Dave, Tony, I wouldn't want to type it in every time either and as I cant even put the dot in the middle, I can't even do it properly once. Anyhow, I was just trying to clarify as Tony stopped short of the full deal.
Thanks on the bullet being rimless. I didn't know one way or the other, but with Vickers building guns to work with the British rimmed .303, then I expected the .5-in. round might be the (impractical) same. The Vickers was obviously built in a number of different calibers, my guess being the majority were rimless. I just didn't know / remember and never took the trouble to check. Thank you.