Thank you. Understanding the technical specs of a weapon is often very different (and sometimes irrelevant) to how they were used in practice. We’ve much more coming on that very soon!
I had no idea any of this existed. Great to see a bit of the firearm culture that does exist in the UK. Almost all of the guns here in the States I've purchased have primarily been out of admiration for their historical value. The shows, the movies, the documentaries, and the books are all fascinating, but there's a special kind of appreciation for history when you can own and operate a piece of it. Everyone should get the chance to experience that side of it. 🇺🇸🇬🇧
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. The objects are just one part of history but they provide great opportunities for interpretation and understanding. We write and publish a lot based on them.
Great explanation much better than an explanation I tried to give to an American the way a group in the UK could have Section 5 weapons. He kept telling me I was wrong as the weapons were prohibited so no one could own them.
As a gun owner myself, it also stuns me sometimes when the average Joe does not realise they too can own guns in the UK. I have come across a fair few that firmly believe that owning a gun in the UK is illegal.....then I have to explain why they are wrong - or more to the point that they have been misinformed...
We have some great conversations about this sort of thing, especially when people come and visit. Many firearms owners come a little perplexed too as it’s a truly niche area.
Thankyou for this fascinating look into legal machinegun ownership in the UK .As an American we are a little spoiled . Acquiring fully automatic weapons in the states is not very difficult its somewhat time consuming but most of all very expensive, the number of legal registered machineguns in the hands of collectors number well into the hundreds of thousands and this inventory is constantly moving. Thanks Again for this informative post.
Glad you enjoyed the video and found it informative. The balance of supply and demand does cause the prices to go high which is thankfully not a problem in the UK where demand is low and supply is not limited in the same way. Here’s a video on one of the low-cost items we bought recently: A new Vickers machine gun in the collection - first look at the same time as Rich! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pb8MbOdxxYs.html
I am so glad that there are people like yourselves who go to the trouble of preserving our past. It's so important that you are allowed to carry on with what you do as the history of weapons and war is a vital part of what our children are taught so as hopefully it will never happen again. Also it's so important that these weapons are preserved for all of us to see how they work and the magnificent engineering that went into them. Thank you and all of your team for the opportunity to be able to see these wonderful works of art in full operation. I know as a gun owner of the hoops you have to jump through to be able to have these weapons so you have my full respect for what you and your team do. Keep up the great work. All the best to you and your team. I hope 👍👍👍👍
Thank you Peter. We had a visit yesterday with a mix of people interested in the guns themselves but also the social and industrial heritage that they're so important in helping tell the story of.
There are a lot of RU-vid channels from the U.S. that have a very different perspective on firearms, their availability and their use. Some are intelligent and reasoned. Some, less so. It’s good to see your excellent presentation from a British legal standpoint and in my opinion, your organisation’s healthy relationship with weapons.
Thanks for the comment, and for keeping it a great balanced perspective. One of our drivers is professionalisation of what we do as well so it's appreciated when that's seen.
Great video. I didn't know about this association and I'm very pleased to see it exist. This is good content and bound to grow the brand. I'm a UK shooter and firearms owner, and as others have pointed out, it's remarkable how little people know about firearms in this country.
Thanks Todd. If you'd like to visit, we're in Swindon, Wiltshire, and hold quite a few open days a year where we will do blank firing demonstrations of the Vickers too. vickersmg.blog/visits/
Absolutely fantastic! Never even knew that your organisation existed! I've not had the pleasure of firing a fully automatic firearm since I left the Service of Her Majesty The Queen in 1998, and never had the experience of a Vickers! Hope that you continue to have the privilege of educating people about this wonderful historic weapon in the condition (Live firing) that it should be in for many years to come!!
Love the Bren. having used the GPMG, it is a weapon I have often thought it would be good to fire. Of the older weapons, I have fired the Thompson and M1 Garand, but I still think the Bren looks the part and was certainly, a very effective weapon. Hats off to the Germans as well for creating the MG34, 42 and many others.
If you want to see some videos on the MG42 versus the Bren and much more then head over and support our crowdfunder. vickersmg.blog/product/project-spandau/
I find it interesting to compare firearm laws on the UK compared to the US. On one hand, owning guns is much more difficult but in other ways (specifically suppressors) it is much easier.
There are many differences in most areas. We explored some of them in a podcast with High Caliber History a couple of years ago which might be worth a listen: open.spotify.com/episode/0pqvCriAvQkMoB8WcxzMXd?si=tOGLkWstTwi-owM67PV1Ag
Hopefully our video has made this a bit clearer. There are a lot of comments on the subject that we have not been able to share as the politics of gun ownership is so contentious that many are inappropriate.
Glad to see you keeping history alive. I'm viewing to see the weapons my father, uncles and grandfather used when they served. I have a picture my father took on Stirling Lines in Libya in the 1940's and my Uncles dog tags that he wore in WW2 with the 51st Highland Division at St Valerie , from which he managed to escape but was taken POW in the desert campaign. Glad to see how difficult it is to own and operate these.
Very interesting, I used the 7.62mm 'Bren' in the TA back in the early 80s, which could only be fired full-auto and only on certain ranges which were cleared for it, one of which was the range at Whitburn, which faced out to sea. Despite the red flags and the sound of gunfire, we regularly had to ceasefire because some numpty with a dog would think it OK to walk calmly across the end of the range. We never got to fire the SMG full auto, I don't think we had any ranges in the area cleared for that nasty little thing - you had to keep them inside your sleeping bag when you slept, and the magazine well was not a nice thing to roll-over onto, the SLR was a much better bet.
Thankfully we don't have to sleep with the Vickers - it would need a doss bag of it's own! We'll have some SMG firing this week so will be sharing that soon. Head over to www.patreon.com/vickersmg and subscribe to support us if you can.
I only fired the vickers once as a young cadet many years ago, but have many happy memories of range days with the Bren, both the .303 and 7.62 versions.
for film work companies are moving away from real firearms in light of the risk to the person they are pointed at. they are using soft air guns. they look and feel like the real thing. and they can fire on full auto, including assault rifles and sub machine guns. fantastic what you guys are doing
Thanks Paul. Yes, we're aware that there are some active decisions being made to reduce risk on set. It will be interesting to see how that industry reacts to it and adapts to the different requirements.
Very informative. Even in countries with very strict gun laws, there are always means for people to have guns. You just have to jump through the right hoops.
This is an excellent and informative video and benefits all viewers whether they be pro-gun, anti-gun, or just casual viewers. Personally, I'm glad that the UK gun laws are VERY stringent; and that you have to have good reasons, good people and good security to possess such weapons. I do understand that for some vocations that guns are required, but it is also quite a relief to know that we have very stringent checks to ensure that the people who do have guns are licensed, trained, knowledgeable and store their guns safely to protect others from harm. I do also appreciate that UK gun legislation must make the owning and operating of VickersMG much more difficult, but by doing things correctly as you are doing, people do benefit by learning about the history with regards to guns and conflict in a more enriching environment where people actually get to see the guns being used and how they really changed wars and conflicts after their inception. It also helps by knowing that the people in VickerMG who handle the guns know what they are doing and that the guns are safe from people who would steal them and use them for nefarious purposes.
Thank you very much for commenting and we’re very glad you found the video interesting and informative. Section 5 is not a dark art or secretive like many would think. - Rich
Very well explained on the firearm laws in the UK. I always assume that in the UK only certain and strict firearms were allowed for the public. I did not know a semi automatic pistol could be classified as a section 5. Overall though, very interesting and thoroughly explained. Good stuff.
Spot on and really clear explanation. I am an RFD as well as a personal FAC/SGC holder. It’s fantastic you are educating the public on firearms. We have just got a new shooting club off the ground and hope we can use this to promote the shooting sports and educate people in the safe use of firearms.
Thanks Neil, if you’d ever like to bring the club down to have a look around, you’d be very welcome. If there are members with historic rifles as well, then we’ve got some safety material that might be of use.
I used to work in munitions and you'd be surprised at the number of employees who had never fired a single round despite turning out millions of the damn things! I had worked there 20 years before I had the opportunity. The most memorable time was a day visit to the Royal Armouries Pattern Room at Nottingham which holds thousands of weapons, historic through to present day. I don't think its open to the general public though.
The Pattern Room is now part of the National Firearms Centre held with the Royal Armouries in Leeds. Not open to the public but we work with them on many things and provided the automatic firing demonstration for their historical firearms weekend in April (which is in some of the clips in this video).
An absolutely _brilliant_ explanation about how you can legally demonstrate an arcane yet historically important aspect of 20th century military history. As a former NRA-ILA employee who had to study foreign firearms laws as part of my legislative job, I have always wondered how your group could own these strictly controlled firearms in a nation with very tough gun prohibitions. You provided all of those answers in this fine video. If I ever get back to the UK I will try my best to make it to one of your association's demonstrations. I know you could use the dosh to purchase the vast quantity of .303 consumed by these vintage warhorses!
Thank you for your comment and a great perspective (I had to look up the ILA bit of the NRA to understand a bit more). Please do come along and see us if you ever get the chance. As you say, these vintage warhorses consume plenty! - Rich.
Nothing planned at the moment but stay tuned to our social media and subscribe to our newsletter - eepurl.com/imlBQQ. Finance is the big issue for this as we're still paying off the loan for last year's event. Please support us by joining our RU-vid members or Patreon at www.patreon.com/vickersmg.
Have you seen any of the videos from the Soledar salt mines in Ukraine? They were recently captured by the Russians, it was a used as an arsenal. In part of the footage they opened crates of brand new Vickers machine guns.
What they’re finding are Maxim M1910 machine guns we think. Many of the US Thompsons in the UK are from this mine and we’re sold by Ukraine before 2014. One of our members who runs @thearmourersbench did a video on it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ApFT-pLcAXQ.html
Interesting video. As a French, I don’t know British rules about firearms. What is Section 5 ? Which weapons are concerned ? In France we have 4 categories : A : prohibited weapons (full-auto firing) ; B : weapons subject to authorization (semi-auto firing) ; C : weapons subject to declaration (repeating arms) ; D : other-the-counter weapons (if over 18). What about the UK ?
It's good to know that security and safety around these things is high, it should be and it needs to be. Thank you for being a part of showing younger generations all their is to know about British History, both of War, and of Firearms, especially the well known Vickers. I have a question I was hoping you could answer; For every 1-Hour of Firing Time on one of these incredibly fascinating machines (Weapons) roughly how many hours do you then spend on cleaning, maintaining, repairing, and replacing parts/making parts for just a single vickers? I can only assume that they require a lot of care and attention to stay in perfect operating condition. I have always wondered how security is ensured when it comes to getting new parts manufactured or repaired or refurbished, because theirs got to be a high level of accountability beyond the normal standards to ensure that only those people who are allowed access to that content retain access to it.
Glad you liked the video and what we do. You mention younger generations and we're pleased to say that some of our work last year actually had Year 9 (13-14 years old) acting as number 2 on the gun feeding the ammunition belts. It was a great experience for all of us. It's difficult to identify the maintenance time as whether we fire one round or one thousand rounds, it takes about 30 minutes to clean it. All of the parts are so old that we don't know their previous lives but we spend several days' worth of effort making replacement or spare parts for them each year, from a couple of our very talented members who are servants of the RFD. We have most of the equipment and skills in house to do it for one-off items but the multiples are where we sometimes need (regulated) external expertise.
Vickers MG: Cutting down people in their prime since 1914. I saw one up close at a shotgun range, it was just sitting in the middle of the floor. I assume it was deactivated but you never know.
If you were able to get up close then most probably deactivated as there are plenty around. PS - it was introduced to the British Army in 1912! Brief intro video coming soon as we're aware we've never actually covered the basics on some of these.
There are lots of nuances and differences in the legal position on machine guns. It's likely that there are provisions deep in the legislation for this sort of thing in Australia but requires the strong justification as we do here.
Great video! Really enjoyed learning about the system in place for firearms. What would be super awesome for a future video to invite Jonathan Ferguson, a weapons expert and Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries for a tour and a live fire test. It would be a fantastic team-up!
We know Jonathan and although we’ve not been on camera together, we have done work at the Royal Armouries - we did some of the firing demonstrations at their historical firearms weekend in April. It would be great to do more.
An M53. Why not an MG3 though, considering that those are being retired in favour of the MG5 and have the ability to shoot commonly-available modern ammunition?
Wonder when you'll be getting an 08/15? Since it was the opposition's WW1 equivalent. By the way, well done on everything you do. One day I hope to visit.
Parks Canada operates a large number of historic weapons demonstration programs and sites. Their historic weapons range from swivel guns of the Portuguese whaling posts in 1400s Newfoundland and Labrador, through fur trade flintlocks, 1800s cartridge muskets, early 20th century "cowboy" rifles and handguns, and yes, WW1 and WW2 military small arms. As a national agency they must respond to workplace health and safety precautions. The non-period but scientifically proven hearing protection for all demonstrators are bright orange expanding foam ear plugs.
We consider our firearms ‘work equipment’ for our members so employ the same training and protections as if they were a piece of workshop machinery. Parks Canada sounds like an interesting organisation.
Even though I have never heard of you or seen your events this was an amazing video, and now I feel I should give you guys a look. I am also looking into geting deactivated guns. How easy is it now compared to the early 2000s? As I know with the EU and other organisations it just seems very complicated to understand how to obtain them?
If you're in the UK and over 18 there's no restrictions on purchasing a deactivated former firearm that's to current spec., it just depends what you're lookimg for and how deep your pockets are. There are a number of specialist dealers who sell online and many who attend events and fairs in person, you can turn up with your credit card and walk away with a deac., simple as that really. Other than appearance, the current UK/EU deactivation specs. are more than adequate to ensure nothing that's been through a UK proof house would be readily reactivated so no form of licencing, registration or back round checks are necessary, because frankly, they're not necessary. Anything you buy should come with a current deac. cert, anything to an older spec. is now regarded a "deffectively deactivated" so can no longer legally be bought, sold, gifted or traded anyway as a private citizen, but there's still plenty about to current UK/EU spec. anyway and as long as you're sensible about transport, storage and ownership then you'll have no real problems.
Well we’re glad you’ve found us now. @jonprince3237 has explained the state of play quite well. Not much difference in terms of ownership from the early 2000s (for the over 18s anyway). Head over to www.VickersMG.org to find out more about us.
The large shoot was a commemorative event and was free to visit (we received some donations to help cover an element of the cost but we’re still paying it back!). Generally follow our social media for details. We do have another, albeit smaller, shoot being planned at the moment.
Do you always fire blanks? Also, if not where do you source .303? PPU? I'd imagine you'd need to purchase in bulk as .303 has become quite expensive now...annoyingly!
The majority of the fire in this video is of ball ammunition. Only the inside firing and the display in the middle of the city were blank ammunition. Here’s a video of the largest event we did last year, with 16,000 rounds of ammunition from PPU. Yes we buy at trade rates but it’s still very expensive. Please do support us if you can at www.patreon.com/VickersMG. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tdGOb0Jnzrs.html
Can you give me an idea what you are paying for bullets currently? Do you load your own? I was looking at getting a SMLE a few years ago but there was only a couple of manufacturers still making bullets and I’m sure it was only FMJ, whereas I need soft points for deer and long range fox so sadly it just wasn’t a viable option. But for any full bore bullets in the U.K. they’re well over a quid a shot now. So what do you guys do? Being an RFD can you source milsurplus? I’d be really interested in your response!
Well we don't reload our own because of the volumes we use and the need to disburse some of the liability risk so we use factory ammunition which is usually PPU as we find S&B doesn't feed as well in the Vickers (and we keep the same across all the guns). We do thankfully get trade rates for the ammunition and for our non-directly funded firing we are able to reclaim the VAT so it becomes better value for us. We have used some surplus ammunition but the degradation can sometime be a concern for gas or recoil operated guns. As you know, it's all expensive stuff so please do head over to www.patreon.com/vickersmg and subscribe to support us and access more of our material. - Rich.
Many people would! If we could fund the Association like that, I don’t think we’d ever need to worry about fundraising but alas it’s not to be and we rely on the likes of www.patreon.com/VickersMG and our book sales.
Yes it does. They are specific terms in the authorisation but they can be covered. We, for example, have the authorisation to manufacture prohibited parts as we need to.
Yes they are. As a not-for-profit limited company, we are subject to health and safety law as much as firearms law and we treat our firearms as work equipment and protect against the risks of using that.
There are several sources including specialist firearms auctions and other firearms dealers. This is a recent acquisition: A new Vickers machine gun in the collection - first look at the same time as Rich! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pb8MbOdxxYs.html
No. Only our appointed ‘servants’ that have been notified to the Police and have had our training are able to fire (unless you are a member of the armed forces, an RFD or similar doing it on duty).
I'm afraid it isn't as simple as that. Only the servants of our RFD are permitted to possess the firearms and to do so they must be members of the Association and undergo the training required. They're effectively employees at that point. We do welcome volunteers to come and support us and the best way of firstly engaging is to visit us on an open day. vickersmg.blog/visits/
Yes. Everything on the table in front of Rich is part of our firing collection. We are crowdfunding some of them so please help out with that if you can. vickersmg.blog/product/project-spandau/
@vickersmg so are you going to use IPhone video along side the B&W footage from WW1 🤔 So everyone this is video from yesterday showing the proper preparations for a maximum in a trench. I am kind of 1/2 joking.
