GB554619A - Improvements relating to loading mechanism for machine guns - Google Patents

Abstract

554,619. Machine gun magazine-feed. BOULTON PAUL AIRCRAFT, Ltd., NORTH, J. D. HINDS, J. E., and BAKER, C. W. Dec. 20, 1939, No. 32605. [Class 92 (i)] Charged cartridge magazines 28, Fig. 1 are supplied to, and empty magazines 28<SP>1</SP> removed from, the breech of a machine gun 10 along the forks 46, 48 of a guideway 40, extending from the gun breech to a handling platform 22, by a flexible pusher 38 of the chain type operated through gearing by a ram 70. The magazines of the drum type have bosses 30 engaging the guideways which are mounted in the side walls of partitions 16, 18 fixed in the example shown to a rotary turret which carries a pair of guns 7 firing below an aircraft. When the chain moves in anti-clockwise direction from the position shown, an empty magazine 28<SP>1</SP> is pushed over a switch 50 up the branch 48 to the handling platform. Meanwhile, a charged magazine 28 can move down to a resting position against the switch 50. When the motion of the chain is reversed, the right-hand end of the chain recedes to a position 60 and the left-hand end pushes the full magazine past the switch 50 and slams it against the catches on the gun breech. On again reversing the motion of the chain after the magazine has been exhausted by firing, the empty magazine is raised and the full one starts to descend. A portion 52 of the guideway is carried by a section plate 54 moving with the gun so that the gun can only be loaded at the fixed angle of the elevation shown, and is precluded from moving in elevation except when the right-hand end of the chain has receded to the position 60 and the charged magazine is in position on the gun.