Vickers K

Vickers K machine gun

  Vickers K

 Vickers K

  Vickers K

  Vickers K

  Vickers K

  Vickers K

  Vickers K

  Vickers K

  Vickers K

  Vickers K

  Vickers K

  Vickers K Ammo

  Vickers K Ammo

 Vickers K Ammo

The Vickers K machine gun, known as the Vickers Gas Operated (Vickers G.O.) in British service, was a rapid-firing machine gun developed and manufactured for use in aircraft by Vickers-Armstrongs. The high rate of fire was needed for the small period of time when the gunner would be able to fire at an attacking aircraft.
Development
The Vickers K was a development of the Vickers-Berthier (VB) light machine gun, adopted in 1932 by the Indian Army.The VB, like the Bren light machine gun, used a tilting locking breechblock. However, unlike the Bren, the VB locked its breech only at the last moment of forward travel and this enabled the development of the Vickers K also known as the "Vickers Gas Operated" (VGO) or "Vickers GO" .With lighter moving parts and the VB locking design, the Vickers K had an adjustable rate of fire between 950 and 1,200 rounds per minute; faster than the German MG34.The weapon was adopted for British service as the VGO. It was test-flown with a large 300-round drum, and beat the .303 Browning in reliability. However, the wide drum would have caused problems to accommodate, since it would have interfered with wing structures. When the belt-fed Browning Mark II was selected as the standard machine-gun armament for RAF aircraft, the VGO became redundant for the RAF. It continued to be used by the Fleet Air Arm until 1945
VGO No.2 Mk.1.
Originally intended for RAF airfield defense units, these guns were remanufactured from original Vickers G.O. No.1 Mk.1 aircraft guns. A number of these ‘Vickers G.O. Land Service’ machine guns found their way to a variety of British Commando and reconnaissance units which operated in Europe during 1944 and 1945. Once the war was over, all Vickers GO machine guns were declared obsolete and subsequently removed from service.
Vickers class K / Vickers G.O. machine gun is gas operated weapon, firing from open bolt in full automatic mode only. Its gas cylinder is located below the barrel, and long stroke gas piston operates a vertically tilting bolt. Feed is from top-mounted flat pan magazines with nominal capacity of 100 rounds, although it was customary to load only 96 or 97 rounds to ensure most reliable feeding. Gun is fitted with a single spade grip at the rear of receiver, with trigger to control fire. In ground applications, it was normally mounted on single or twin pintle mounts on various jeeps and trucks.