Britain’s Forgotten Lightweight Machine Gun: Beardmore-Farquhar with Curatorial Assistant Joe Ford

Meet the Beardmore-Farquhar, a British light machine gun design that promised to be lighter, cheaper, and more efficient than the famous Lewis Gun… but never made it into service.

In this week’s episode, Curatorial Assistant Joe takes us through its unusual gas-spring system, the trials it faced between 1916 and 1931, and why it ultimately failed to impress.

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0:00 Intro
0:24 Beardmore-Farquhar LMG
2:03 Competing with the Lewis Gun
4:07 Early Trials and Changes
8:50 The Troubled 1921 Trials
11:00 Stripping the Beardmore-Farquhar LMG
27:16 Later Designs and Tests
30:06 Why it Ultimately Failed
31:42 Outro

Sources:

Patent: https://patentimages.storage.googleap...

Hotchkiss Trial images: https://www.forgottenweapons.com/ligh...

Ian's Video on the Rifle:    • Shooting the British Farquhar-Hill Rifle  

Farquhar Firing Video: Luce Newspaper B0536 from September 1934, Archivio Luce Cinecittà, available at:    • Una nuova mitragliatrice a fuoco rapido.  

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