The Probert Encyclopaedia of Warfare

MAXIM

The Maxim gun was the first true machine-gun. It was invented by an American, Hiram C Maxim while he was living in England. The Maxim gun was a short-recoil water-cooled automatic machine-gun first used in the Matabele War of 1893. The British Maxim gun was chambered for the .303 Mk VII cartridge which it took from a 250-round fabric belt feed and fired at a cyclic rate of 600 rounds per minute with a muzzle velocity of 744 meters per second to an effective range of 2000 meters. The Maxim gun had a 718 mm long barrel and was fitted with a blade foresight and a leaf notch rearsight. Maxim guns have been used by many armed forces, and during the Great War were employed by both the British and German forces.
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