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The Vickers Odd Factfile

Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the Maxim Gun, also invented the fairground aeroplane ride, still in use at Blackpool...........Vickers made sewing machines in WW1, using German interns employed on favourable terms and rates!......Hiram Maxim had no involvement with developing the Maxim Gun into the Vickers in 1907-08.........Vickers in WW1 also made 18Pdr guns, 6 inch Howitzers and 15 inch naval guns amongst many others, also aircraft such as the Gunbus, in 1919 they extended into tanks, today they make Challenger II...........The expression 'To go the whole 9 Yards' comes from the firing of a whole 250 round belt of ammunition which measured 9 yards...........Although Hiram Maxim retired from the board of Vickers, Sons and Maxim in 1911 and his name was dropped from the register of directors in the same year, nearly all Vickers made components of the gun were still marked 'VSM' until 1928..........Vickers made the Spitfire in WW2..........During WW1 the British War Office ordered 6000 Vickers guns from Colt in the USA, they were never delivered............A MkIV Vickers tripod in 1915 cost about £30 and by April 6987 had been ordered........No records of the MGC -Machine Gun Corps-- exist having been destroyed by a fire in 1922, no official account of the actions of the MGC was ever written, two officers who volunteered were promptly posted to remote locations overseas

Welcome to our dedicated Vickers Machine gun site, partly a labour of love, partly and openly commercial, we hope it will be of interest to recent and experienced collectors and enthusiasts alike. We just love the Vickers Gun, and consider ourselves lucky to have been able to fire a few rounds at 'Exercise Parting Shot' at Bisley a couple of years ago. While in America the opportunity to fire a Vickers is fairly easy to find (Knob Creek for example), here in the UK you are one of a privileged few.

So, what can you do on this site? Well, currently (and we don't intend to stop here), amongst other things, you can look up the date of manufacture of your WW1 Vickers Gun, also a guide to Australian and UK WW2 production, get the contents list (CES) for the gun spares case for WW1 & WW2 also the Battalion spares box, look at the 1945 parts listings, check out photo's of the Vickers (more contributions always welcome), buy spares and accessories and discuss Vickers matters on the forum.

To tell the whole story of the Vickers Gun is a massive task, but fortunately Dolf L Goldsmith has done pretty much that with painstaking care in his book 'The Grand Old Lady of No Mans Land'. Whilst there are odd minor omissions in the tools and accessories it is a fantastic book and is recommended to any Vickers enthusiast as 'THE' book on the subject. Our copy is now well thumbed, oily and getting tired, numerous post-its poke out from its pages for essential sections, its expensive, but get it if you can. We hope to stock it in due course

We probably hold the largest range of accessories and spares for the Vickers MMG in the world (see photo left). We do not carry any components requiring an RFD or FAC in the UK, so no, we don't have any barrels, barrel extentions, cups, firing pins, extractors or any other pressure bearing parts, so please DON'T BOTHER ASKING!!

There is a discussion forum here (click the button marked) dedicated to The Vickers, please join in, it has to start somewhere!

One small point, you will find a number of PDF files on this site or linked sites available for reading and/or download. For this you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, this can be downloaded for free from

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING EXPORTS!!

If you are from outside the UK, we will not be able to export anything without an export licence. We will place the application on your behalf but will require your input, you will find guidance under the FAQ and Export headings. Please make no mistake, if you are from the USA, Canada, Europe, basically anywhere outside the United Kingdom , we cannot ship any orders, so please do NOT place them, see the FAQ and Export pages, we have done everything we can to assist you (we have even built an application wizard to guide you easily through the process), so please action these points along with any order you might place.

Vickers Guns for Sale.

Any Vickers MG's that we can offer for sale are included here

We currently have 0 gun for sale

Please click on the photo for more information

Meet 'Jean' the Vickers we used to own Pre EU regulations, and find out why she is called this name by clicking here!

Vickers B2091 made Crayford Jan/March 1918, a rare example of a WW1 smooth jacket Vickers

UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, ALL PAGES, images, SOUND AND TEXT ARE © COPYRIGHT The Gunners Store Ltd or IAN DURRANT or were found on the internet and judged to be in the public domain. Anyone aware of any possible copyright infringement should advise us immediately. We would like to thank the Imperial War Museum's Photo archive Dept. for their help with images on this site.