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Burton 1917 LMR
The Burton 1917 LMR (Light Machine Rifle), a.k.a the Winchester-Burton Machine Rifle, was a prototype WWI-era aircraft machine gun. The weapon was designed in 1916 and one firing model was made in 1917. This is the only example ever known to be made, and it was not used in combat. It now resides in the Cody Firearms Museum.
It was designed by Frank B. Burton of Winchester Repeating Arms, who had designed Winchester's earlier self-loading rifles. The Burton LMR was a blowback, select-fire, open bolt weapon. It fires the .345 WSL, a rimless, modified .351 WSL round with an incendiary spitzer projectile. This incendiary projectile was used because the weapon was designed to combat observation balloons.
Immediately visible are the weapon's dual top-mounted 20-round box magazines, entering the receiver at a 60 degree angle and forming a V-shape above the bolt (this also means that the cocking handle is underneath the receiver, and the weapon ejects brass to the bottom). Each one has two locking catches, one holding the magazine in the feeding position and the other holding the magazine in a storage position slightly above, out of the way of the bolt. One is loaded at a time, and the user needs to pull one out and push the other in to manually switch between the two. This design was intended to make storing and reloading on a turbulent plane easier, as the operator can reload the weapon without having to fiddle for a new magazine.
The Burton LMR was also designed to be dual-purpose; it could be fixed to a Scarff mount for aerial use or fired shouldered on the ground by an infantry. It has two interchangeable barrels for each of these purposes. The "ground" barrel had a bayonet lug and a sling swivel.
The Burton LMR's select fire is made through is a second trigger beneath the trigger guard. Simply pulling the normal trigger will fire the weapon in semi-auto. Pulling both triggers simultaneously fires the weapon in full-auto. The safety is a lever near the rear sights, above the trigger.
While being designed as a light machine gun, it fits all of the features that define a modern assault rifle: a shouldered rifle with selective fire firing an intermediate cartridge. Had it ever been issued, it may have gone the same route as the Villar Perosa in terms of having an infantry derivative and pioneered this concept decades earlier, but it was instead lost down the side of a cabinet at Winchester for most of the following century.
In spite all of its advanced features, by the time the Burton LMR was ready, forward mounted Vickers machine guns with incendiary ammunition were developed, significantly more effective than the Burton LMR could ever hope to be, making it obsolete.
Specifications
(One example made in 1917)
- Type: Machine gun
- Caliber: .345 WSL
- Length: 45.5 inches (116 cm)
- Barrel length: 25 inches
- Weight: 10 lbs (4.5 kg)
- Feed System: Dual 20-round detachable magazine
- Fire Modes: Full-auto/Semi-auto
The Burton 1917 LMR and variants can be seen in the following films, television series, video games, and anime used by the following actors:
Video Games
| Game Title | Appears as | Mods | Notation | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battlefield 1 | Burton LMR | Added to Community Test Environment in June 2018 | 2016 |