M1895 Lee Navy from the USS Maine
Forgotten Weapons
•
7m 18s
The M1895 Lee Navy was a rifle well ahead of it's time - a smallbore (6mm) straight-pull bolt action adopted by the US Navy at the same time that the US Army was adopting the Krag-Jorgenson. The Lee Navy was designed by James Paris Lee (the same man who designed the Lee Enfield action), and was a limited commercial success for Winchester with 20,000 being sold in total. Half of those went to the US Navy, and they were issued to shipboard armories and Marine Corps units. One of the ships which received an allotment of Lee Navy rifles was the USS Maine, and its rifles were on board when she exploded and sank in the Havana harbor, helping to start the Spanish-American War. Several dozen of these rifles were salvaged shortly after the sinking (it happened in less than 50 feet of water) and were sold on the commercial market by the Francis Bannerman company. This rifle is one of those few documented to have come off the Maine, making it a fantastic piece of history.
Up Next in Forgotten Weapons
-
Moore's Patent Revolver (Swing-Out Cy...
Manufactured in Brooklyn from 1861 until 1863, Moore's revolver was a 7-shot single-action piece firing .32 rimfire cartridges. What makes it unique is its swing-out cylinder design - the first commercial revolver in the US to use this mechanism. A latch on the back of the frame released the enti...
-
Khyber Pass Martini Pistol
The Khyber Pass is a well known center of arms production, with gunmaking there going back at least 100 years. The quality of craftsmanship varies greatly, from excellent and safe weapons to thoroughly unsafe guns made with little more than hand files and drills. In the last decade or so, much of...
-
Japanese Type 97 Tank Machine Gun
The Type 97 was a copy of the Czech ZB-26 machine gun which was used in early Japanese tanks and tankettes. It is chambered for 8mm Mauser, and uses standard ZB-26 20-round magazines. This particular one is in the collection of the owner at Battlefield Vegas, a machine gun rental range in Las Veg...
