Original Item: These are quite scare today. Original standard British WWI era Lewis 47 round drum magazines for infantry use. Limited quantity available. Offered in very good to excellent condition. Will come packed in cosmoline for you to clean, as they have been stored for years. Markings vary.
The Lewis gun (or Lewis automatic machine gun or Lewis automatic rifle) is a World War I-era light machine gun of American design that was perfected and widely used by the British Empire. It was first used in combat in World War I, and continued in service with a number of armed forces through to the end of the Korean War. It is visually distinctive because of a wide tubular cooling shroud around the barrel – often omitted in World War I when used on aircraft – and a top-mounted drum-pan magazine. It was commonly used as an aircraft machine gun, almost always with the cooling shroud removed, during both world wars.
The Lewis gun used a pan magazine holding 47 or 97 rounds. Pan magazines hold the rounds in a radial fan. Unlike the more common drum magazines, which hold the rounds parallel to the axis and are fed by spring tension, pan magazines are mechanically indexed. The Lewis magazine was driven by a cam on top of the bolt which operated a pawl mechanism via a lever.
The Lewis gun was invented by US Army Colonel Isaac Newton Lewis in…
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