The high combat efficiency of automatic weapons during World War I prompted belligerents to step up the development of better automatic firearms, such as the famous Browning light machine gun, MP18 submachine gun, etc., some of which became a generation of classics, and some of which also fell into history, such as the American Burton M1917 automatic rifle we introduce today.
There are relatively few articles about the Burton M1917 automatic rifle, partly because the gun itself is old and not mass-produced, on the other hand, there is not much information left about the gun, and even its test data is missing, and there is currently a sample gun stored in the museum to prove that it did exist.
The gun was designed by Winchester designer Frank. Burton (Frank M.) Burton) was completed in 1917, and it is worth noting that Burton did not rely entirely on his own, and in the early years of the 20th century, a designer named TC Johnson worked at the Winchester Company, and he developed several semi-automatic rifles over the course of those years, which became the object of Burton's post-employment research and greatly inspired the emergence of automatic rifles.
Another thing to note is that in the few articles that introduce this weapon, many of them mention that its design was originally intended to attack targets such as Airships and Air Domes during World War I, and it must be admitted that the gun was designed with this function in mind, because it was originally intended to be an aircraft machine gun, using the .345 Winchester Bullet (8.76 mm caliber) modified from the .351 Winchester Bullet, and its incendiary warhead can ignite hydrogen in airships and balloons.
However, from the perspective of the structure of the gun itself, the designer's thinking is obviously not limited to the single airship, because it also has a barrel that can be quickly replaced, the barrel has two types of aviation barrel and ground combat barrel, there are also handguards under the barrel that can only be used by ground troops, and the muzzle has a bayonet seat and so on. The Winchester Museum, which houses guns, also does not explicitly indicate that it was designed to strike airships and balloons.
The emphasis on guns' anti-balloon combat capabilities may be related to a 1991 article called "The Burton Balloon Buster," the first article in decades that a gun was stored in a museum corner, and the author was allowed to study the gun, but another important point in the author's article was "the world's first real assault rifle," as if in conflict with its title.
Burton M1917 adopts the principle of free bolt, with semi-automatic and fully automatic two shooting modes, the whole gun structure is compact and slender, it uses an in-line wooden stock and pistol grip, with two triggers, the trigger in the guard is responsible for semi-automatic shooting, the trigger under the guard ring is fully automatic after pulling, but this trigger is a bit awkward to operate.
Both barrels have half with a heat sink ring, a parapet is mounted under the barrel of the heat dissipation ring segment, a crosshair version of the barrel mounted above the middle section of the barrel can be mounted on the scarff bracket of the aircraft, and the ground troop version has a removable bipod in addition to the bayonet.
The most special thing about the Burton M1917 is its dual magazine supply structure, strictly speaking, it is only a single magazine supply, but it can be inserted at the same time above the receiver two magazines, the two magazines are installed in a V-shape, each with a 60° tilt with the horizontal plane, and a single magazine can accommodate 20 bullets. The magazine has two bayonets, and when the shooter inserts a single magazine, when he hears the first "click" sound, it indicates that the magazine has been fixed and will not fall easily, but at this time it cannot be fed normally, and it needs to continue to insert and hear the second sound to successfully supply the ammunition.
When used, the shooter can insert one of the magazines into place and be ready to shoot, the other magazine only needs to be fixed, the previous magazine is empty and then removed, and the second magazine can be inserted to continue shooting. The V-shaped magazine structure allows the gun to mount a mechanical sight on top of the receiver, and the gun has 3 different open sights for use in different environments.
The Burton M1917 automatic rifle was a good one in itself, but it lost to the Browning light machine gun in the competition and did not have the energy to serve, which may be partly due to its unique ammunition caliber.
The Burton M1917 automatic rifle weighs 4.5 kg, is about 1.16 m long, has an initial muzzle velocity of 560 m/s, and a rate of fire of about 800 rounds per minute.