Project Lightening: C&Rsenal & Forgotten Weapons' WW1 Light Machine Gun Extravaganza
If you love history and old firearms there are a few YouTube channels you probably follow. For many, two of those will definitely be Forgotten Weapons and C&Rsenal. Ian, Othais and Mae have come together to put seven original World War One vintage light machine guns and automatic rifles through their paces to see how they might have performed 100 years ago.
Project Lightening tests the Madsen Light Machine Gun, the Lewis Gun, the BAR, the Hotchkiss MkI* Portative, the hefty Maxim MG08/15 and both the 8mm Lebel and .30-06 Chauchat automatic rifles. Never before have all of these guns been brought together on camera making Lightening truly unique.
Here’s Project Lightening’s teaser trailer:
Othais was kind enough to talk to us about the project and what it was like to get the chance to compare seven pieces of history.
Project Lightening was clearly a huge undertaking, when did you get the idea to bring together all of WWI’s light machine guns and put them through their paces?
We kept up our usual episodic production, and onboarded Mae full time during this same production window. So I had extra help in some ways, but it was still a huge effort. Mae and I both averaged about 60-70 hours a week for the past several months getting things even this ready. Mark, over at Anvil, also had a massive push to get these guns serviced and ready and deserves a ton of credit. For my part, a lot of it came down to tuning, which actually started to walk out by the last day of filming as the guns loosened up from their infrequent use becoming more frequent.
Can you tell us a little about how you came up with the project and how you decided on how to actually test the guns?
The tests were planned to account for a sort of traditional trench combat usage, as we usually envision the Western Front. The 100-yard burst, reload, and field strip tests are pretty straight forward and would be expected of any gun. We also have a total damage test using smaller clay targets to show the real difficulty of selecting and hitting spread out infantry at distance with automatic fire. One other test was planned but sadly could not be performed because we had underestimated just how long it would take to film what we did get. This would have been a “dash and drop” test where we ran 50 yards and then dropped, made ready, and fired a burst on target.
Here’s part one of the project:
Not many people have the chance to fire all these guns comparatively at the same time, which was your favourite from all of the guns you tested?
The show has a clear winner, but I will say if I was going to own one: the BAR requires the least attention, is easiest to pack for the range, and generally runs well with available 30-06 ammo. An “easy” machine gun to own and care for.
How are you & Ian sharing the project?
The project is being split across both channels, each getting either even or odd episodes. The whole thing can be bought at once on C&Rsenal as well. This money is first directed at the debts accrued, which were actually fairly significant for a project like this. After that we share the net. C&Rsenal did the editing but Ian brought a larger audience, so it washes out pretty evenly and keeps the math simple. I also want to clearly point out: Brownells JUMPED to help make this possible, eating up about 1/3rd of total expenses in order to sponsor the show. We are happy with this partnership as we love the guys over there! It is EXTREMELY rare to see a modern, commercial business put money into gun history. Even the storied names like Colt and Winchester never seem to reach out when history is so much a part of their brand! Brownells is also very handy with new media, which is critical to keeping the gun community fresh and relevant to new participants entering adulthood.
Here’s part two, putting the LMGs through a 100 yard test:
My thanks to Othais for talking to us about the project. You can check out the first two installments of the Project Lightening series over on YouTube now, and you can download the whole documentary here.
Managing Editor: TheFirearmBlog.com & Overt Defense.com. Matt is a British historian specialising in small arms development and military history. He has written several books and for a variety of publications in both the US and UK. Matt is also runs The Armourer's Bench, a video series on historically significant small arms. Here on TFB he covers product and current military small arms news. Reach Matt at: matt@thefirearmblog.com
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Episode 3 just dropped two hours ago. Walking fire, very entertaining
I almost cried with joy when they released the first episode (intro, background, explanation of the series etc) and I realized what was in store. I give money to support both channels/groups (C&Rsenal and Forgotten Weapons); they are the only such organizations (content creators? I dunno what the right term is) that I give money to like that. Really makes me feel like it's been a worthwhile choice. Knowing in some small tiny way I contributed to making this happen. Thanks Ian, Othais, and Mae, can't WAIT to see the full series.