St. Étienne Mle 1907
| St. Étienne M1907 | |
|---|---|
| Type | Heavy machine gun |
| Place of origin | France |
| Service history | |
| Used by | See Users |
| Wars | |
| Production history | |
| Manufacturer | Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Etienne (MAS). |
| Produced | 1907–1916 |
| No. built | 39,700 |
| Variants |
|
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 26 kg (57 lb 5 oz) |
| Length | 1180 mm |
| Barrel length | 710 mm |
| Cartridge | 8mm Lebel |
| Caliber | 8 mm |
| Action | Gas-operated |
| Rate of fire | adjustable: 8 to 600 round/min |
| Muzzle velocity | 724 m/s (2,375 ft/s) |
| Feed system | 25-round metal strips or 300-round fabric belts (1916) |
The French St. Étienne Mle 1907 (French: Mitrailleuse Mle 1907 T) was a controversial gas operated air-cooled machine gun in 8mm Lebel which was widely used only in the early years of the First World War. For "political reasons", the St.Etienne Mle 1907 was developed not to derive from the patented Hotchkiss machine gun. Instead, to avoid patent infringement and royalties, it borrowed its gas operated, blow-forward design from the semi-automatic Bang rifle of 1903. The Bang system, first transposed by 1905 to the French Puteaux APX Machine Gun, had proved unsatisfactory enough to inspire its redesign by 1907 as the St-Étienne machine gun. However the Mle 1907 St-Étienne was only a partial redesign: the original blow-forward gas piston, rack-and-pinion system, and bolt mechanism of the Mle 1905 Puteaux machine gun had all been kept only slightly modified inside the newer weapon. Eventually a total of over 39,700 St-Étienne Mle 1907 machine guns were manufactured between 1908 and late 1917. They were widely used by French infantry only during the early part of World War I until their replacement by the more reliable Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun.