The Class ‘C’ was the commercially-available production of the land service Vickers MG. It was from this gun that the British Service Mk. I gun was developed.
Pre-Great War Development
Inter-War Period
Following the developments of the Mk. I gun during the Great War, Vickers incorporated these into their commercial gun design and used the tooling for both commercial and War Office guns, particularly as the War Office weren’t placing any orders as they used the stocks they had accumulated during the War.
The Vickers Class ‘C’ in the above photo is serial number 79696. This indicates it was built in 1921 and was one of 700 guns built this year. It was one of two guns sold to the Netherlands East Indies in 6.5x54R. It was then converted, in the 1930s, to fire .303-inch as this was more readily available in the Far East.
