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A four barreled Nordenfelt gun at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

The Nordenfelt Gun was a multiple barrel machine gun that had a row from one to twelve barrels. It was fired by pulling a lever back and forth to fire it. It was produced in a number of different calibres from rifle up to one inch (25 mm). Larger calibres were also used, but for these calibres the design simply permitted rapid manual loading rather than true automatic fire.

The weapon was designed by a Swedish engineer, Helge Palmcrantz. He created a mechanism to load and fire a multiple barreled gun by simply moving a single lever backwards and forwards. It was patented in 1873

Production of the weapon was funded by a Swedish steel producer and banker (later weapons maker) named Thorsten Nordenfelt, who was working in London. The name of the weapon was changed to the Nordenfelt gun. A plant producing the weapon was setup in England, with sales offices in London, and long demonstrations were conducted at several exhibitions. The weapon was adopted by the British Royal Navy, as an addition to their Gatling and Gardner guns.

During a demonstration held at Portsmouth a 10 barrelled version of the weapon, firing rifle calibre bullets fired 3,000 rounds of ammunition in 3 minutes and 3 seconds without stoppage or failure.

The weapon also had relatively impressive performance, during testing in Brazil a one and a half inch calibre Nordenfelt gun penetrated deeper into a two inch thick iron plate than a nine-pounder (three inch calibre) gun at the same range.

Left side view of the same weapon

However, with the development of the Maxim gun the weapon was eventually outclassed. Nordenfelt merged in 1888 with the Maxim Gun Company to become Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunitions Company Limited.

• Gardner gun
• Gast Gun
• Maxim Gun

• George M. Chinn, The Machine Gun. History, Evolution, and Development of Manual, Automatic, and Airborne Repeating Weapons, Volume I, Washington, 1951.
• C. Sleeman, The Development of Machine Guns, The North American review, Volume 139, Issue 335, October 1884
• Ellis, John. 1975. The Social History of the Machine Gun. New York: Pantheon Books.