Recoil operation
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Recoil operation is an operating mechanism used to implement locked-breech autoloading firearms. Recoil operated firearms use the energy of recoil to cycle the action, as opposed to gas operation or b
The barrel from a Para Ordnance P12.45, an M1911-derived design which uses short recoil operation. Under recoil, the barrel moves back in the frame, rotating the link (shown in the unlocked position), which causes the rear of the barrel to tip down and disengage from the slide.
Maxim gun
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The Maxim gun is a recoil-operated machine gun invented in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim. It was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world.
Recoil operation
…means of cocking a rifle through recoil was patented by a German called Otto Emmerich. Finally came Hiram Maxim's 1883 fully automatic recoil operated "Maxim gun", which introduced the modern age of automatic machine guns. The same forces that cause the ejecta of a firearm (the projectile(s), propellant gas…
Maxim machine gun at Georgian National Museum.
Air-cooled, Extra Light Maxim M1895.
Illustration of the Maxim Gun in Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1905
A large-bore Maxim on the USS Vixen c. 1898