Spitfire Machine Gun Firing
 

After being buried in a peat bog for 70 years...

WWII Spitfire Guns Firing After 70 Years Buried in Peat - YouTube

That Browning guy sure did know what he was doing, eh?

Sure did! I don't consider many of today's handguns as "better" than my hi-power.

Just heard a radio program the other day about the fact that the British Army have just gone to Glock for their sidearms after about 40 years of the Hi-Power.

Do you know the full title of the spitfire programme? I wonder how many parts were replaced on the machine gun.

There is something about peat bogs that preserves - very low oxygen, high acidity. Bodies can be preserved there, I suppose metal can too. No oxygen = no rust. Sans rust, a metal object could stay in good condition for a long time. The acidity is probably not high enough to bother steel.

That film took me back to when I was a kid in the 70's. My best friend came from a farming family in the small village in Sussex (South East England). In the farmhouse, above the fireplace, was the propellor (with one blade snapped off) of a ME109 that had crashed on his land during the war. we used to go and look at the crater it left.

They used to carry gun cameras...

Spitfire Gun camera actual combat footage - Battle of Britain - RAF - YouTube