1897 Nordenfelt Machine Gun
The machine gun pictured above was designed by Captain Oscar William Bergman, a Swedish artillery officer, in the early 1890s. Bergman’s patents were bought by fellow Swede Thorsten Nordenfelt’s Paris-based Société Nordenfelt in 1894. Nordenfelt is best know for the earlier manual machine gun which competed first against the Gatling Gun and later against the Maxim Gun. In 1888, Hiram Maxim took over the Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company, Nordenfelt himself left the company in 1890 to set up Société Nordenfelt. Looking for products to compete against Maxim’s guns, Nordenfelt came across Bergman’s design and decided to purchase the patent outright. When Maxim discovered that Nordenfelt was going to attempt to sell a similar weapon he launched legal proceedings to stop him. The 1894 case of ‘Nordenfelt v Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Co Ltd’ saw Maxim claim that the contract of sale Nordenfelt had signed included the clause:
‘would not make guns or ammunition anywhere in the world, and would not compete with Maxim in any way for a period of 25 years’
This prohibited Nordenfelt from establishing a new company and selling rival products. The case was decided by the British House of Lords who ruled while Nordenfelt had been paid the ‘not make guns or ammunition…’ clause would stand, however, they found that the ‘compete… in any way…’ was an unreasonable restraint of trade. This enabled Nordenfelt to continue compete against Maxim.
http://www.historicalfirearms.info/post ... -gun/embed
Machine gun m/1899
Originally invented by Captain Oscar William Bergman who sold the patent to Nordenfelt & Co, then headquartered in Paris. The automatic sprayer could shoot about 600 shots per minute, but could also be switched to manual mode and then finished 130 shots per minute. The weapon is water-cooled and the model was Maxim's automatic spray gun. The accompanying folding tripod package was also a development that departed from the previously clumsy wheelchairs. This is the oldest known Swedish automatic spray gun.
According to a letter from Per Nordenfelt to the Technical Museum in 1925, the spray gun will be manufactured in Paris in the early 1890s
https://digitaltmuseum.se/011024424087/kulspruta-m-1899
