Manufacturing guns and motorbikes

The Other PaulG

The Other PaulG

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I was once told that one of the reasons BSA started to manufacture motorcycles, was that if you have the tools/skills to manufacture precision gun barrels, you can make good quality engine barrels too. I was never sure how much truth there was in it.

Then reading the current Enfield thread I remembered that Enfield manufactured both, too, so it looks like there may well be some truth in it.

Are there other examples of manufacturers who made both? Any link between CZ motorcycles and firearms? Or are they both just references to the country of manufacture?

One for the more mature members...:D. :rob
 
Davey B said:
BSA = Birmingham Small Arms.. :beerjug:
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Or from their leather cycle saddle making days = Bloody Sore Arses. Or so I’ve been told.

I can see a connection in terms of producing a smooth bore but I have no idea what commonality there might be in the heat treatment processes.
As far as I know, CZ only made rifled barrel firearms so their bike cylinders must have been complex! :D
 
I think it was an era where manufacturers saw the next thing come along and thought 'we can do that'....couple it with war and a Govt who pressed heavy industry into helping the war effort
(My Dad worked in a Centrifuge/Industrial washing machine manufacturers who built mini subs in WW2 X20 and X21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-class_submarine )
 
Husqvarna also manufactured guns before motorcycles

I don’t think there’s any real link between the two products other than general engineering techniques

A perfect example is the USM1 Carbine

Google it for the details, but basically the US government had 7 million built in 2 years by contracting the manufacturing out to hundreds if not thousands of companies

The main manufacturers who made the recievers were:

Inland Division (General Motors),
Winchester Repeating Arms,
Irwin-Pederson,
Saginaw Steering Gear Division (General Motors),
Underwood Elliot Fisher, (typewriters)
National Postal Meter,
Quality Hardware Mfg Corporation,
International Business Machines, (Yes IBM)
Standard Products,
Rock-Ola Mfg Corporation (Juke box manufacturer)
Commercial Controls Corporation

Mine’s a Saginaw Steering Gear made in 1943, the stock was made by a furniture manufacturer named Pederson, the magazine pouch was made by a luxury shoe manufacturer from Philadelphia named Lairde Schroeder

The list is long !
 

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BSA

If I remember correctly up until the mid 1930`s there were 48 motorcycle makers in the Birmingham and surrounding areas alone .
 
The Other PaulG said:
Original design by FN?

I never had my own, just used to borrow one of the Queen's every now and then...!
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Yep, as you say, originally designed by the Belgian Fabrique Nationale Herstal but then manufactured for the British army using imperial measurements, so almost nothing is compatible with the various metric FALs

The British army standard pistol Browning 9mm was also originally produced by FN as the GP35 (Grande Puissance)
 
What about Benelli? that great Welsh gun and motorcycle manufacturer (pronounced ben eth lye as in pie reth lye for Pirelli the Welsh tyre maker)
 
CZ engineering made everything back in the day, as did zastava in serbia all state manufacturing in the east block made guns and engines... Tula and izhmash in russia made everything from bicycles to glass jars and artillery pieces and every kind of vehicle from bikes to tractor stationary engines and everything inbetween (they made what they got told to make or go to siberia on a holiday)

years ago we did a deal with izhmash (AK factory for some stuff, they wanted some technology from us. Offered to pay us in pickled beetroots and bycycles... which my boss considered and then thought WTF...!)

in the US if they had a production line it switched to war time production Remington made type writers and pistols, Mitsubishi in japan made pencils, aerplanes and guns...
 
If you ever come across a 1911A1 manufactured by the Singer sewing machine company it’s worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars, they only made 500 and they were issued for service
 
I saw a thompson 1928 with cutts compensator pre war issue, in the NI's black museum... serial number was in the hundreds, mint... probably worth 400K+ however they wouldn't sell it cos it was part of an IRA arms dump.... (wankers)

Saw another one identical copy in Prague made by CZ

there's loads of stuff strange stuff a Luger .45ACP for the US market made by Krieghoff

Unmarked FN sold to Rodesia in inch pattern... (which must have come via the UK) sterling kit AR180's from the UK sold out of embargo

the engineering between whatever the company makes and what was needed in war times can at times look really odd.... but they all made military kit

the pattern room in IZHmash was fab...! if you like engineering, process engineering or just standing there and looking at things you have no idea what the hell it is.... that's the place to go.
 
There is some weird stuff about as you say, like M1911s chambered for .455 Webley for the Royal Navy

My M1928 A1 was sent to Russia and stored for 70 odd years then sold in France brand new
 

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I bet Harley-Davidson used to make Johnny Sevens.
 
BMW started making bikes because they were no longer permitted to make military aero engines cos of the Treaty of Versailles. (Incidentally, the machine guns mounted on the aircraft were made in Spandau, just like all BM bikes since the 70s.)

BSA's link has already been mention (and this was a plot line in Peaky Blinders!), Royal Enfield (google an image to see the company badge) used the slogan "Built like a gun" and linked the precision engineering needed to make weapons with that required to build bikes.

Bikes were (and I suppose still are) mainly sold to males and the military connection is never going to be a bad marketing point for bike manufacturers in that context.

There's also the general point that bikes offered relatively cheap and affordable transport and supplying that demand after WW1 was an obvious route to take when the military orders started drying up in 1918 and 1945. I bumped into a 92 year old on the A68 a few years ago. He was Honda 250 mounted and en route, doing his second end to end ride. He did his first in 1947 on a Triumph which he bought with his RAF demob cash.
 

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Daewoo the car manufacturer also produced firearms... not sure if they ever made motorcycles tho.....so only slightly off topic
 
Posh Pete said:
BMW started making bikes because they were no longer permitted to make military aero engines cos of the Treaty of Versailles. (Incidentally, the machine guns mounted on the aircraft were made in Spandau, just like all BM bikes since the 70s.)

BSA's link has already been mention (and this was a plot line in Peaky Blinders!), Royal Enfield (google an image to see the company badge) used the slogan "Built like a gun" and linked the precision engineering needed to make weapons with that required to build bikes.

Bikes were (and I suppose still are) mainly sold to males and the military connection is never going to be a bad marketing point for bike manufacturers in that context.

There's also the general point that bikes offered relatively cheap and affordable transport and supplying that demand after WW1 was an obvious route to take when the military orders started drying up in 1918 and 1945. I bumped into a 92 year old on the A68 a few years ago. He was Honda 250 mounted and en route, doing his second end to end ride. He did his first in 1947 on a Triumph which he bought with his RAF demob cash.
Click to expand...

All bmw motorcycles were not made in Spandau as some gs 650s were made by Apirila in Italy alongside their pegaso JJH
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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