We shoot balloons with an original WW2 British Royal Air Force Training Rifle - the original Call of Duty game! Shooting Balloons with a WW2 British Swift Royal Air Force Training Rifle!
Training Rifles: WWII British Swift Air Force Version
Swift British Training Rifle Intro
Hey guys, or if you're below the Mason-Dixon Line, hey y’all. Today I am going to talk about a walk in that came in actually last week. I think it was Wednesday. So, we'll call it a walk-in Wednesday. It is a Swift British Training rifle, probably never saw one before they're kind of rare. Actually, they made 16,000 of them. But in my mind, why the heck would anybody bring this thing home? It's actually a non-rifle its non-firing rifle, it is used for training, and we're going to show you in a minute how this works, but I just want to go over the gun a little bit.
Swift British Training Rifle Brief History
It was adopted by the Royal Air Force (RAF), in England during World War II. They made them between 1941 and 1943, about 16,000. This one is number, about 13,000. So, it was made towards the end of the run and its function was to work like the Enfield rifle and for training purposes. So, for example, you have to fully cock it for it to work. If you have to cock it, probably where the term coming off half-cocked, if you half cocked it, it won't work. It has to be fully cocked and that loads it up. Also, this little pin. It won't work unless it's tight against your shoulder. And again, it's to train, the soldiers how to use the bolt action smoothly, how to keep it tight against their shoulder. So, for stability and then finally you aim it and fire it.
And we'll show you how the device works. It actually shoots a little needle and we're going to show you how that works. Follow me.
The Swift British Training Rifle Antique Packaging
Okay. So, this is how it came to us. It came in this box. You'll see on the left-hand side. There is RAF for the Royal Air Force it was issued to, actually, they issued it to the army and the army thought it was a joke. They totally rejected it and called it a joke. So, the Army was very disparaging of this device. But the Royal Air Force adopted it. This has the original shipping label. I can't really read it, came from England. Probably a GI brought it back, again I have no idea why somebody would bring this home other than you know, popping balloons. I'm not sure what the purpose would be. Here is also the original mailing label. This is the original handle, which broke off and so somebody did a good job of coming up with a substitute. This is probably easily fixed, but I'm not going to mess with it. Whoever buys this item can deal with it.
How the Swift British Training Rifle Works
So, we'll open it up and see how it comes together. You can see the Swift Training Rifle. It's also dated right here, 1943. It shows the actions and if you look right here, you can see it's actually a double-needle, you'll see that again a little bit later and then the rifle fits in here. Now, this little hook is interesting, the device actually hooks up to a whole assembly that puts the target in place and then you have a bar that holds it the exact distance you want to be because you have to be within a certain distance in order for the needle to hit the target you, then fire the weapon and the needle hits the target. So, for me, this is like a precursor of video games because they would have, there was three different targets they would use, showed showing different battle scenes. And so, the trainees would just go through and pick off soldiers practicing their aim using a needle. When the needle hit, you could see where on the body. These are German, looks like a German soldier carrying a little machine gun, and this German soldier, he is carrying a drum mag. So maybe he's carrying a Thompson. I don't know. I don't think that's right. So, there's German soldiers on the target and you can go through and pick them off and see where the needle hits, so you could practice your aim.
Uses of the Swift British Training Rifle
If you take a look at the muzzle of the rifle, I'll pull this needle out and you can see it's got actually two needles, this would be where your target hits this sharp needle here and believe me, this is sharp. I'll tell you about the mistake I made with it. This needle would hit the target. This one tells me if I'm lined up. So, if it's a little bit crooked, then I know I need to straighten my rifle again for training purposes. So, when I first got this, I actually didn't know how it worked. I didn't know anything about it. So, I took the rifle, cocked it, I knew I was supposed to put a piece of paper up here. So, I held the piece of paper up to the end pull the trigger and of course, the needle punctured my hand, so I don't recommend you doing that. And actually, I read some internet chatter that said the guys in the RAF, one of their favorite jokes was to wait till their buddy bent over and they put this right up against their butt and pull the trigger. So, it's an instant injection, very sharp needle and it protrudes about an inch. So, it's something you don't want to shoot somebody with. Believe me, I know.
Playing with a Swift British Training Rifle vs. Call of Duty. Tough Call.
Okay speaking of video games, let's try this out and see if it compares to call of duty at all. All right, so I have, this is not the device table to use but I just set this up. I put a little German Soldier. They're carrying a machine gun. I need to be about an inch away. Pull the trigger. Let me get another guy, this guy over here. He's got a machine gun. He's a bad-looking dude. So, let me see if I can take him out. I'm going to aim for a headshot. I definitely hit him. Now, hold it up to the light, and see how I did.
Yeah, it's actually not that easy. Yeah, I got this guy in the arm. So, it's actually not that easy but I did hit the target and it's a good way to train. The training is really lining up the peephole with the front sight and is not as easy as it looks but that's my attempt at Call of Duty version 1941.
Swift British Training Rifle vs. a Balloon. Who Wins?
Hey, let's try something a little more interesting. Let's see what it would be like if you got shot in a bum with one of these. I'm going to ask my trustee assistant Randy. To let me shoot them. Okay, fire in the hole, on for this Swift training rifle. Let's try this out. Whoa.
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