“Utterly useless!” So wrote a frustrated U.S. Army Captain in a letter to the Chief of Ordnance of the United States Army in late 1916, requesting to exchange his Automatic Machine Rifle, Model of 1909 light machine guns for the new Lewis gun. “We have been using these guns for four years and have never been able to get more than two shots out of any of the guns without a jam.”
The Hotchkiss Model 1909 as made in France by the Hotchkiss Company was known on the European Continent as the Hotchkiss Mle 1909. Copied and made in the United States, it was designated as the Automatic Machine Rifle, Caliber .30, Model of 1909, or colloquially as the “Benét-Mercié” after the two men at Hotchkiss responsible for its development. The gun had a cyclic rate of fire of about 400 rounds per minute with an actual deliverable rate of fire of about 150 rounds per minute.
Laurence Benét was an American engineer who worked for the Hotchkiss Company in Paris, France. He, along with another Hotchkiss engineer name Henri Mercié, collaborated to develop an air cooled, gas operated, light weight machine rifle based on the Hotchkiss Mle 1900 and Mle 1907 heavy machine gun design. The Mle 1909 differed from these heavy machine guns in that it weighed just 30 pounds and was fitted with a wooden stock with elevation gear and a bipod. The main modifications mechanically were the means by which the breech closed and changing the feedway from the left to right side of the gun and redesigning the feed mechanism to accept the horizontal 30-shot feed strip with the cartridges held on the underside of the feed strip rather than resting on top of the feed strip. Being a simply designed gun reduced the number of parts of the gun to just twenty five. Located in the forward part of the receiver directly behind the breech is a cylindrical device known as the fermature nut. The function of the fermature nut is to lock the breech closed before firing and unlocking when the gas pressure has dropped to a safe level. A unique aspect of this gun is that it is capable of changing barrels quickly. When the gun was used in sustained fire the barrel would get very hot. The barrel can be removed and a cool barrel replaced in a very short period of time.
In 1909, the French Army adopted the Hotchkiss Mle 1909 gun chambered in their 8mm Lebel cartridge. It was also manufactured in Great Britain by Hotchkiss and was adopted by the British and designated as the Hotchkiss Mk I and Mk II Portable chambered in .303 caliber. (The Mk I had a wooden stock and was strip fed, while the Mk II was the tank or cavalry version with a removable straight metal stock and could use a strip or a special articulated metal belt.) Also in 1909, the United States adopted it as the standard U.S. machine gun chambered for the .30-06 cartridge and, after a lengthy set of trials, an order was placed by the U.S. Army with the Hotchkiss Company for 29 guns. Funding was so tight in those days that that was all the Army could afford to buy. However, the rights to manufacture the gun in the United States were secured and the Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company and the Springfield Armory were contracted to produce the Hotchkiss as the Automatic Machine Rifle Model of 1909. A discernable difference between the two manufacturers is that the Colt has a smooth barrel in front of the cooling fins whereas the Springfield Armory has sharp-point checkering around the barrel in front of the cooling fins – presumably to assist in better gripping during barrel changes. It has been reported that both manufacturers combined produced a grand total of 670 guns. However, higher serial numbers have been encountered (one, a Colt in the 900 range with Navy markings) so more were clearly made and it is possible the 670 number applies to those purchased by the U.S. Army rather than the number produced; as one source notes that another 400 were made for the U.S. Navy and Marines. Unfortunately, production records have not been encountered to determine if the serial numbers from each manufacturer were mixed, or if each manufacturer started with 001.
The stock of the Model 1909 is made of well-seasoned black walnut, cut down in front so as not to interfere with the sighting and a pistol grip. On the upper end of the butt plate is a long tang for supporting the weight of the weapon on the shoulder when firing without the elevating mechanism.
The Model 1909 had a unique rear monopod elevation system that fits into the rear of the wood butt stock and employs a double elevation screw and a foot plate that slides on a bar attached to the elevation screw. When in the closed position, the elevation screws screwed up into the buttstock and the foot plate rotated along the axis of the gun and locked into place with a metal catch. When the foot plate was unlatched, the elevation screw could be extended by an elevation wheel. When the desired height was obtained, the elevation wheel could be locked into position and the foot plate rotated to be perpendicular to the axis of the gun.
The gun was also fitted with a bipod that is attached underneath the front sight barrel band. The bipod is rather flimsy and an often field expedient solution to help prevent the bipod from collapsing was to run a length of leather strip from one front leg through the trigger guard and back to the other side front leg. The legs can be folded back and secured to the hand guard during transportation.
The front sight for the Model of 1909 consisted of a thin blade slightly beveled to the front, and on each side is cut a circular groove to better define the sight proper. The lower portion has a dovetailed lug and engages the dovetail groove of the front-sight carrier allowing for adjustment for deflection. The front sight is protected by a hood.
The rear sight was an adjustable leaf that is graduated from 0 to 2,800 yards. The drift slide moves forward and back on the leaf and on the top is small open sight. There is also a circular aperture disk containing five sight openings: four peepholes, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08 and 0.10 inch in diameter, and one large aperture which contains an open sight. The entire rear sight in on a movable base that by turning the windage correction knob moves the base left or right for windage corrections. There is a scale on the base with wind-gauge graduations, each point of which corresponds to a lateral deviation of 4 inches for each 100 yards.
The Model of 1909 “Benét-Mercié” was issued for service with the Model of 1908 Warner & Swasey telescopic musket sight, which was originally used for sharpshooter use with the Model of 1903 Springfield rifle. The sight was mounted on a dovetail bracket on the left side of the receiver rather than directly above the centerline of the weapon. The rationale behind this was that the barrel heated up during firing and produced heat mirages that distorted the sight picture. Mounting on the side of the receiver enabled the firer to avoid the heat mirage and keep proper target acquisition. The sight also aided in target recognition and allowed the gunner to observe his strikes. The sight is 6-power and has a field of 4 1/2 degrees. The glass reticule is etched with vertical and horizontal cross lines and a stadia line, the latter being so placed that it spans the height (5 feet 8 inches) of an average man standing at a distance of 1,000 yards. Located on the top of the telescopic sight is a wind and range table and drift table.
