I'm looking for a 1/35th scale plastic or resin WWI era water cooled 30 cal machine gun. It's for a WWI Ford Model T scout cat model by RPM.

I believe Plus Model makes such a kit but it seems perpetually out of stock. If anyone has one to sell, please contact me or if you know an alternate source, please post! Thanks!

I bought a brass one and while it's an improvement over the malformed blob of plastic that the kit supplied, some detail is still pretty soft. I also am not sure about a detail difference. Hopefully someone can answer this. The kit MG had twin handles with a center trigger similar to a 50 cal while the brass one had a single pistol grip with a guarded trigger in front. Which would be correct for the late WWI era?

Hey Jim
I have seen WWI photos of the .30 which has the pistol grip you were referring to.
The Plusmodels kit looks to be this version (1917?) so is probably what you are after. I did a review on this kit here

Brad

Hi Brad! Thanks for that! I wasn't too sure about the MG in the RPM kit. They have some very neat mosel subjects that make it a shame their overall quality isn't up to snuff across the board. I had some doubts about the twin handles on the 30 cal that came with the kit. i'm certainly no weapons expert, but all of them i have seen on TV in documentaries and such have been the pistol grip variety. I will save the review and wait anxiously for the day I can acquire one! I'm going to check out some of the Japanese model shops on the chance I may find one or something similar.

I posted another question about a detail kit for a Lorraine 37L / Sd Kfz 135 under the Armor/AFV section. If you have anything that may help me there, it would be appreciated!

Thanks again! - Jim

For infantry use the the Vickers .303 water cooled MG had twin grips.

Thanks! I'll see if there's a kit for it.

Follow up: I came across this Dragon figure set. Would this be suitable for the WWI era or is it too modern? It looks longer than the MG that came with the scout car kit, but that may be because of the cart. It came up under a search for Vickers. Is Maxim a name for that model of gun or is this a different MFG's name?

http://store.spruebrothers.com/shared/StoreFront/default.asp?CS=sbm&StoreType=BtoC&Count1=681713283&Count2=598853707&ProductID=13095&Target=products.asp&utm_medium=cse&utm_source=googlebase

I also tried to find the Browning kit from the Plus Model site again. As always, the Buy it Now page Plus Model's site links to for purchasing was blank for that item and that site didn't turn up any search results for that kit or that machine gun. I looked under their Partners tab and found two on this continent - one in the US and one in Canada. The Barrel Shop was the Canadian distributor. I have bought from before and had great service from them. I sent them an inquiry to see if they had this kit. The distributor in the US was called Smith Military Modeling located in Tennessee. I got a bounce back on the email I sent them. I tried bringing up smithmilitarymodeling.com and got an Error 400: Site Not Found. A Google search still showed a listing for them, but it was a dead link as well. I found a 2007 entry from them on another modeling site, but nothing any more recent. They are likely out of business.

You need a Vickers MG, not a Browning.
Resicast does a nice Vickers in resin and 1/35th.

Thanks! I guess my belief that I needed a Browning came from when I was looking at machine guns that the Brownings I saw had the identical mounting cradle as came with the kit. I guess maybe the cradles were semi-universal or adaptable? The Browning looked very similar as well. Besides the handle difference, the kit MG had a ribbed water jacket and the Brownings I saw had a smooth one. With headlights in the kit that would be as big as Pizza pans in real life I wouldn't have bet my last $5.00 that the MG detail was spot on either. I hope I have better luck finding the Vickers than the Resicast Browning! Again, I appreciate the advice!

The Resicast Vickers come with both a fluted cooling jacket and the canvas wrapped cooling jacket. You also get 2 guns in the set.

As Grumpy says it gives both Early and later types and having the set I must say it is Excellent! Buy it as it is well worth the price!!
Cheers
Jeff

I keep drawing a blank on any US retailers for Resicast products in a Google shopping search. looking by Resicast or the kit number. I emailed the Barrel Store in Canada again but won't hear back from them until tomorrow. I saw the Resicast site has PayPal and another logo for processing payments at the bottom of the home page, but I don't see any type of order page or check out form. Do they sell direct and you have to email them what you want or don't they sell retail?

UPDATE: I found a bunch of Resicast stuff on eBay Sellers; very little on auction. I did see one kit from the UK for a Buy it Now price of about $22 US so I took it. An MG in hand is better than two in the bush if the bush may not contain any MGs... and all that rot.

Thanks all for the help.

I get all my Resicast items from HistorexAgents in the UK, shipping is at cost and usually items arrive in a week.

Thanks Dave. I'll save that link. The eBay seller I bought the set from is called panther_models_ltd/