A Visit To The Lithgow Small Arms Factory Museum

Coming back from our camping holiday we passed through the tow of Lithgow on what we will charitable call a day where the weather wasn't fine. We needed a break so looked around for something we could visit that was indoors. we ende dup at the Lithgow Small Arms Factory Museum.

Opened on 8 June 1912, the factory initially manufactured rifles for the Australian military during World War I. During World War II, production expanded to include Vickers machine guns, Bren guns and, postwar, branched out into sporting goods (such as civilian firearms and golf clubs), tools and sewing machines. It still produces rifles for the Australian army.

The museum is locatd in some old administration buildings and is run by volunteers. It houses a collection of  military and civilian firearms manufactured at the factory and elsewhere. In 2019, the museum was placed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register which lists influential collections and documents considered key to Australia's history. 

Once again I failed to be a proper blogger and take detailed notes of everything I saw and photographed, so really you're just going to get lots of pictures and you'll have to take from them what you can. 

The displays at the museum are concentrated around a fantastic selection of military firearms downstairs and a donated collection of handguns from a private collector upstairs. There are galleries showing some of the factory's non-weapon products, as well as ephemera and memorabilia aboutthe factory itself and the life of the workers. There's an intersting display of water-colours from an artist who worked in the factory during WWII.

On to the photos.

These plates were used to show the penetration of various rounds.

A German anti-tank rifle from WWII. (In Goulburn's small military museum is the WWI equivalent)

Rifles from the colonial and WW1 era.

A Lewis Gun. At this point I went all WWI aircraft weaponry fanboy.

And the Bren Gun poster. I forgot to take any pictures of some of the 17,500 Brens that the factory produced during WWII.

More rifles. I think if you click on the picture it will be big enough that you can read the labels.

A wall of machine-guns. You should find a lot of your favourites there. I was unreasonably excited by the Schwarzlose.

A Vickers. The factory prodiced 12,500 of these from 1929 to 1943.

More guns. See the rifle-grenade thingy in the middle?

Bigger guns.

The volunteer we chatted to reckoned this was something unusual, but didn't know the story behind it - it's a sten-gun with a wooden stock. 

Some Soviet classics - a PPSh and an AK47. The AK47 is smaller than I thought it would be.

Upstairs is the Hayes handgun Collection. We were in ned of lunch by the time we hit this bit, so only gave it a cursory exaination. But if you're into handguns, then this is the place for you. It's a private collection that has been donated to the museum.

These teeny-tiny pistols are adorable.

So if you're into guns, the Lithgow Small Arms Factory Museum is the place for you!