Original Item: Only One Available. Hard to find 1941 dated M1917A1 Tripod, with cradle head, and comes complete with original data plate, brass bezel and hardware. Also included is a 1945 canvas Cradle Cover and an M7 canvas Gun Cover. Offered in very good condition with original paint and some surface rust, but totally solid and usable. Data plate reads:

NO. 130692
MOUNT, TRIPOD
M1917A1
LAMSON. 1941
R.L.B.

The stamping that can be found on the Cradle Cover are as follows:

COVER, CRADLE,MI.
24-C-1137

The top of the cover also has markings but only the year 1945 are able to be read.
 
Everything is offered in excellent condition with the expected wear of the items because of their intended use. The canvas covers have no significant damage.
 
This is a great set to go along with the Browning M1917A1 you might have!
 
The M1917 Browning machine gun is a heavy machine gun used by the United States armed forces in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War; it has also been used by other nations. It was a crew-served, belt-fed, water-cooled machine gun that served alongside the much lighter air-cooled Browning M1919. It was used at the battalion level, and often mounted on vehicles (such as a jeep). There were two main iterations: the M1917, which was used in World War I and the M1917A1, which was used thereafter. The M1917, which was used on some aircraft as well as in a ground role, had a cyclic rate of 450 rounds per minute. The M1917A1 had a cyclic rate of 450 to 600 rounds per minute.

The M1917 saw limited service in the later days of World War I. Because of production delays, only about 1,200 Model 1917s saw combat in the conflict, and then only in the last 2½ months of the war. Some arrived too late for combat service. For example, the 6th Machine Gun Battalion, fighting as part of the Second Division did not exchange their Hotchkiss M1914 machine guns for Browning M1917 machine guns until 14 November, three days after the armistice. The U.S. equipped about a third of the divisions sent to France; the others were equipped equally with Hotchkiss machine guns bought from the French or the British Vickers machine guns built by Colt in the US. Where the Model 1917 did see action, its rate of fire and reliability were highly effective. The M1917 weapon system was inferior to the Vickers and Hotchkiss guns in indirect fire applications because the British and French cartridges had about 50 percent longer range than the .30-06 service cartridge used in World War I.
 
The Model 1917A1 was again used in the Second World War, and was primarily used with the M2 ball, tracer, and armor-piercing ammunition introduced just prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Some were supplied to the UK for use by the Home Guard since all production of the .303 Vickers were needed to resupply the equipment abandoned during the Fall of France. The M1917's weight and bulk meant that it was generally employed as a fixed defense or as a battalion or regimental support weapon. At the battle of Momote Airstrip in the Admiralties, the US Army's 5th Cavalry machine gunners killed several hundred Japanese in one night using their M1917 Brownings; one gun was left in position after the battle as a memorial to the desperate struggle.

The Model 1917 was called to service again in the Korean War. On at least one occasion, U.S. soldiers in the Korean War urinated on the gun when water-cooling had failed in the frigid temperatures of the Korean winter. The Model 1917 was slowly phased out of military service in the late-1960s in favor of the much lighter M60 machine gun chambered in the new 7.62 mm NATO cartridge.
 
Many of the 1917s were given to South Vietnam. The last ones in regular US service were on the machine gun infiltration course at Fort Benning, Georgia, where their sustained-fire capability was an advantage in long nights of shooting over the heads of low-crawling trainees. The gun did continue to see service in some Third World armies well into the latter half of the 20th century. Some are still in use today by irregular military forces because the water cooled barrel allows for long periods of sustained fire.