St. Étienne Model 1907 machinegun
Official wording
French, St. Etienne machinegun, Model 1907, cal. 8mm. Lebel.
What this entry requires
- INFOATF states no date; production was about 1907–1917.
- INFOStill an NFA firearm; only registered examples transfer, with ATF approval (26 U.S.C. 5812, 5861).
Editorial facts · Our research
- Country
FranceBasis: the ATF wording - Manufacturer
- Manufacture d'armes de Saint-Étienne (MAS)Basis: outside reference ¹
- Type
- MachinegunBasis: the ATF wording
- Action
- Select-fire / autoBasis: the ATF wording
- Caliber
- 8mm LebelBasis: the ATF wording
- Made
- 1907–1917production; ATF states no dateBasis: outside reference ²
- Service
- Military
Source
- Official wording
- ATF P 5300.11, April 2025 edition · Section IV · PDF p. 83 ↗ · ATF original ↗
- Entries
- 1 line
- Verbatim check
- Checked against the PDF text before every release
- Editorial facts
- Confidence: High · Last revised 18 October 2026 (Evidence pass) · How we rate confidence
- References
- 1. Wikipedia, “St. Étienne Mle 1907” ↗, maker: infobox manufacturer Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Etienne (MAS)
- 2. Wikipedia, “St. Étienne Mle 1907” ↗, years
- Fact tags
- ATF the ATF wording states it.
- REF ¹ an outside reference supports it; the number points to the list of references.
- ESTIMATE an approximate or indirect reading, for example the production range of the base model.
- NO CITATION we haven’t attached a reference for this fact; it’s our editorial reading, not ATF’s.
- Source checked
- 20 October 2026: ATF’s page still lists the April 2025 edition
- Corrections
- None
Historical context
Image: Wikimedia Commons, “Mitrailleuse Saint-Etienne modèle 1907, Musée de l'Armée.jpg” by Rama., CC BY-SA 2.0 fr. Retrieved October 2026.
Summary: Wikipedia, “St. Étienne Mle 1907”. Text CC BY-SA 4.0.
FROM WIKIPEDIA
The French St. Étienne Mle 1907 was a controversial gas operated air-cooled machine gun in 8mm Lebel which was widely used only in the early years of the First World War. For "political reasons", the St.Etienne Mle 1907 was developed not to derive from the patented Hotchkiss machine gun. Instead, to avoid patent infringement and royalties, it borrowed its gas operated, blow-forward design from the semi-automatic Bang rifle of 1903. The Bang system, first transposed by 1905 to the French Puteaux APX Machine Gun, had proved unsatisfactory enough to inspire its redesign by 1907 as the St-Étienne machine gun. However the Mle 1907 St-Étienne was only a partial redesign: the original blow-forward gas piston, rack-and-pinion system, and bolt mechanism of the Mle 1905 Puteaux machine gun had all been kept only slightly modified inside the newer weapon. Eventually a total of over 39,700 St-Étienne Mle 1907 machine guns were manufactured between 1908 and late 1917. They were widely used by French infantry only during the early part of World War I until their replacement by the more reliable Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun.