Extra Light Rifle Calibre Maxim, designed in 1895, was an early medium machine gun.

In spite of this limitations, the Maxim gun soon became popular due to its extreme firepower (600 rounds a minute, equal to 60 riflemen at the time) and by 1890 Maxim and Vickers company was supplying machine guns to British Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, and Russia.

[1] However, in 1890 another American inventor, John Browning, designed much lighter and more portable, gas operated machine gun and offered it to the Colt's Manufacturing Company.

However, as the air-cooling mechanics was not very well understood at the time, the thick brass jacket that covered the barrel had only four cooling holes in its bottom,[4] and the gun overheated very quickly.

[5][6] However, despite an extensive promotional campaign conducted by Hiram Maxim himself, the 1895 Extra Light gun was a commercial failure and only 135 were built, many of these being sold out singly or in pairs for tests in various countries.