A Historic Look at Germany's Remarkable MG42 Machine Gun

[Talyn]

An influential general purpose machine gun.​

Early in 1942, the new machine gun was officially adopted with manufacturing taking place at Großfuß AG, Mauser-Werke AG, Gustloff-Werke, and Steyr-Daimler-Puch, and MAGET (Maschinenbau und Gerätebau GmbH, Berlin-Tegel). The MG42, designed to replace that MG34, that has had the greatest influence since the end of that war.

A Historic Look at Germany's Remarkable MG42 Machine Gun - Firearms News

An influential general purpose machine gun.

www.firearmsnews.com

 

[Belt Fed]

How about a 34

 

[Belt Fed]

Years ago was shooting a guys 42 and it came apart, they have an extremely high cyclic rate about 1200 rpm i believe. they have a QD barrel and the front barrel shroud pivots out to the side to pull the barrel out. it blew the shroud open and barrel. crap hit me all the face. remarkably it did not hurt the gun, i don't know what happened as it was not my ammo. i was shooting his 42 and he was shooting my 34 which is about 900rpm.

 

[Talyn]

Years ago was shooting a guys 42 and it came apart, they have an extremely high cyclic rate about 1200 rpm i believe. they have a QD barrel and the front barrel shroud pivots out to the side to pull the barrel out. it blew the shroud open and barrel. crap hit me all the face. remarkably it did not hurt the gun, i don't know what happened as it was not my ammo. i was shooting his 42 and he was shooting my 34 which is about 900rpm.

Could have been parts & spring wear.

The booster could have been failing as well as weak springs.

 

[Warrior9(Ret)]

We shot those, along with the G3 Rifle and P38 Pistol during our German Marksmanship Qualification Badge competition. The bipod legs don’t extend and you have to pull back, not push forward or the legs would collapse. They didn’t lock.

 

[rcurtner]

An influential general purpose machine gun.​

Early in 1942, the new machine gun was officially adopted with manufacturing taking place at Großfuß AG, Mauser-Werke AG, Gustloff-Werke, and Steyr-Daimler-Puch, and MAGET (Maschinenbau und Gerätebau GmbH, Berlin-Tegel). The MG42, designed to replace that MG34, that has had the greatest influence since the end of that war.

A Historic Look at Germany's Remarkable MG42 Machine Gun - Firearms News

An influential general purpose machine gun.

www.firearmsnews.com

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Remember our military made a training film back then to help our troops cope with the high rate of fire from this machine gun.

 

[Warrior9(Ret)]

Remember our military made a training film back then to help our troops cope with the high rate of fire from this machine gun.

Yep. After firing afew belts I got up and watched the rest of the firers.
Eight MG3s all firing in unison. Sounded like a bunch of really loud buzzsaws. The cardboard targets were getting quickly chewed up

 

[KillerFord1977]

Our local Taj Mahal has one to fire on full auto rental

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