The M240 SLR from Ohio Ordnance Works is an excellent replica of the M240 light machine gun, and it is a pleasure to shoot. Posted on 04/28/2020 10:49:51 AM PDT by w1n1
The M240 SLR from Ohio Ordnance Works is an excellent replica of the M240 light machine gun, and it is a pleasure to shoot.
Variants of the M240 general-purpose light machine gun may have earned a reputation for ruggedness and reliability on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, but this 7.62x51mm NATO belt-fed beauty has provided U.S. Army and Marine Corps infantryman with hard-hitting firepower since the 1990s. And, although the weapon is heavier and more complicated than the Vietnam-era M60-series light machine guns it replaced, those drawbacks are far outweighed by the simple fact that it works much better.
The M240 was designed in the 1950s, and manufactured by Fabrique Nationale (FN) for the Belgian military as the FN MAG 58. It was eventually adopted by the armed forces of Britain, Canada, Australia and many other nations. Rather than sheet metal stampings, its receiver is made of heavy machined steel components riveted together like vintage Browning machine guns of the previous century, such as the M1919 series light machine gun and M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun.
The United States military first took an interest in the weapon as a coaxial machine gun for tanks in the 1970s. It was very successful and proliferated on various vehicle mounts through the 1980s before it was employed in a ground role.
BOB LANDIES of Ohio Ordnance Works (OOW) in Chardon, Ohio, outside of Cleveland, specialized in making semiautomatic versions of historic American machine guns like the Browning Automatic Rifle and M1917 water-cooled heavy machine gun for collectors. So when the M240 was seeing heavy use in ground combat against Iraqi troops and later al-Qaeda insurgents, Landies hatched the idea of making a semiautomatic version to satisfy shooters in the military collector market. Following a year of design and development work, OOW patented the M240 SLR (Self Loading Rifle). Read the rest of M240 SLR machinegun.
Kicking myself to this day for not getting a Yugo M76 parts kit and OOW receiver.
:)
Also bummed I passed on that 1919 with tripod for $800
I got to fire a belt at a gun shoot a few years back using an old beat up van as a target, and I must say, there are few things you can do with your clothes on that is more fun than that!!!
...a belt from a SAW...:)
don’t know if it’s the same but here’s the M240 Bravo belt fed- looks liek a handful for sure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN7w_gh7uY
didnt fps russia get himself arrested?
oh i dunno- just found the video of the gun and posted it- i don’t follow his youtube site or anything
His stuff was entertaining
I was a SAW gunner in the ‘90s, and I was thankful for that versus the 240. That 240 is a heavy beast, and I wanted no part of it. The tripod + spare barrels the assistant gunner for a 240 had to carry made his life equally sucky.
I was very happy to be on a Weapons Squad in the Army and issued an M-60 in Germany. Nobody deserves to have has so much fun along later with the M-2,M-249 and M-3 (Grease Gun that the Tankers let us fire!).
I don’t doubt that at all (and thank you for serving)
I read an interesting account from the book “No True Glory” about the Battle of Fallujah, and in it, one of the Marines was killed and his SAW was taken by insurgents who were still holed up in the house, and the Marines were extremely concerned that the weapon could be used against them by insurgents.
They full well knew the damage that weapon could inflict on the human body...
A whole lot more to the story on how we got M240s: Maj. Jim Nelson. He was the Assistant Program Manager for Infantry Weapons at Marine Corps Systems Command and he was responsible to fix the problems we were having with the M60 machine gun.
The M60 always was a cheap lowest-bidder weapon but the latest iteration - the army’s brilliant “walking fire” version with a slim barrel to make it light enough to fire from the hip - was melting barrels.
Jim took a hard look at the problem and saw that there were 5,000 M240s in storage at Anniston, stuck there because Sen. Cohen of Maine pressured the army to use SACO Defense’s (of Maine) M60 instead.
Jim had them shipped to Albany GA and had them rebuilt as ground machine guns and voila the Marine Corps had a gun 20 times more reliable than the M60.
Then the army had to buy their own after that - which really annoyed them!
Sen. Cohen tried to block everything but the results of the firing tests could not be denied and the Marine Corps got 5,000 free machine guns..
BANG!
I was an assistant gunner for an M60 crew during training in the Seabees. The tripod was so awkward; could never figure the best way to carry it or strap it on my back. I’ve wondered ever since why there wasn’t a fitted holder designed for that very purpose. (Then again, I was a Navy guy doing training under Marine supervision. Maybe my difficulty was their way of having a little fun?)
Maybe they've solved the issue, or maybe you're right about your Marine buddies.
Thanks, they wanted him bad.
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