The M3 ‘grease gun’ was a rude, crude, effective submachine gun that saw service from the Korean War through the late 1990s. Posted on 09/15/2017 7:58:55 AM PDT by w1n1
The M3 ‘grease gun’ was a rude, crude, effective submachine gun that saw service from the Korean War through the late 1990s.
The M3 “grease gun” was one of the simplest, ugliest, and cheapest personal weapons ever fielded by the U.S. military. But, as one U.S. Marine combat veteran recalled, what this crude submachine gun lacked in looks, it more than made up for that with brutal effectiveness.
“The first time I went to use my rifle, it went 'click', so I busted it over a rock and picked up a dead Marine’s grease gun,” said USMC Korean War veteran Don Campbell. "I was lethal with the grease gun. It worked really well on the enemy." Campbell made his remarks at a machine gun shoot after firing a grease gun for the first time since he served in combat over 60 years ago.
THE GREASE GUN is a compact weapon with an overall length of 29.8 inches with the stock extended and 22.8 inches with the stock collapsed. The barrel is 8 inches long. The 8.15-pound empty weight of the gun is brought up to 10.25 pounds once a loaded magazine of 30 .45 ACP rounds is inserted.
The M3 is blowback operated and fires from an open bolt. An external cocking handle is used to retract the bolt. The weapon fires fully automatic only at a listed cyclic rate of 450 rounds per minute. The ejection port cover doubles as a safety by locking the bolt in place when closed. The 30-round box magazine is a double-column, singlefeed design based on the STEN.
Personal accounts from WWII indicate the weapon was initially greeted with skepticism by many troops who were used to the more refined Thompson and the finely made M-1 Garand. The tubular sheet-metal design led to the nicknames “grease gun” and “cake decorator,” after two common implements of the day.
The grease gun’s attributes became evident in use: The weapon’s simple construction and operation made field maintenance straightforward. The gun’s relatively slow cyclic rate allowed skilled shooters to easily fire short bursts, or even single shots, to help ensure that more of the 230-grain .45 ACP rounds found the enemy. Read the rest of the M3 Grease gun here.
Carried one for a while. Damned boat anchor when carrying six mags. Good brush chopper and never had a failure.
It was a novelty and I went back to my trusted M-14. If you’re going to pack that kind of weight might as well go with a battle rifle.
Something which I always wondered about is Simo Hayha the Finnish sniper’s favorite gun was a Swedish made submachine gun.
Not his sniper rifle.
Quite a few soldiers might still be alive if they had these rather than those awful M16A1s.
A Swedish K if I remember correctly.
L
A simple effective design. And thirty rounds of 45 ACP is always a handy thing.
Soviet PPS-43 > Grease Gun??? Pretty sure the British Sten Gun was the worst of the mass produced stamped metal Submachine guns.
I can’t remember but you are probably right.
He also preferred iron sights.
They were designed to be carried in tanks for crew weapons. Soldiers like them because it knocked people down if you were close enough to them. My dad said they were good for clearing trees of snipers.
Daddy’s battalion was one of the first sent into Berlin after the Russians captured it.
I had just purchased a Chinese made Mosin Nagant and was curious about them.
I asked Daddy about what he thought about them. He told me he never saw a Russian carrying a bolt action rifle. They were all carrying those sub machine guns.
The ultimate “spray-n-pray” weapon.
I have a successor (indirect), my S&W M76 with Gemtech SG9 suppressor. Talk about fun, accurate, and HROF!
My dad, a Korean war vet hated it, and spoke with derision of its very poor accuracy and inability to stay on target.
Too light for fully auto .45.
He did concede it never failed to fire.
He absolutely loved the M-1 and sung its praises until the day he died.
1942. Way before Korea. A cheap and dirty answer to the very expensive Thompson. GM stamped them out like headlight bezels.
Couldn't agree with you more! I carried an M3A1 as my local security patrol weapon for about two weeks and the weight, the difficulty in loading magazines, the slow rate of fire and the limited range made me beg for my M-14 back.
The M-14 tore through stuff just fine up close and gave you the option to hit things hard at 500M +, all for the same weight load. No contest!
Hah, I forgot about loading the mags. That would give you a blister on your thumb in no time.
Those were the days.
They were still a crew served weapon carried in M60A3s in 1984 in my battalion.
Always thought they were pieces of junk. When firing, you could see the bullets kind of doing corkscrew out of the barrel while the kickback walked the line of fire in it’s own desired direction. It definitely could be walked onto target though...
German Schmeiser was the bet.
Our mechanized unit had them in Germany in 1989. I was in a line company but I was good friends with some of the mechanics who were assigned to the M88 beasts. Along with their M-2 50 cal. and side arm M-1911 .45 they had M-3 .45 Grease Guns (All arms that served in WWII!). I was a M-249 SAW gunner and saw the simplicity of the M-3 from maintenance to use was ingenious. The belt/drum or in an emergency magazine of the relatively heavy SAW could spit 5.56 rounds at a hellacious rate but was not close to the simplicity of the M-3 take down,reassemble and maintenance. I do understand they did completely different roles.
I inherited several boxes of 9x19mm US Government issue ammo that I thought was for this gun, thinking the .45 was for the Thompson sub-machine gun. The date on the ammo is 1968.Anyone know what US gun used 9mm in 1968?
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