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To: Vision
Always reminded of a guy I met once in the Catskill mountains of NY state. He was a world war 2 collector (and veteran) and he demonstrated how it only took him 10 minutes to turn a German MG-42 back into a fully auto machine gun.
He claimed he took it off into the wilderness once with a few 50rd belts of ammo and that when he fired it it actually spat out the ammo so fast that it sounded like one long burst. Wonder where he is today? and wonder if he still has that monster?
142 posted on 07/11/2013 9:11:06 PM PDT by Larry381 ("Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.")
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To: Larry381
... it only took him 10 minutes to turn a German MG-42 back into a fully auto machine gun...

I've often read such claims, but I would think that a safe and reliable machine gun would be a bit more complicated. If cycling the action disconnects the sear from the trigger, there isn't much risk of the hammer being "barely" caught by the sear as the gun cycles, but preventing such a thing in a full-auto firearm would be much harder. If the hammer barely catches on the sear as the trigger is being released, it could leave the gun in a situation where an arbitrarily-small nudge could knock the hammer off the sear. If the firearm has a backup safety mechanism, the it could be unexpectedly decocked. If it doesn't, it could unexpectedly discharge. Neither seems like desirable behavior.

I would expect that a reliable full-auto design should include some timing mechanisms to ensure that the hammer will only be allowed to approach the primary sear at times when the action is either committed to firing another round or committed to stopping until the trigger is pulled fully. Not exactly a 10-minute mod.

147 posted on 07/11/2013 9:27:24 PM PDT by supercat (Renounce Covetousness.)
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