The M-60 is gas operated, not recoil operated like the MG42 and definitely didn't change barrels the way the MG42 did. The M-60 was "loose" and not particularly accurate and expect that a number of VC owe their lives to the sloppy fit and slow rate of fire of that beast.
It is true that the German gun was made of forgings and stamped parts but the German version is more substantial and rugged.
The FN-MAG (M240) is better made too, not just a newer design and very accurate, better rate of fire, and more controllable. Quality counts!
Now why didn't you get another barrel instead of keeping the burned-out chamber?
“Why didn’t you get another barrel instead of keeping the [one with] the burned out chamber?”
As I said, both the Machine Gunner and I were new to the unit, transfers from a Battalion which was rotating home. The Plt Sgt asked if any of us new guys had any experience with the M-60, and Limbeck, the gunner who had earned the Bronze Star for his actions as a M-60 gunner, volunteered. I was a buddy of his, so I ‘volunteered’ as his Assistant Gunner. Neither of us had even seen the gun or the Spare Barrel Bag before we were issued them and went out...on a night patrol.
When we got back to base camp after that ... incident ..., Limbeck walked into the Arms Room, threw the gun on the counter, and told the Supply Sgt, or the Armorer, or the Supply Clerk, whoever it had been who had handed out the gun, “Don’t you EVER issue me a defective weapon again!” He was soon transferred out of that Company to a Battalion attached to another division, located miles away; I was also transferred, all the way back to Hawaii.