www.MG42.us

IMA customer service just re-confirmed to me that they're a class act. In a response to my e-mail enquiry no more than 10 minutes after I sent it, they noted that it's been several years since they had/used any solid aluminum MG34 receivers in their dummy guns, and so there's nobody there to ask for...

Yeah, contacting IMA is on my short list. I've wiggled and jimmied the pieces many times over the years, always unsuccessfully. I haven't tried applying heat yet, nor have I clamped the things in a vise to work on them. Those are also on my short list. I'm waiting on a guy over on WeaponsGuild to te...

Many moons ago I got an MG34 dummy gun from IMA. Now I'd like to remove the parts from the solid receiver. Well, I got everything off except the barrel shroud extension (a dot 1945). It rotates fine to remove the barrel, but no matter how much I rotate it while pressing the other large locking pin i...

How did the Germans store their empty MG34/MG42 ammo belts? How do you? I keep mine oiled, rolled up and in several plastic bags, but there has to be a better way, if only because the bags eventually tear.

Here are some pictures. Pins are out, but haven't gotten them unscrewed yet. 'tis a pity the barrels were torched, there are some nice markings on them.

Bryan

Sorry for the tardy reply, the cut barrels with extensions just arrived today. As instructed I punched out the retaining pins with little difficulty.

Thinking about trying some strap wrenches to unscrew the extensions.

Thanks,

Bryan

How do you remove the pin that holds the cam to the barrel? Does it simply punch out, or do you drill it out, or what?

Then how does the cam separate from the barrel?

I want to remove a cam from the stub of an 8mm barrel and install it on a barrel chambered in .308.

Thanks,

Bryan

Just recently I've started re-viewing the 1960s-era US TV show called "Combat". In the first episode, after the assault on the Normandy beaches (pretty well done, IMHO, by the standards of 1960s TV production), the team is assigned the task of scouting out a local French farmhouse. Finding that the ...

This last weekend I had my Wiselite-made S/A M53 out with the F/A big boys (MG-42 included). I shot both 150g Romanian steel case as well as some of the 196g PPU brass case "sniper" 8mm from the late 1990s from Wideners. As usual, the Romanian shot reliably. No issues at all. Other than the usual st...

I wonder if he's had a medical emergency.

I think I answered this over on WeaponsGuild, but for completeness let's do it here also.

IIRC the pin is a split pin, so you push it through instead of trying to unscrew it. The firing pin should then drop out.

Bryan

Is this F/A or semi? Nice looking gun.

Great picture! Are tintypes normally reversed (left-to-right)?

This is how I understand things to work: F/A MG34s (and 42s) fire from an open bolt, so when you pull the charging handle back the bolt stays back and you have to manually move the c/h forward. You put the first round in the belt directly above the feed slot in the tray and close the cover. Pulling ...

I've used both Romanian and some of Widener's 1999-dated Yugo (actually PPU) in my WLA-built S/A M53 with no problems at all. Well, other than a WW2 German belt with a bent link that brought things to a halt really fast. I haven't done the corrosion test with the PPU yet, but I did clean up the M53 ...

Here's a picture of what I got from Sarco about 18 months ago, top view. The crank handle is on the right side, chute on top (naturally). It didn't come with a special tool to use for de-linking like you get with some of the Russian linker packages, hence the question. A dowel with a dimple in the b...

As part of the process of slightly stretching my MG34/MG42/MG3 belts to aid extraction, I lubed them up well and pushed fired 8mm Romanian steel cases far into some belts, and unfired 1950s-era Yugo 8mm far into others. So far they've sat for about 5 days. Time is not of the essence. Now the questio...

My WLA-built M53 runs just fine in 8mm, so I thought I'd try to get it to run in x51 NATO. Got the conversion kit from BRP, changed out everything as instructed and went to the range for testing. Well, the bolt wouldn't fly all the way forward. Opened the x51 top cover and saw that the M80 round was...

FWIW, I've got WaA-marked MG13 mags that came in the vests (not WaA-marked, so Portuguese?) and also in WaA-marked cans.

Bryan

No one here own one? I got a post-war Yugo one several years ago, also with the AA extension, but not from IMA. Mine has no WaA anywhere that I can find, and still has the original Yugo data plate. It's quite heavy, and makes for a very stable platform. I've never bothered stripping off the green Y...