www.MG42.us

Got my MG13 semi back from Dennis @ Midwest Metal and am going out to shoot it next weekend. Dennis had to cut/lighten the recoil spring so that it would function with Romy 8mm. I'll probably be shooting Turk or Portugese so my question is "how do you know what setting to adjust the recoil spring to for a heavier load." "What do the numbers mean in relation to adjustment?" I have an extra top cover with an uncut spring that I can put on the gun. Guess I need a manual from jbaum but tapped out right now. Any advice on adjustment?

The recoil spring is adjusted to the particular ammunition being shot. Standard German s.S. ammunition is fired when the indicator is on 4.

I have a very nice MG13 manual coming in a few months. The original is 75 pages, with excellent diagrams in the back of the manual. I have already finished the MG13 Use Instructions manual. It would get you going, and then the other one will be available later.

A little off topic but Jbaum do you still carry the thing you can check the MG42 pressure plate with? Im in need of one and cant find it on your site

Why would you modify the recoil spring? ? I have a few semi auto my-13s and never had to do this. I shoot all kinds of ammo threw mine. Something just doesn't sound right. How easy does does it cycle? I compare mine to a 22. It has a very light cycle and trigger pull. Out of all my toys myg-13s are my favorite !

I'm a little at a loss over the cutting of a recoil spring too. It sounds like there is either too much drag in the system or something else is wrong. Having had an MG13 I can tell you that it ran great on the romy ammo as well as WWII german and all the yugo. The only thing it didn't run with was the crappy turk junk. If I'd known then what I know now I'd never have put that crap in the gun. I blew out an extractor which is not an easy piece to find. Do yourself and your rifle a favor and don't shoot that turk stuff in any semi or full auto. I've spent a lot of time repairing guns damaged and destroyed by that stuff. It took me about a month to find that out running it in post samples which had pretty low value. You may save a lot of money by heeding the advice of those who went before since the semi's are actually worth something.
I've had a pretty wide variety of recoil operated 8mm belt and mag fed machineguns. My early thoughts when the romanian ammo started coming in was that it wouldn't work well due to its light bullets. I was surprised to find that the rate of fire in the MG42's was more or less unchanged between the light romy ball and the WWII heavy. MG15 rate of fire is unchanged. My MG 81 was actually timed at 1820rpm with the light romy ball and 1785rpm with the yugo heavy. That was an average of 10 25rd belts fired of each type. No explanation I can find for that but the overall consensus after running 20 or 30 thousand rounds of the light ball is that it will run any gun the heavy ball will.
One other thing to consider is that the MG13 has the same muzzle thread as the 08 and 08/15. You might consider using a booster off one of those guns to get the thing running reliably instead of cutting the one part that protects the receiver from the bolt. Also if the recoil spring is cut you won't be able to use any of the reference numbers in the topcover. They won't relate properly anymore.

Hope that helps
Frank

flemgunner wrote:A little off topic but Jbaum do you still carry the thing you can check the MG42 pressure plate with? Im in need of one and cant find it on your site

Yup, I still have them. They're on my Militaria For Sale page. First item.

http://www.germanmanuals.com/militaria.html

I'll give you a range report after next weekend. Will probably shoot some Romy through it and change out top covers to see if there is any difference. Dennis does great work, have a 1910 Maxim and DP28 that he did for me and never had any problems. Thanks for the input.

Adjusted the recoil spring to the #3 setting and shot 125 rounds of Portugese NC ball. Functioned flawlessly.

Excellant!! Now we need some pictures! ---bil

Dennis @ MWM is building me a A MG13 K with a 17" barrel.

Here is one of MWM MG 13 semi's will post photos of my "K" gun as soon as i get it!

Do any of you MG13 semi or Class III owners have problems with snapping firing pins?

Nice photos...wish I would have bought some of the MG13 kits when they were cheap and plentiful...like everything else that used to be "cheap and plentiful." Chris...

Hey all, I'm sort of back, sort of. I might have a few kits I'd be willing to sell.

Such as???? Welcome back! ---bil

MG13 of course , thanks