www.MG42.us

Here's a new one (for me anyways). Haven’t seen this discussed in any of the main literature before.

A 50 round Gurt 34 with a permanently attached early Einfuhrstuck. It's marked with a maker's code of “B 6.40” and a Waffenamt of 642, which is Dr. Ing. Boehme u. Co., Werksleitung Luedenscheid Werk Minden, Westfalen, I believe.

Waffenmister (?-spelling) belt repair (?)...........
A lot of shooters (especially renactors) will add a starter-tab end-piece to a 50-rd. belt so they won't lose the short starter-tab section.

Regards, RichardS
US Army, Retired.

Many reenactors don't use the starter tabs at all, just like the German soldiers did, because the starter tab can get stuck in the feed mechanism and break off the first link in the belt even if it does not cause a jam. Fishing the end of the feed tab under the feed cover is a pain you can do without. All you need to know is how to correctly load the gun without them, which is faster anyway. The only time you need a feed tab is if you are using feed drums.

If you leave the first two links of a 50 round belt empty, and hook the empty first link over the right edge of the feed tray, you don't need a feed tab. You just lay the belt on the feed tray in the position as described, pull the feedpawl positioning track under the feed cover to the right with your thumb as you close it (the bolt should be already cocked to the rear), push the safety off, and fire.

I had one of these on a 250 round belt - I figured it was home made - someone threaded it together as an experiment.

DARIVS ARCHITECTVS wrote:Many reenactors don't use the starter tabs at all, just like the German soldiers did, because the starter tab can get stuck in the feed mechanism and break off the first link in the belt even if it does not cause a jam. Fishing the end of the feed tab under the feed cover is a pain you can do without. All you need to know is how to correctly load the gun without them, which is faster anyway. The only time you need a feed tab is if you are using feed drums.

If you leave the first two links of a 50 round belt empty, and hook the empty first link over the right edge of the feed tray, you don't need a feed tab. You just lay the belt on the feed tray in the position as described, pull the feedpawl positioning track under the feed cover to the right with your thumb as you close it (the bolt should be already cocked to the rear), push the safety off, and fire.

I don't use starter tabs with assault drums either, the drums stay in place with the top cover up - as you rightly say, just leave the first two or three links empty and let it hang over the tray (sometimes if I'm in a hurry, I'll put a little pressure on the belt to bring the rounds into position, as I close the top cover.) - I have gone through approx ten thousand rounds of blanks, on multiple movie sets - and the five starter tabs I own are still in the wrapping they were in when they arrived.

I have not EVER used my guns in a real war zone, or for that matter with live ammo - so perhaps that changes the paradigm, it should't - but I didn't have a protocol watching NCO observing over my shoulder, either - I just worked out a system that resulted in as few jams as possible - jammed gun + film set = $'s wasted and embarrassing situation.

That starter tab looks a lot like a post war unit. Pretty easy to swap out any of the links or parts since the springs that hold the parts together are interchangeable pretty much throughout 34 to MG3 production.

Frank