www.MG42.us

hakentt wrote:

Ratiasu wrote:
It's hard to see from the pictures, but the ejector bar seems to be in the correct position. Any ideas what went wrong? Even if it turns out I'll have to send it to someone more capable at this than me, I would like to know what not to do in the future.

You have to get it out first then inspect the damage and maybe that will tell you what went wrong.

HALELUYA!

I got it out. After trying the method with the towel on the ground, I grabbed a screwdriver and used the handle to slam the barrel into the receiver in lieu of a broom, I wasn't paying too much attention (since I wasn't expecting too much of it anymore at this point), but one of these actions got the bolt unstuck.

Will upload a picture of the bolt + trunion. Don't want this to happen again.

Thanks guys!

Ewww, he said "trunnion"

An M60 has a trunnion. The MG42 has a cam piece.

Wups!

Also, it turns out the camming piece had small hard bits of junk in one of the grooves... No idea how I didn't see that before I put it in. It's a "new" old camming piece I got relatively recently, but never gave any issues before. some of it came out as I was trying to unjam the whole thing.

Whilst I'm fairly sure that's the cause now, I'm wondering if using a modern bolt carrier with the rest being WW2 parts may cause problems as well? The thingy on top (the one that grabs the bullet from the feeding tray) is spring loaded.

The spring loaded pin on the bolt housing for the feed lever is an improvement that had nothing to do with your problem. Make sure the chips didn't come out of the cam surfaces. A dental mirror is good for checking that. If the cam surfaces are chipped, the cam needs replaced.