www.MG42.us

Bingo. Look at Myrvang UMG book page 130 figure 143. A preproduction 1943 BNZ with the adjustable front sight

Upon further research, all the MG42 kits I looked at just now have the hole for the mounting stud. That includes 1945 kits and Steyr BNZ GZ. That's not comprehensive, of course. Note that M53 kits do not have this hole. Perhaps the hole was retained in production to accommodate the Waffenmeister mod...

Doing more research. First model has just a lug on the head and a spring in the receiver. The receiver has a stud, and the legs are mg34 style Second model has the head we know and mg34 legs. Receiver has the stud. Third model is a modified earlier version with the leg spring removed and tabs added....

Somewhat off topic, I forgot about that bipod update in the manual. I have all the Baum mg42 books, and frankly can’t remember everything in them, nor where to find it. Sure would be nice to have a reference list!

I have two mg42 bipods like the third shown. Whether they were converted from mg34 or were early mg42 with tabs added I can’t say. Neither has the internal spring mechanisms, though it would be easy enough to repopulate from a mg34 donor.

How do we know it’s not an mg34 bipod with a mg42 head swapped in?

Jared is well respected. He’s a long time member on FAL Files. I spent some time speaking with him at KCR and he definitely knows the mg42. Clearly what he knows is that the 42, despite claims, has specifications and won’t work if it’s out of spec. New guys should read between the lines: 1. Don’t pl...

Feed springs are a wear item and always the first suspect for problems. That includes the main recoil spring.

But as you identified the mg34 feed is not as strong as the Uber powerful mg42.

Most of the early MG42s are in the ground around Stalingrad and the route back to Berlin. Same with mg34s. Anything before 1944 is less common. Iirc folke put the Sarac production at 170,000 or so. Export was very limited, probably only surreptitious events. I believe Rheinmatall numbers are compreh...

I’m not sold on the number of wraps. I have German shaped stocks with more than six wraps. Ok maybe early yugo stocks were copies of the German shape. I doubt we will ever know.

Way to go Glenn! You are now an immortal. But I will wait for the hardcopy...impatiently

That the Serbian factory used the German production machinery is documented. They did make some changes to reduce production costs in the M53, case in point the useless AA front sight mount. That they changed the buffer makes no sense minus the assumption that the drawings or equipment was damaged, ...

Ironically enough, I saw this an hour after removing for the first time two L-Kimme sights!

Now, if we can find an easy way to assemble the entire rear sight (without a tool).

I'll get a photo John. In the mean time, the airsoft was clearly modeled after something (or they used surplus military sights) maybe somebody knows? With it, the FH catch is interesting, though obviously it's stamped, the surface is striated with ravines, if I didn't know better I'd say it was a po...

Got a few kits that came out of Yugoslavia. One has an adjustable front sight. I did a search on it, and the only image I can find of an mg42 adjustable front sight is on airsoft! https://www.evike.com/products/55741/

Thoughts?

Any decent tray is going to run $250 plus.

I’ve not seen production number but clearly Yugoslavia would not need the 700,000 units produced by Germany during WW2 These are mg42 in all but name and a couple minor details. They were made on German MG42 machinery provided following the war. The AA sight base, missing on the M53, is useless agai...

IMHO for any restoration, when using semi replacement parts/ assemblies plan on hand fitting. Especially the TNW MG34 semi parts. It's not just the aftermarket semi stuff. The factory original MG34 and MG42 exhibit significant tolerance variation. I've had to match bolts to recievers on the MG34, an...

Conventional wisdom right now is that FH with thin rings are German, and those with fat rings are Yugo. I found one old thread that agreed with this, though note that "anything BK was made by Yugos" is now known to be untrue, since the Yugos restamped German parts. http://mg42.us/viewtopic.php?f=9&t...

Bipods may be marked "dfb" but will not be marked with "MU". That's only the receivers.