www.MG42.us

Well, I bought this rifle almost 2.5 years ago and decided to shoot it this weekend. The gun is factory fresh, brand new I bought straight from TNW. No I haven't called them yet. Anyway, the first time I pull the charging handle it jams a round between the bolt and top of the receiver. Next couple of attempts the bolt is actually tilting the round up and barely catches on the feedtray. This holds the bolt back and the round is not extracted from the belt. Kind of just stopping everything. I didn't realize it at this time. Couple more attempts it loads a round, I pull the trigger, it fires and extracts but doesn't load. It again is slightly pushing the round up??

Gun was lubed, not sloppy wet, loaded correctly as a semi auto with clean links. Shooting Romanian ammo. I did use a starter tab and then took that off. removed about 5 rounds and let 5 hang on the right side to give the belt a little weight, still no luck.

Any advice?

I was able to shoot only 1 round in 30 minutes before giving up.

I don't know if this will help, but be sure you're using the TNW MG34 "semi-auto" charging sequence:
*Lock the bolt back. I use a plastic spacer in the ejection port to hold the bolt open.
*Lay in the belt in the feedway.
*Close the feed cover.
*Pull back on the charging handle a little.
The spacer will fall out. Let go of the charging handle. The gun will chamber the first round in the belt.
Any other sequence runs the risk of the mechanism trying to chamber two rounds at once.
Best of luck.....Phil

Phil thanks for the response. I've tried for the last couple of night using a lightly oiled belt and 5 dummy rounds I have. Using the sequence you posted which, other than the block I was already doing... same effect. The bolt apprears to be driving the bullet up and the tip catches the arched area on the feed tray. really loosing my mind on this.

Hope you've got it resolved by now.
If it's a TNW gun running their firing pin spring, a LOT of the energy of the bolt is used up cocking itself due to the monstrous firing pin spring tension. The bolt needs to hit the buffer spring really hard and be flung foreward with plenty of energy.
If it's almost impossible to cock the bolt out of the gun, imagine the lost momentum as the return spring drives the bolt foreward, twists it, threads into the barrel, and attempts to chamber the round powered only by the return spring.
The friction comes from the interface of the ramps on the two halves of the bolt as they slide along one another as the bolt heads toward the barrel. This might be slowing down the action of chambering the round.
You might substitute the original WW2 firing pin spring for the heavy TNW one and see if the friction mitigates somewhat. Best of luck.....Phil

well, I talked to Lance at TNW a month or so ago. Taking his advice I bought a new feed mechanism. This appears to be brand new. replaced the old with the new and still same effect. The round slightly rides up and into the top of the feed tunnel as I guess I'll call it. There it still binds the bolt up. The bolt cycles fine and is fairly easy to cycle, I also used the oldest and well worn links I had.

Should I "smooth" out the top of this tunnel? the point of the bullet is barely catching. I just don't understand how it passed a test fire?

It's a cool gun, just not so cool that i can't shoot it.

Perhaps a minute detail or dimension is off on your MG34. Don't know if this will help. Some close-up photos of a TNW-34 that works....Phil

have you checked the length of your ejector rod in the bolt? I have found two problems with this piece, one being the rod is too long and it hits the ejector plate on the middle of the receiver on the way forward and that will cause the rod to shove the round up. The other is that the angle on the rod is wrong and again can hit/rub against not only the ejector plate but also the side of the receiver. Easy to check and fix. The rod in its forward position should not protrude from the side of the bolt body. The angle of the rod should be parallel to the bolt body when it is pushed in from the bolt face. Harry