www.MG42.us

http://www.gunbroker.com/item/580914131
Nice set, not mine.
Most of these utilize a "clamp-on" foreward A/A sight holder. It was removable in order to slide the gun into the turret mount from the inside.
The "aircooled" MG34 shroud uses a front A/A sight holder that pins on, and is smaller and narrower than the panzer unit, therefore not interchangeable.
Here is one that is the correct panzershroud size, but pins on. Never seen one.
Anybody else?......Phil

Thats actually the only thing missing from my ground kit. Never seen one for sale. Correct me if Im wrong but he is missing the little clip thing that holds the flash hider on as well.

http://aassniper98.com/en/mg-34/4415-co ... -mg34.html Hi Flem. Here is the clamp-on Front AA sight. I got mine from them. It's really nice. The Euro is real low now...good time to purchase while they can still sell stuff.
Fun fact: The circular depression in the AA sight on an air-cooled barrel fits a 9mm Lugar shell-casing.
On the clamp-on panzershroud AA bracket, the depression fits a 7.9mm casing. What for? Re-sizing?... I believe that the f/h retainer is on there. You can see the little folded clip at the top. It sticks foreward out the bottom, not shown in any photos.
This gun features the uncommon L/S button...or "useless-hole plug"...on the trigger grip. .....Phil

The barrelshroud isnt in the right red color.

I was thinking it looked reblued but wasnt sure with the DOT shrouds

Not all MG34 panzershrouds were the red colour. I see that some items came out of the bluing tank...purple, like Mauser "ar"-code camming pieces on their MG42s.
My "dot" panzershroud looks pretty original (beat up), but it is blue.
Pretty sure these in the photo are originals.....Phil

Ok, so if the scroud is in normal black on a panzermantel, does that indicate that the scroud is in a different type of steel than the ones that are in red, or is it just an other way the bluening is done?

The plum color is the result of improperly bluing the gun. Early Luger triggers often have the same color.

So its just bad craftsmanship? And the scrouds who are more dark are done properly?

By observing that the plum colored triggers (and sometimes a few other small plum colored parts, such as extractors) aren't on most Lugers, I suppose it could be considered bad craftsmanship, but I don't suppose the parts looked bad at the time, or they'd have been refinished.

My guess is that age exposed the flaw, and as it's irrelevant to the function, it wasn't worried about at the time. It also could be that the plum color didn't appear until years (or decades) later, so they weren't "defective" during their original expected useful life. Maybe it took 30 years for them to go plum. I've no way of knowing. I have a few parts on my 98k's and Lugers that are plum, and some guns that have no plum at all. There are salt bluing methods, and rust bluing methods. Somehow, something was different in the process or the steel, or the parts would match.

If it was something such as storage grease that stained the steel, a perfectly plum trigger and extractor wouldn't be on a perfectly dark blue Luger. It had to be the finishing process that was different.

So its a ageing that makes the color. I have a a few K98k's that have the same red color on one part, the releaselatch for the bolt i think it was.