MG-34 belt pull strength is weak - normal?
Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 1:51 pm
Hello,
First time posting on this board but it seems to be the only active place to discuss inner workings of MG-34s on the Internet, so here I am.
I have a TNW semi that runs relatively well after the usual tweaks and such necessary to get these things running. One question I have though is how effective is the MG-34's design in pulling long belts that hang from the gun in a static lafette mount setup? I understand that the Gurttrommel was used to hold a 50 round belt off to the side but I can't mount a Gurt on the gun while it's on my MG-3 tripod, so it has to be a loose belt.
I find for range use that if I let the belt hang off the gun to the side without support that it often fails to pull the belt enough to align the next round to be fed properly on the gun, causing a stoppage, as the belt hasn't advanced for the bolt to pick up the next round.
Is there anything that can be tweaked to help assist the "belt pull strength" (for lack of a better term that I may not know about) on an MG-34? I'm not sure how much the TNW semi design may bleed off excess energy of the bolt cycling backwards under recoil may be robbing the camming mechanism of the top cover/feed block on pulling the belt, so I suppose that could also be a contributing factor, but would newer/in-spec springs for the various doo-dads on the feed block also help assist that, or is this all related to the camming of the feed block/feed tray/bolt notch for the feed tray raceway in action?
Perusing through Folk Myrvang's book "German MG-34/MG-42 Universal Machine Guns", on page 287, he does note (and I remember he mentions on other parts of the book) that the MG-34 is known to have issues feeding long belts dangling off of the gun. To quote the book, "When using the MG34 especially, but also the MG42 on AA tripods, it was strongly recommended that the belt drum be used. The guns lack the power to lift long belts of cartridges and feed them into the mechanism, and this was also to be considered when shooting from the MG Lafette when it was set in its highest positions".
I'm guessing based on that passage that the MG-34 just has issues pulling long belts without support from a tripod or elevated position (such as an AA tripod), and belts should be assisted by an assistant gunner, or a support hand to help support the belt to feed into the gun while shooting, but I just wanted to confirm that this is the case and there's nothing really wrong with my gun or feed block.
Thanks for any input or advice, this board has been very helpful.
First time posting on this board but it seems to be the only active place to discuss inner workings of MG-34s on the Internet, so here I am.
I have a TNW semi that runs relatively well after the usual tweaks and such necessary to get these things running. One question I have though is how effective is the MG-34's design in pulling long belts that hang from the gun in a static lafette mount setup? I understand that the Gurttrommel was used to hold a 50 round belt off to the side but I can't mount a Gurt on the gun while it's on my MG-3 tripod, so it has to be a loose belt.
I find for range use that if I let the belt hang off the gun to the side without support that it often fails to pull the belt enough to align the next round to be fed properly on the gun, causing a stoppage, as the belt hasn't advanced for the bolt to pick up the next round.
Is there anything that can be tweaked to help assist the "belt pull strength" (for lack of a better term that I may not know about) on an MG-34? I'm not sure how much the TNW semi design may bleed off excess energy of the bolt cycling backwards under recoil may be robbing the camming mechanism of the top cover/feed block on pulling the belt, so I suppose that could also be a contributing factor, but would newer/in-spec springs for the various doo-dads on the feed block also help assist that, or is this all related to the camming of the feed block/feed tray/bolt notch for the feed tray raceway in action?
Perusing through Folk Myrvang's book "German MG-34/MG-42 Universal Machine Guns", on page 287, he does note (and I remember he mentions on other parts of the book) that the MG-34 is known to have issues feeding long belts dangling off of the gun. To quote the book, "When using the MG34 especially, but also the MG42 on AA tripods, it was strongly recommended that the belt drum be used. The guns lack the power to lift long belts of cartridges and feed them into the mechanism, and this was also to be considered when shooting from the MG Lafette when it was set in its highest positions".
I'm guessing based on that passage that the MG-34 just has issues pulling long belts without support from a tripod or elevated position (such as an AA tripod), and belts should be assisted by an assistant gunner, or a support hand to help support the belt to feed into the gun while shooting, but I just wanted to confirm that this is the case and there's nothing really wrong with my gun or feed block.
Thanks for any input or advice, this board has been very helpful.