www.MG42.us

I recently got a Yugo M53 kit, and was surprised to find a "bpr" marking on the charging handle, plus an eagle marking inside the barrel shroud. However, the other parts like the top cover and barrel clearly have Yugo markings. Seller doesn't know anything about the prior history of this, so why was this M53 kit mixed with MG42 parts? Did they rebrand original MG42s after the war in Yugoslavia?

I am guessing that the original vendor/importer just grabbed the nearest parts to make the kit without checking if they were all Yugo or German.

I've come across mixed M53 with German parts a few times here in the UK. May have something to do with Yugoslavia using the MG42 after the war, then continuing with production as the M53 at already established wartime German production arms factories?

I have also run across this. My last M53 parts set had german markings on the trigger housing and trigger and the rest of the parts where yugo. I came into the states this way. It was covered in cosmoline.

volksstrum 45- to my knowledge there were no plants in yugoslavia producing the mg42 durning ww2-- when the slavs broke ties with STALIN -TUTU? ordered the production of the M53 and everyone of those were produced at the RED BANNER plant ZASTAVA.tell me if i'm wrong or partly right

Josip Broz=Tito,partisan leader and later leader of Yugoslavia. ---bil

blackreichswehr wrote:volksstrum 45- to my knowledge there were no plants in yugoslavia producing the mg42 durning ww2-- when the slavs broke ties with STALIN -TUTU? ordered the production of the M53 and everyone of those were produced at the RED BANNER plant ZASTAVA.tell me if i'm wrong or partly right

Okay 'Blackreichswehr' you could be right, but if you are, that only raises further questions like for example, where did they get all there tooling and know-how from? Same goes for the Yugo built lafette's, pretty much perfect copies of the German built version which only leads me to think that they may have been in a good starting position in the first place with wartime production lines? Or did they buy/import assembly lines from else where?

Hi everyone, i bought recently here in the uk a deactivated m53, with german marked parts, it came with a 44 dated waffenampt marked dfb made bipod, waffenampt marked top cover (with no crest) and the wierdist thing is that at the side of the serial number under the m53 mark on the receiver it has a small waffenampt mark also- maybe the yugos made these for the germans in ww2 as well as the germans themselves, well im no expert, but really do think the m53 i have is ww2 made.

The receiver has several small differences,the most noticable is the taper point,the spot on the receiver in front of the rear sights where the receiver begins its taper to the bearing bushing.I don't have either gun with me and can't remember which is which.Not really noticable unless the two are side by side.This leads me to believe that at least the receiver was just a copy and not made using original tooling.I would think as a soviet client state nthey would have gotten the captured equipment from them.There was also a lot of leftover equipment the Germans left behind.A lot of this was also used in a little-known confct in Greece,when communist partisans tried to take over after the war.Interestingly,as the partisans used soviet helmets,and the US helmets were of a similar shape,especially at night,the non-communist Greeks many times used the old German helmets,with a distinctive shape.I saw many pics of this from a friend that was a 'civilian advisor'there around 1946-1948.It is these small confricts that helped spread this stuff all over the globe. ---bil

Phil-could we have some pics,please? Thanks muchly! ---bil

Take it Phil you got yours from one of the bigger dealers here in the UK, who states that some of his M53 are wartime production with dates ranging from 1943 onwards?
It does make you wonder don't it

Yeah will sort sum pics out no probs bill, my receiver is marked with the obvious m53 mark, the small waffenampt mark, the serial number, then sum cyrilic writing with 2 numbers at the side stating 44, could this be the date of manufacture?, as the bipod is 44 dated aswell?- i got my example privatly from a guy on the net, the finish isnt all that great,its seen sum action i think, could do with a repaint/re-blu

Hi fellas,

One of the biggest bugbears in the uk is that thier are some guys out thier with a crap load of waffen stamps that are trying to up the anti on the 42,s

Actual pucka german stuff is really thin on the ground as ive been looking for one, thier are a few yugo,s but as we all know thier is a hell of a difference in value.

Ive seen a few kicking around that have been marked up and no armourer or waffenmiester worth his salt would have produced and marked like that as the plates were actually distorted .
Even a bloke in the factory would have had the correct support behind the piece when making the strike.
How many of the muppets out thier do you think are fully stripping a piece down to mark up ? Plus you also find that the marks are in some funny places , most of the weapons had an instruction on where they would be marked in the factory, and how they were placed in the field post repair.
Hacks me right off it does , ive seen some nice bits of kit that were correct ruined because of this type of thing.
RANT ...RANT...RANT

OK....i will stop now
regards
Tim
PS....Has any one seen a 42 with no marks to the rear of the reciever ???

Phil could we see some pics of yours please.

Bil is correct about the taper on the barrel shroud. The taper is longer on the M53, it stops one hole back from where the front AA mount would be. On the MG42 however the taper stops about 2 holes back from the front AA mount point. Really noticeable when you look for it. Time for a picture I think. I will take a better pic later but you can see what he means. Top and bottom are the 42's and the middle is a 53.

Three! Ooooooh thats just plain greedy Sorry Seriously I see your point now about the taper, so I guess that original German tooling wasn't used on some of the production for M53's.

yes it is a bit so I have spread the love, so to speak, and sold the relic.

I think that was my favorite! ---bil

It was sad to see it go but I did have basically 3 of the same gun. Now I have a bayonet for my K98, a Glock 17 with 31 round mag and an original Glock laser/light for the mounting rail and a S&W 5946. Next purchase will probably be a Beretta AR70 then maybe an HK MP5K.

I just got an M53 kit that has a bpr marked shroud... there are a few differences from it and the shroud on my M53. I'll post some pictures.