Shooting the M3A1 'Grease gun'

I wrote a couple articles on the M3A1 'Grease gun' for my Michigan Firearms Examiner column.

The M3A1 'Grease gun' was a rude, crude, and effective submachine gun

"The M3A1 “Grease gun” was one of the simplest, ugliest, and cheapest personal weapons ever fielded by the U.S. military. But, as one U.S. Marine combat veteran recently recalled, what this crude submachine gun lacked in looks, it more than made up for with brutal effectiveness."

This article includes a brief interview with a Korean War vet. I wish I would have got more of him on tape as he was a hoot!

Here's the second article. This one has footage from a U.S. Army training film with added footage of me shooting a Grease gun at the end. Watch how the brass hits the camera.

Shooting the M3A1 'Grease gun'

Thank you and welcome to the forum! (Are you Bob?)

For some odd reason the M3A1 was one of my favorite US weapons (at least to look at) -
I guess it's so ugly and basic it has a charm of it's own to me.
I've never seen one in real life though, much less fired one.

I enjoyed the videos, and especially the color military vintage training video. The access was denied to view the close-up still photos.
Do you have an example of one so that you could post some photos here on the site? (Directions for two means of posting photos here are in the 'sticky' section above)

Again, welcome to Milsurps.com
~ Harlan

I had one many years ago now and it was my pleasure to take it out regularly. The problem was I had ten mags and would go through all of them every time. I had changed the springs in mine so it ran a bit faster than the one Rob was shooting. Kind of like an Ingram until I trimmed the springs a bit. Wonder where that one is now?

Yes, that's me. I prefer "Rob" to "Bob" though. I provided the pictures of the NIW Enfield #4 Mk 2 a couple years ago.

The pictures of the Grease gun will probably work later. Examiner is a pretty wonky site. When I get a chance I can post them here as well. It's not my gun so I only have the pictures I took at the shoot and don't really have access to it to take any more.

Someone else posted a video of that same Korean War vet actually shooting the grease gun. I'm going to add a link to that in the story later.

Sorry about the typo Rob! :wave:

Looking forward to seeing any photos you have time to show.
If you have them on your hard drive you can use this method (link below) and upload them directly.

How do I upload pictures to my posts for storage on milsurps.com?

The slideshows are working for me now. Try 'em again and if they don't work let me know and I'll send in a ticket. They should be good now though.

When I get a chance I'll go through the photos I took and see which ones to upload here. I have more photos then what I used in the article.

The suppressed ones are quite the treat. If the sun's just right you can watch the bullets go downrange, too. Silver/copper colored "tracers".

"The suppressed ones are quite the treat". Too true, the sound of the bullets as you work them around the backstop can cause one to go through the whole 30 every time. That makes for a lot of brass to clean up afterward.