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I came across some photos showing the so called "franken" magazines supposedly used in Viet Nam before the 30 round M16 magazine was issued. The story: the upper part of the M16 magazine has an AK-47 magazine attached, which would provide about 30 rounds of 5,56mm.
Can anyone provide additional information or photos of examples ?Attachment 102497Attachment 102498Attachment 102499
They were around when I was there. You needed an AK mag, some files and sandpaper, and the sense to never tell your platoon sergeant you have nothing to do. All the ones I saw were simply filed and shaped to friction fit the M16 mag well, no notch cut for the mag catch. Mag lips were sanded and filed until things worked. No one I knew actually used them except goofing around on a firebase.
I have heard and some of the photos are evident that some of these franken magazines used the M16 magazine as the top section
and a ground down AK-47 as the bottom part. Now as to what kind of follower is unknown but possibly a modified AK-47 ? It
would be quite a collectors item if someone brought one back and it was an original modification.
A good metalworker would be able to weld/solder/etc the M16 mag to the AK mag, cut off at the top. Adapt the M16 follower to the AK mag spring or the other way aorund. Should need fine tuning but it should work. The platoon sergeant isn't watching is he?
Aluminum m16 mag to steel AK mag ??
Yes, that's always been my question, welding the two together and staying. Seems everyone believes it can happen though... Filing the original to fit? Wouldn't even bother.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee Enfield
Weren't the original waffle mags scrapped due to rust issues? I.e., weren't they steel?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee Enfield
I suspect that is why the few I saw were in the hands of REMFs. But I am certain that the ones I did examine were filed, sanded or ground to a friction fit. The lips were hammered or tweaked in some way to more or less work with the existing AK follower. I can't remember if I ever saw one successfully fired. The best welder in our battalion maintenance section, who could just about weld the wings on mosquito would have had tough time welding aluminum to steel with the equipment available. No MIG, TIG, wirefeed or any of that stuff, basic oxyacetylene or a honking big arc welder was it.Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
I do not believe that it is possible to weld aluminium to steel because aluminium has a melting point of around half that of steel. There are other ways to join aluminium to steel such as using screws, rivets or glue, for example and these methods can be successful if sufficient thought is given and the correct/suitable materials are selected.
That would make sense, line guys would be in and out. No real time.Quote:
Originally Posted by old tanker
But he could weld your parts back onto the tank...if you broke it.Quote:
Originally Posted by old tanker
Yes, you can melt it with a hot enough burner and cast iron pot. Not so steel...Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying10uk
Solder could work, wouldn't be the best but it could work. I imagine there would be guys with those skills around back then too, thanks to copper piping still being the main choice for plumbing.
There is a product by the name of Lumiweld which is a low temperature welding process for aluminium and aluminium alloys but I'm not sure if/how well it would work in conjunction with steel. I have tried this product several times over the years with mixed results. A good feature is that a gas blow torch can be used as the heat source, rather than a gas welding torch, but the downside is, in my opinion, the process requires a fair amount of faffing around to complete.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eaglelord17
All this conjecture...but an infantryman on the ground wouldn't have the time or facility...REMF yes, he has time. I too have heard lots about these and seen these sketchy pics over the years but I wouldn't use a cobbled mag in action. You search hard enough for issue gear that won't fail you...
The original waffle mags were aluminum.Quote:
Originally Posted by rcathey
The current repros are steel.
The waffle pattern was dropped because the horizontal indentations were found to reduce stiffness and increase flex of the sides, denting and thus stoppages.
Don't forget the AR mags were intended to be disposable, issued pre loaded, stomped and left un-usable on the battlefield...
I understand that 20 rd mags are still in the US system until recently so that didn't happen in reality...
The OP provided 3 "sketchy photos" of allegedly extended M16 mags and little additional information to go with them. I don't know what he was expecting, but this being a forum and the question being asked, it seems little surprise that the OP's question produced a certain amount of "conjecture". The alternative was the OP to receive little or no response from his fellow forum members to his original question.
A few years ago I saw some photos on other websites that showed AK47 magazines in M16 rifles, the photos lacked detail. I thought possible "photo-shop" or else these really were assembled in Viet Nam and used for photos ? because neither the US Army or Colt could provide a 30 round magazine until 1970 ? I could never imagine these franken magazines would ever be used in a combat situation and wanted to know if additional information could be found and milsurps is the best forum to start looking for information.
Now I do have a vest and two AK magazines that were brought back from Viet Nam around 1968. One of the AK magazines has a small caliber hole that entered the floor plate and made an exit though the side which locked the follower and spring all the down as the magazine must have been loaded. Interesting is that the oil bottle is North Korean.Attachment 102653Attachment 102654Attachment 102655
Perhaps these mags were something that the Vietnamese "produced" themselves out of scrap/salvaged/otherwise-obtained material and sold to American soldiers as a "novelty item", who knows? I do believe that Vietnamese people are generally a resourceful and enterprising people and would/could think up a thousand and one ways to extract money from foreign soldiers stationed in their country.
I do wonder how much of the "Vietnam War memorabilia" that currently comes out of Vietnam actually dates to the Vietnam War and how much has been produced in more recent times to satisfy a "Vietnam War collector's market".
By 1969 some of these "sterile" AR-18 magazines started to make their way to US Troops in Viet Nam. These were available before Colt 30 round magazine became available. These magazines would fit either the AR-180/18 or the M16. Note the markings on the envelope for this magazineAttachment 102659Attachment 102660
We did encounter some Navy SEALS along a couple of the rivers in our AO. One of them was carrying a Stoner 63 a belt-fed LMG, they spoke highly of it. Stoner had magazine fed version that resembled a Bren, open bolt and magazine on top, but I personally never encountered one when I was there.Quote:
Originally Posted by RCS
The half dozen or so "Frankenmags" like the OP asked about I saw were simply steel AK mags filed and shaped until a friction fit in the M16 mag well, no notch cut for the mag catch. There were no changes to the follower, the mag lips were filed, sanded and bent by trial and error until it fed, more or less reliably. Each one had been made by the guy who had it, or so they claimed. I never saw one out in the field or other serious use. My impression then, and now, is they were a novelty, useful on the firebase for taking "hero pictures" to impress the folks home.
In retrospect, their existence did lay the seeds for future speculation and controversy by those who were not there.
I do not believe that there is a great deal to speculate on or anything of particular controversy. I have stated that steel can not be welded to aluminium which is not a matter of speculation, it is a matter of fact.
If out of curiosity, if I were to build a franken magazine, I would tight swage the M16 top half of the magazine over a ground down AK magazine
It would be quite interesting if someone was to actually try this out.Quote:
Originally Posted by RCS
Re RCS's comment- The controversy I recall was in the spurious claim by so many wanna-be's that the AK series could shoot our ammunition but not vice versa. Perhaps in the mixup of bores 7.62 by 51 or 39, but in the late 70s and early 80s when I enlisted, this myth reached epic proportions among the US military, as those who used it to claim their bona fides (their PSG did it in Vietnam, foaf stories, you're not cool enough to know, etc etc), while those of us who knew the real deal saw it as the vocabulary of fools who only saw their weapon when they went to the range to qualify.
Sometimes a 7,62mm NATO will fire in a Mosin-Nagant rifle.
Best story was that the US 50 cal BMG cartridge would fire in the Soviet 12.7mm
machine gun often called the 51 Russian in Viet Nam but the Russian round would
not fire in the 50 cal Browning, of course it is not true but the story continued long
after the war.
Photo shows a 55 Boys, 50 Cal BMG and Soviet 12,7mmAttachment 102678
We too suffered through the stories from the great unknowing about enemy being able to use our such and such but we couldn't...I ended up spending years to quell such stories...
Those same stories still come up to this day occasionally. Kinda fun shooting them down though.Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
You think after this last great conflagration, there'd be enough people around that know better...but as mentioned it's like an old hand game. "I know these things"...Quote:
Originally Posted by Eaglelord17
I guess in reality most of the vets have rotated out of line now. Very few serving junior ranks with stars. Less Snr NCOs too...than you'd think.
We are pretty much at the point now where no one serving even used the previous generations of weapons (except generally the fairly Snr NCOs and officers). My father and uncle were on some of the last infantry battle schools for them (C1, C1 SMG, C2, C5 etc.). That puts the youngest you can be is your late 40s, and even then your exposure would have been fairly limited as they would have only been in service with them for a few years.Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
The problem is simply poor information being told by a few, and others taking it as gospel. The good thing is with the internet it is easier than ever to disprove this stuff for them. Most the people being told these falsehoods were mainly told by relatives who were around a while ago (and bought into it then), as opposed to it being shared by leadership.
About the only possibility of such a thing happening MIGHT be firing 81mm bombs from "their" 82mm mortar, IF and only IF the base plug / striker were mechanically compatible.
Not long back, I was talking to a former member of an old unit Mortar Platoon.
Apparently back in the 1980s, the Mortar platoon took delivery of a substantial number of THREE INCH bombs, new firing tables AND new base plugs.
Three inch and 81mm use different "striker" types, both on the removable base plug.
Why were they doing this? Well, this is how it was explained to me:
The story goes that some blanket-stacker found something like a MILLION 3" bombs stored in a big shed at an out of the way depot. Apparently these (and a lot of other odd stuff) had been stockpiled there ready for the big push into the Japanese Home Islands. Someone must have figured that a bit of portable fire-support might be a good thing.
So, the system authorized the destruction of all this "stray" ammo in training shoots. New base plugs were made for the 81mm tubes and our jolly mortar-men were off to the races.
There were, apparently, several problems with this ammo.
1. There is a "little" bit of breezeway between the 3" bomb and the 81mm tube. This bore "breezeway" meant that a bit of the blast escaped around the not-fully obturated bomb, reducing muzzle velocity, (and range). The "loose" bombs" literally rattled up the bore and started to cause odd wear patterns in the tubes.
2. The 3" ammo is NOT bore-safe. Once the safety pin on the warhead fuse is removed, if you drop it; there may be an "Earth-shattering" KaBOOM!
3. SOMETIMES, the initiator / main charge would not ignite.
These last two are closely linked. If a bomb failed to launch, the "authorized drill" was simple:
All extraneous personnel disappeared like magic.
The two lucky "volunteers" from the crew unhitched the base-plug from the base-plate.
Then the fun part. The "catcher" used a cloth or sandbag to form, essentially, a "mitt".
The other bloke lifted the base of the tube to let the bomb slide SLOWLY out to be caught in the "mitt".
The by-now nervous "catcher" would then carry the errant bomb to the "blind" pit, some distance from the firing line, place it gently on the ground and return to his pit.
Down-range blinds kept the demolitions types amused, as well.
Back to the 'theirs and ours" story: Does anyone have the details of the "striker" system on the Russian 82mm mortar?
I think it was Mark Twain who said: "It ain’t what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure, that just ain't so".
I spent time in Mortar Pl and those stories make my skin crawl...Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz
Here's a pic of another modified mag with documentation from it's manufacturer... It looks very good too... :yikes:
I found some original US Ordnance photos a few years back that showed both 30 round and 40 round magazines for the
Model 1918 BAR. These were for anti-aircraft protection, by the mid 1930's these were all withdrawn from service.
There is a company that manufactures a nice working 30 rd magazine for the BAR now, but expensive
Those are 50 round magazines meant for members of the special forces.
Did you see them over there? Any more pics or testimony?Quote:
Originally Posted by tazaroo