Loading a New Belt onto a Belt-Fed MG

[Peter Laidler]

We couldn't lift the covers in our Centurions except for an inch or so. So it had to be a doubler pull of the cocking handle. Our drills cganged slightly on our L3 guns that fired from the open bolt. On the second pull, where the round was dragged from the belt by the extractor and lowered down into the bolt, the modified cocking handle latch was lifted so that the bolt was pulled slightly to the rear, clear of the trigger.
How do I remember all this stuff.......? The old M1919 guns were a classic case of if it ain;t broke, don't fix it. In all my time as an Armourer, in tanks too (see the funny Centurion story further on somewhere.....) nobody ever understood why we changed - and complicated - the action of the trusty and well tried, from 1919 to 1966 - M1919 and came up with a rear sear L2A4 and 6. It wasn't even as though cook-offs were a problem. The OB reports at Warminster and Bovingdon did say that cook-offs were reported.......... in Korea. But the only known casualties were the Chinese Infantry. We didn't record those statistics.

Browning M1919A4 and A6, the work of a master.
Browning L3 A4 and 6, the work of Biffo the Bear