Loading a New Belt onto a Belt-Fed MG

[browningautorifle]

our belts had a metal leadin

Interesting, did you folk make them? Ours were IVI produced and the US issue dropped the lead tab too. Agreed about the turret deal, even after our Grizzly turret decreased in size to the Cadillac-Gage model we were still doing open cover loads with both .50 and 1919A4 (C-5). I don't remember seeing them when I was there in Australia in '77 either and we had a few M113s with the double turrets...but they were .30 cal guns, weren't they? The lead tabs were dropped by us when we changed from .30 cal to 7.62. That was about 1970.

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[fjruple]

Interesting, did you folk make them? Ours were IVI produced and the US issue dropped the lead tab too. Agreed about the turret deal, even after our Grizzly turret decreased in size to the Cadillac-Gage model we were still doing open cover loads with both .50 and 1919A4 (C-5). I don't remember seeing them when I was there in Australia in '77 either and we had a few M113s with the double turrets...but they were .30 cal guns, weren't they? The lead tabs were dropped by us when we changed from .30 cal to 7.62. That was about 1970.

Jim-- I lot of it depends on the manufacturer and the countries' military specifications. I know the US manufactured .30 caliber linked ammunition came with a metal start tab as manufactured. In a tank mounted M37 .30 caliber Browning, the starter tab had it be removed in order to load the weapon as the starter tab would not pass through link chute on the gun. The US manufactured millions of rounds of linked and cloth belted .30 caliber ammunition for the Browning .30 caliber series of MGs. We had so much of the stuff it lasted through the Vietnam war. Until recently the CMP was breaking down Mg belts to reload the ammunition into 8 round enbloc clicks for the M1 rifle. Additionally I know that the German DM6 7.62mm NATO ammunition belts also came with a starter tab.