Photos of original FG42

[boltaction]

Good morning:
There really isn't a forum for miscellaneous military rifles, nor is there one for machine guns like Maxims, Lewis, etc, so this has been put in General Discussion. I've had some surgery on my knee, so am at loose ends today, and thought I would take apart my FG42 to clean it. While doing so, I took some photos, which I hope others will enjoy. Being in Canada, and too young to own machine guns, this one is a CA. No, I didn't do the conversion; it was done several years ago. While I'm glad it was done so that I can own this piece, I wish in many ways it hadn't been done as it changes the gun.

The unit is matching, and all original, except the magazine, which is a modern repro stamped "Made in Japan" and while the hold open works, the mag doesn't lock into place. I would love to find an original mag somewhere, or maybe one of those mags for the repro FG42s being brought in might fit.

Typical of later war German weapons, this one is quite modular, and snaps together and apart quite easily. I would think it would have been rather ungainly to shoot, especially with a full magazine hanging off one side, but reportedly, recoil was fairly minimal because of the straight in line design. Like all light autos, I believe they tended to "climb" when on full auto. However, I would think one would only use the full auto function when doing support fire, which would probably be on the ground with bipod mounted anyway. The bayonet is kind of laughable, but no more so than the French MAS.

I have not shot this rifle, and while I would love to, probably never will as if something happened to it, I would feel terrible.

I haven't labelled the photos; the sequence is fairly self-explanatory.











































































































Ed

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