MG34

Hey guys,

Sorry no posts lately but I had a BLAST this weekend and just pulled in from O-town on Tuesday...Shot in two competitions on Saturday, but I'll talk more about that in another post.

I gotta mention first and foremost that I was lucky enough to get a chance to take a spin on a German MG34.

For those of ya who aren't familiar with it, the MG34 was the first modern universal machine gun. At 12kg, it was much lighter than most other MGs around the world, and could be used for virtually any role.

Nazi Germany began producing them in 1934, and it was used from a bipod, as this one was, in the light machine gun role, with a tripod for a general purpose machine gun, and also in tanks and aircraft.

It had a blistering rate of fire, although not as high as the later MG-42, and fired the powerful 8mm Mauser round. Typically a 199 grain bullet at 2600 feet per second.

It operates by the recoil of the barrel being blown straight back and pushing the bolt to the rear with a massive recoil spring in the buttstock bringing the bolt back into battery. The nose cap at the muzzle end of the rifle uses the gas from firing to assist in this.

It is effective to 1200 yards at least in aimed fire and 2000 yards or more in the indirect fire role, to simply batter an area with ammo.

Recoil was very mild, although this version was only semi automatic, it was quite accurate. Hitting a 10" target with slow fire was a breeze. When you really open her up as fast as you can fire her though, it tends to spray an area. Doesn't kick hard, but you can't keep the sights on target very well either. It pelts the immediate area with ammo. You should see this thing chew up a berm. It's unreal. 8 men firing rifles at the same time was the only thing that even came close to how much damage this thing was doing.

I can say this...our boys who charged these guns in places like Juno beach had some big, BIG brass ones!

Here's me giving it a go.