Who has fired a WW2 era weapon?

Discussion in 'Weapons, Technology & Equipment' started by Owen, Nov 27, 2019.

  1. timuk

    timuk Well-Known Member

    Which is? It really would help if you named the source/evidence rather than just making a statement.
    At the moment my vote lies with Dave as he has actually weighed the rifle. However since he has not told us when his scales were calibrated they might not be reliable!

    Tim
     
  2. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    I just weighed mine. 8.3 pounds, loaded and without a bayonet. Would you like it unloaded, also?
     
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  3. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Deleted
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2019
  4. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    With regards to SMLE weight, I have read that at least originally it came with several different butt lengths.
     
  5. Juha

    Juha Junior Member

    Never shot a single shot from Finnish modified Russian 3-line rifle M1891, Mosin–Nagant for the Westerners, but was trained strip, clean and reassemble the bolt. I was rather puzzled how many small part it had. Our RK-62 (a Finnish version of AK-47) had a simple rotaring bolt, even the WWII Soviet DP-28 lmg had very simple "flapping" bolt (we were trained to strip and reassemble the gun and even load its a bit ackward magazine but never fired one) and our kvkk 62 lmg also had a very simple bolt. It seemed odd that a five shot bolt action rifle had clearly more complicated bolt than automatic weapons.

    And remembered that if mines were accepted we once blew up a WWII era German SC50 50 kg aerial bomb in a little copse during our weapon effect training. We used a safety fuse to ignate the bomb, we lit the fuse, ran to a nearby trench, crouched down fingers to ears mouth open then "boom" and some gravel and earth rained on us. The copse and its trees were rather sorry sight after that.
     
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  6. Topfmine

    Topfmine Active Member

    During the glorious days of being allowed to own pistols and semi automatics i have fired all if not most WW1 & 2 pistol and rifles plus reloaded as well. Also being in the reenactment circles have fired most of the WW2 fully automatic weapons at private battles and public battles at shows using blanks under section 5 conditions. Things that come to mind using these weapons is using decent magazines for these guns that prevent stoppages, and low power ball rounds for pistols are very prone to ricochet.
     
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  7. SDP

    SDP Incurable Cometoholic

    I was Hon Sec of the University Rifle Club so was quite spoilt by all the old Rifles and Pistols we had together with a few newer ones. At one stage was Licensed for, I think, about 15 rifles and 4 pistols. This included some rather ancient Martini-Henry Rifles, a couple of Browning semi-automatic pistols and a Vostok(?) semi-automatic pistol. My own rifle was a very pretty - lovely carving on the stock - Anschutz. Happy Days except for the occasion when I was nearly shot at point blank range by a new Club Member - he never made it past the first day of membership.....
     
  8. Richard Fisher

    Richard Fisher Machine Gunner

    I haven't seen the Vickers mentioned yet so I'll chip in with that for now.

     
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  9. JDKR

    JDKR Member

    Yours truly firing a Vickers with the Australian Army at Canungra, Qld in 1987. Battle Wing retained them as effects guns for use during live-firing exercises. I seem to remember that they could only be used for flanking rather than overhead fire as their accuracy was suspect!
     

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  10. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    God, what fun. When I was a little kid one of my dreams was to fire a Vickers gun, just like Robert Taylor at the end of Bataan.

    I am surprised that the gun you shot was inaccurate though. Were the barrels badly worn? I believe the Vickers had a good reputation for accuracy.
     
  11. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Barrels wear and the Vickers was renowned for its ability to fire sustained machine gun barrages but only if barrels were changed regularly.

    In WW1 the Vickers was deemed less accurate than the German Maxim because the Vickers tripod mounting lost rigidity quicker than the Maxim's sledge. It isn't just the barrel that contributes to accuracy.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2019
  12. JDKR

    JDKR Member

    I think it was barrel wear - these were pretty senior weapons - but, as Robert-w says, it could also have been tripod problems. It was huge fun but I think we were limited on ammunition for fear of bush fires and certainly would not have fired tracer. I have also fired MG 3, which is as close to MG 42 as you can get and with the same chilling rate of fire.
     
  13. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    We have a range close by that will let customers fire various US-made, belt-fed machine guns, such as the Ma-Deuce and the M1919 for a, uh, nominal fee. I've considered venturing there and giving them a run but don't want to spend $50-100 for about 10 seconds of fun.

    They also have various other machine guns (M-60, M-249) and a host of submachine guns available. I have already fired many of the subs (such as H&Ks, UMPs, Uzis, AKs, M4s, M16s) recently and in years past, so that isn't much of a draw for me.

    They have a Thompson M1 and I think it might be interesting to give a try.
     
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  14. Topfmine

    Topfmine Active Member

    In this liberal world where they take take take, i would grab that opportunity to shoot as much as you can. One day this will be all gone.
     
  15. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Is that why I see images of Vickers tripods weighted with sandbags?
     
  16. JDKR

    JDKR Member

    Any tripod-mounted machine-gun will usually have its legs weighted with sandbags in order to keep the gun as stable as possible during firing.
     
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  17. JDKR

    JDKR Member

    Should have added this photo...
     

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  18. Richard Fisher

    Richard Fisher Machine Gunner

    That's an excellent photo. Thank you for sharing.
     
  19. JDKR

    JDKR Member

    Pleasure. Never mind the Vickers, it looks as if I needed a visit to the barber!
     
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  20. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Back to the 80s with my pic regarding sandbags on tripods.
    Placed on there after stamping tripod feet into ground place sandbag and stamp down on it to firm it in.
    We did have colour film then just my mate wanted to get arty with B&W.
     

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