GunLab (KnownHost) » machine gun shoot

A day testing guns

Chuck — Wed, 01 May 2019 08:00:48 +0000

This Sunday we spent 6 hours testing a variety of weapons. A few more VG1-5 rifles were tested. The MG-34 had all the springs replaced and was tested as well as the mpi-69. This is a quick video of what was 6 hours of actual work and testing.

SAR show 2017

Chuck — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 00:36:19 +0000

Well the SAR show is over and everyone is now heading home or all ready there. This is the run down from the entire weekend.

Starting on Wednesday we have a little pre SAR machine gun shoot. Everything went perfect with the shoot, the weather was absolutely the best with a little cloud cover and no wind. Once again we took out the Gerat 06 rifles for everyone to try out. There were the usual MG42’s and 34’s, Brens and Lewis guns, a very nice 08 Maxim, 1919’s as well as a few cannons. And an assortment of sub-machine guns. Everyone had a great time.

At the show I was able to obtain some more for the Farquhar Hill rifle. I still need a bolt. If anyone knows where one is at please let me know.

I also picked up a few examples for the reference collection.

Some more books and manuals were also gotten for the library.

The Saturday pizza party went over very well. A number of people brought some very interesting items to show everyone.

This is a very nice Scotti X

A pair of Lecker pistols. One civilian and one military.

In addition the new Cetme L was also at the show and party. I had an opportunity to shoot it at the Wednesday shoot. I can’t wait to get one. It looks and functions great.

It was a great show, a great party and a great shoot. I am counting down the days until the next show.

Machine gun shoot 11-30

Chuck — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 08:00:38 +0000

With the SAR show coming up we have a group of people staying at the house. So the Wednesday prior to the show a couple of us put on a small machine gun shoot, just to have some fun. Some of these shoots have ended up being a couple of hundred people in attendance. This year we wanted to keep it a little smaller so only about 50 people were invited.

Everyone at the house was allowed to choose one weapon from the reference collection to take out. In the past it has actually required two vehicles to haul out all the guns people wanted to take. This year it was kept small due to the amount of work that had to be accomplished along with everything else.

The weapons that were taken was the SIG AMT, the early roller lock family of weapons ( Gerat 05, 06 and the STG 45) A Beretta AR-70, the MP-44 as well as a variety of handguns. There was a number of machine guns at the shoot as well.

Here is a quick video of the fun that was had.

Shooting the Hotchkiss protative

Chuck — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 08:00:27 +0000

At the last machine gun shoot I spent a great deal of time playing with my Hotchkiss light machine gun. I enjoy it like I enjoy my Lewis gun. That is to say a lot of things are going on to make the gun work. It is just a fun gun. There are a few quirks about this machine gun.

The first is you really need to be careful when loading the feed strip.

Both of these strips were damaged when I tried to load them without looking at the position of the feed strip in relation to the stripping bar. They would go in but it jammed the gun and damaged the feed strips. Effectively making it a two man weapon or a very slowly loading one man weapon.

The next major concern is the tri-pod that was used with the gun. While shooting it off the table if you were not holding the tri-pod while firing the weapon it would tip over. I tried shooting it with the tri-pod in the forward position as well as the rear position and the same problem occurred.

The stock was the next issue that I had. There is no check weld of any kind. There was a weapon used by the light horse in WW1 that had a wooden stock. This one was hand made by the owner of this weapon.He did really nice work

internet pictures

This stock at least attempted to solve this problem. The two stocks that I have are the metal types. With and with out a wood wrap and should support.

Another thing that you will have to get used to while shooting the Hotchkiss is the weight of a full feed strip hanging off the right side of the gun.

With all this said I really enjoy shooting it. It is just a fun gun to shoot and with the availability of spare parts, http://www.ima-usa.com/original-british-wwi-303-cal-hotchkiss-portable-machine-gun-mk-i-parts-set.html, I don’t feel bad if something breaks.

IMA photo

As if anything could break. Now that there are spare barrels and bolts people are doing conversions to 7.62x54r.

This also one of those weapons that has really cool accessories.

There are Strip loaders in both 303 for the British guns

internet photos

and 8×57 for the Turkish guns, this one will also work for the 7×57 guns as well.

A view of the box

A complete strip loader

A close up of the loader

The fun is in the shooting. Here is a slow motion video that we took at the last shoot.

Here are a couple of interesting drawings of the gun as well.

The machine gun I love to hate

Chuck — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 08:00:06 +0000

My least favorite machine gun is, drum role please, The MG-34. I like the way they look. I fine the accessories interesting.Like this fortress box.

Or saddle drums.

The history of the weapon is fascinating. However, after owning three of them over the years I can say with certainty that it is the aggravating machine gun that I have ever own. This includes the one I have now.

With this machine gun you need tons and I mean tons of spares. Extra Barrels.

Bolts and misc parts.

I bring this up now because at the shoot I met a very nice gent that actually love his MG-34. The weapon that he had there was a beautiful example of a MG-34. He had converted it to 308 and shortened the barrel and shroud to a smaller size. It is a very nice looking gun.

However, the most interesting part about this machine gun is this photo.

Do you see it? That is fired brass under the gun. Now I never actually saw it fire and I don’t think Wally, a friend of gun lab, would just throw empty cases under his gun to make it look like it had had worked. But the only time mine has had that many fired cases under it was when the machine gun next to it was ejecting them there.

Fun at the machine gun shoot

Chuck — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 13:02:23 +0000

This last weekend was our semi annual when we get around to it kind of twice a year maybe only once a year machine gun shoot. It is nothing great or grand. There are no fees, no explosives, no sales tables, no flying targets and no spectators. Just a boring time of a bunch of guys that enjoy shooting machine guns, cannons and mortars having fun. We have had up to a couple of hundred people show up and as little as only 10. This was a nice get together of about 40 or so people with about 400 or so different types of weapons. It was a time to relax. The guys next to me had a very nice mini gun as well as an assortment of other machine guns. There were MG-42,MG-34, Vickers in both 8×57 and 7.62x54r, M-2 , Maxims, a couple of Hotchkiss guns and a pile of 1919 and 1917 Brownings. A very nice cross sections of machineguns.My wife and I did a number of videos generally in slow motion, it just looks cool and it also allowed me to study the operation a little more closely. I got to work on a couple of Brownings and get them up and running as well as a Vickers. I had a great time. What could be better then working on and shooting machine guns. Here is a quick video of some of the fun had.

There is more to come on the shoot. A couple of interesting items coming up is a 8mm Vickers using MG-34/42 belts, the Hotchkiss portative, and an MG-34 that was said to work in 308.

Just as a side note I now have the updated version 19 ultimate version of pinnacle studio. I am trying to improve my videos and using some of the more complex extras. Hoping to get better at this.

Goofed off this weekend and went shooting

Chuck — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 08:00:07 +0000

I took off a few personal days and went to out local machine gun shoot. There will be a few posts about that over the next few days as soon as I get the videos sorted out. I had an opportunity to examine a serious failure. A friend of mine was shooting his 1919 browning and was using Turkish 8mm ammo. There was a failure to fire as had happen a number of times due to bad primers, except this time it was not a bad primer. What had happen was that there was a squib load and the bullet went a short distance down the barrel, just far enough for the next round to inter the chamber. So when the weapons was re-charged and fired a serious problem occurred.

If this had been a more expensive gun with no available spare parts I would have to try and fix this. However, spares are available.

We could not remove the case with a broken shell extractor as the neck was gone. The brass case also looked like it was brazed to the chamber wall.

I will be trying a chamber reamer this next week to see if I can salvage the barrel.

I was able to press the receiver sides back together and we were able to get the 1919 Browning back up and running while at the shoot.

The moral to this story is to keep away from Turkish ammo. Use it only in bolt guns or tear it down for components. If this accident had happen in a MG-42, MG-34 or one of the rarer guns the cost could have been enormous.

Fun at the shoot on Wednesday

Chuck — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 16:58:47 +0000

I took the day off to test out some stuff that we made or repaired and just waste some ammo. Here is a quick montage of the shoot.

I have a couple of pictures of some of the guns as well.

An RP-46

A very nice 8mm Lebel Hotchkiss

These two rifles are just gorgeous.

Taking some time off for fun

Chuck — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 08:00:52 +0000

There was a small machine gun shoot this last Saturday and with my friend Axel in town my wife convinced me to go and take a day off. We had a great time and Axel as well as myself got to do some shooting and have a little fun. This is the video I did of Axel shooting, unfortunately I did not get the video of him shooting the full auto Sudanese AR-10. That rifle is just way to much fun standing up in full auto. He was a hazard to low flying aircraft.

Something interesting happened at the shoot and that is you should always check what kind of ammo you are shooting. A friend bought a large number of reloads and partial boxes of factory 38 special. After he finished shooting it a strange case was noticed on the ground.

It was a 32-20 fired in a 38 special chamber.

It was easy to make the mistake if you are not checking each and every round.

I also got to shoot a Knight Armament 308 rifle with suppressor. What a great gun I just wish I had the money to buy one.

A great time was had by all and I am glade I took the day off.

Shooting the Czech model 52 police carbine.

Chuck — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 14:04:20 +0000

I don’t know if it is or not a police carbine or just something someone made up. What I do know is that it was fun to shoot, was in a caliber that I can buy and uses AK magazines. Everyone at the shoot that shot it really like it. So while I am trying to get back into the swing of things here is the video.