Military junkers

tark · Oct 12, 2016

AND NOW... (drumroll please).....I will enter into the competition the absolute WORST gun the Army EVER adopted. I know. I was 45B20 and I had to attempt to fix the wretched things. Every ex M-60 Tank jockey will now scream YES! at the top of his voice:

The M-73 co-ax 7.62MM in the M-60 tank.

It is a good thing the gun could be dismounted from the tank, because that happened a lot, as they were brought to my Small Arms van to be fixed. I knew that whenever curses could be heard, it was another tanker approaching, M-73 in hand. It was a rare M-73 that could get off a ten round burst without jamming. And when they jammed, they REALLY jammed. Often a complete disassembly was required to clear the damned thing.

It got so bad, that we just exchanged guns and sent the offenders back for repair. I have never see a bigger .....never mind. The moderator deletes foul language. You know what I was about to say.

Acera · Oct 12, 2016

Bill50 said:
I haven't seen a nagant revolver yet. Suppressors weren't issued for it making the gas seal useless.

Not so.

That was not the reason it was made that way.

They did it to eliminate the gas leakage at the gap between the barrel and the cylinder. The suppressor idea was something than came a long later and was not a design consideration. That piece of engineering (revolver+ammo design) did it's job and sealed that gap and increased the push on the bullet.

Got to remember that era, getting the most out of the propellant was paramount to some of the older generation. Our ordinance department fought tooth and nail to keep them from putting a hole in the Garands barrel. Remember the first 'gas trap' Garands? Luckily smarter people prevailed.

.

Nom de Forum · Oct 14, 2016

tark said:
AND NOW... (drumroll please).....I will enter into the competition the absolute WORST gun the Army EVER adopted. I know. I was 45B20 and I had to attempt to fix the wretched things. Every ex M-60 Tank jockey will now scream YES! at the top of his voice:

The M-73 co-ax 7.62MM in the M-60 tank.

It is a good thing the gun could be dismounted from the tank, because that happened a lot, as they were brought to my Small Arms van to be fixed. I knew that whenever curses could be heard, it was another tanker approaching, M-73 in hand. It was a rare M-73 that could get off a ten round burst without jamming. And when they jammed, they REALLY jammed. Often a complete disassembly was required to clear the damned thing.

It got so bad, that we just exchanged guns and sent the offenders back for repair. I have never see a bigger .....never mind. The moderator deletes foul language. You know what I was about to say.

Your experience matches mine. I can only add that the M-73 really didn't get any better even after it was redesigned and designated as M-219. When I was at Aberdeen there was something called the 219 Hall of Fame. You received membership when while working on a 219 you got you finger chewed on by the rammer of that ridiculous sliding breech block action.

Capybara · Oct 14, 2016

One thing the 1895 Nagant has excelled at is value appreciation. I bought mine for $90.00 a few years ago, it's a brand new re-arsenal '44 Izhevsk. Now selling for as much as $400.00 to $500.00 at the local C&R store. Wish I had a bought a crate like they had available a few years before I got into C&R.

CapnMac · Oct 16, 2016

tark said:
the absolute WORST gun the Army EVER adopted.

Now the M81/MGM-51 152mm gun/missile system has to vie with the M-73 for that title.

Which has to rank up there with the Royal Navy's Volley Gun--here, we'll light off seven .50 cal BP barrels all at once; shoudn't be a problem with that atop a ship's mast.

tark · Oct 16, 2016

CapnMac said:
Now the M81/MGM-51 152mm gun/missile system has to vie with the M-73 for that title.

Which has to rank up there with the Royal Navy's Volley Gun--here, we'll light off seven .50 cal BP barrels all at once; shoudn't be a problem with that atop a ship's mast.

Hi, Nom de Forum. !! We have had similar run-ins with the devil. For a while, we got what was marked the M-73A1. It was a little better, it deleted the case carriers and some of the levers and substituted a simple stud that knocked the empty out the bottom of the receiver. (supposedly!) Still a you know what!

Military junkers

tark

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Acera

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Nom de Forum

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Capybara

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CapnMac

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tark

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