M-60 a "flawed design"?

I carried an m60 back when m16a1's were the rifle of the day. I thought the m60 was a fine weapon in every way. Reasonably accurate and in my experience reliable.

I have some limited experience with the M60E3 from about 20 years ago. The most trouble we had was with worn out guns. The guns that were set up properly and not worn out gave no trouble at all.

Most of the problems that developed with the M60 were the result of inadequate training. This is true of most problems with any kind of equipment also.

It needs to be remembered that the M60 development began immediately following WWII and the requirements were those faced during WWII, not the requirements of a jungle war in southeast Asia twenty years in the future. When the history of the gun is taken into consideration, the design was pretty darn good. Could it have been better? Of course, but I wouldn't really call it "flawed". More like "outdated by 1965" I'd say.

The M60 was designed to be a lightweight. Used aluminum. OK but requires a lot of maintenance and regular inspections. Was never intended to be a SAW but ended up as one in VN. The majority by far who carried this gun there liked it. I think we switched over to the FN because it will last longer.

kBob, Late warII the US Army tried to convert a MG-42 to 30-06. They forgot the difference of case length and the result was a disaster. So they combined the MG-42 and FG-42 to design the M-60. On the early guns we used to add beer cans so the belt would feed more reliably in VN. I later had a lot of trigger time on the MG3 (MG-42 in 7.62x51). You could use a heavier bolt (Italian) to slow the rate of fire. It would have been easier for the US to fix the first <deleted> up and field a good weapon. Like the M-16 the M-60 had it's problems. As heavy as it was I had no problems with it myself.

Small Arms review ran an article on this a few years agne of the guys that runs US Ordnance was trying to revive the M60. He found that many of the parts would not interchange between all the different M60 evolutions/variants and the stockpiles the military had made it a logistic nightmare.
He went on to point out the gas piston being easily reversed(not GI proof) causing the MG to become a single shot.

Others have stated they found some of the die cast and plastic parts on the M60 to be cheap and not overly robust.The bipod being attached to the barrel and the gas system housing.Safety wiring the gas cylinder shut,grip housing not held in place by captive pins,Many other complaints about durability of parts and the receiver being stretched due to being too thin or lack of better materials at the time.

The M60 should have been a great MG,combining features of the MG42 and FG42, Lewis gun,but turned out to be mediocre.The weapon needed a serious PIP program a long time ago.

Most troops that handled it called it the PIG,but carry a M240 and you will want the M60,especially in the M60E4/MK43MG configuration.The biggest gripe against the M240 for dismounted use is the weight,hence FN came out with the MK 48 Mod 0,but it has not been adopted for wide scale use( USSOCOM),its all about money and politics.

Imagine how much ammo needed to be carried to feed a MG-42. Ouch, my aching back!! The M-60 may not have been perfect, but it surely felt good to have one along for a stroll through the bushes.

The M240 is a much better weapon, easier to maintain and more reliable.

They were around when I first got in back in the early 90s and as a young E-nothing I got to lug them around some. The ones we had were problematic, but a lot of that was due to the guns being pretty clapped out and had a tendency for individual guns to have more "personality" than most weapons.

For a weapon to lug around patrolling, in the assault, and that sort of thing, I'd prefer a well maintained M60 over a 240 for ergonomic reasons -- the 60 is just easier handling (though the PKM is notably superior to either in that respect). Once you're in the prone and chugging rounds through it, though, I'd go with the 240.

M240 any day & twice on Sunday. POS M60 was a bad attempt at forcing the MG42 belt feed onto the FG42/Lewis MG action.

By the time I saw them they were all hammered. I very much prefer the 240.

At the same time, contrast that to the M-2. It's not like THOSE receivers were made yesterday either, and they still tick just fine.

They're also a heck of a lot thicker.

I carried the M-60 back in '72 and we called it the 'pig' because it was so heavy. Others may have had other reasons. The guns ran well if they were properly maintained and assembled.

In 1990 I was in Honduras and was working on Honduran army M-60s that were completely hosed. When I left they worked...for how long is anyone's guess.

As an advisor to the Iraqi army in 2005, my team had the 240 and I liked it a lot. I would say it didn't require quite the TLC that the pigs did, but I made my guys maintain ALL of our weapons the way I had learned a long time ago, so making a comparison would be difficult.

My very first "job" when I got to my unit in Vietnam, January '68 was as an M-60 gunner. I never had a problem with it (that wasn't my fault) and one ugly morning, it took over for my TC's main gun after he burned out his M2HB and then went on to blow up our spare! My 60 must have gone through a couple thousand rounds that day between me and my TC and was a real TIMEX ... took a lickin' and kept on tickin'!

I think any faults it had could have been overcome/were overcome (given a you tube video I saw recently where the shooter just held the trigger down and dumped a TON of ammo through it without stopping), but you go to war with what ya' got ... not what ya' want!

Just a gunt's 2 cents worth.

I was born in 1975, and I have never shot the M-60. But I would like to say that I rather like the M-60 as it saved my father's life in VN, more than once I have been told, and allowed him to come home so I could have life on this earth.
Here's to the M-60!!!


I'd like to also say that my thought's go out to the young men that didn't get out of that Jungle.

Dad carried one in Vietnam and had nothing but good things to say about the weapon. However, like with every other bad thing that happened to him over there, including what it took to keep the weapon acting right, he never spoke of it...guess it means it took alot of effort to keep it running.

A leaf spring provided tension to two pins that held the trigger housing group to the receiver. It was very easily dislodged, and lost when it sprung off into the brush. We'd usually wire it down, but of course it made taking the gun apart impossible without wirecutters.

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I recall running through a field of tall grass with one during ROTC training in the '70s. I suddenly found myself with the pistol grip in one hand and the rest of the gun in the other and they weren't physically connected. I THINK I found the pin and leaf spring eventually.

It's the ONLY firearm I've ever used where you HAVE to jerk the trigger. Otherwise it jams, pretty much every time.

The M60 isn't as bad as the Chauchat, but what is?

I was a 60 gunner for most of my time in the Army. I only had a problem one time with any of the M60's I carried. That one issue was do to a newbie armorer playing with weapons in the arms room and dry firing everything. I used the M60 in every type of environment from extreme cold, tropical jungle, to the desert and they never failed me. The M60 is like an old car, sometimes you have to tinker with them to run the way you want it too. We would add spacers behind the buffer to increase rate of fire along with other tweaks.

I got to play with the M 60 for a week long ROTC camp back in the late 1980's. For my limited time with it to me it was a blast.