First Burst Counters?

[shoobe01]

A friend of mine was insisting that the BAR (M1918, etc.) was a two-shot burst weapon. Besides the fac that he was just wrong, I also was thinking that burst counters were not around in WW2. Normally I have at least an inkling of this sort of thing, or can find out, but I can't find anything about their age.

I suspect that someone invented one in the great design 30s (a German, I'll bet), but does anyone know?

And when was the first successful issue weapon with one? Are we talking about HK as late as the 60/70s, or was there something earlier I am just not thinking of?

 

[Sunray]

The BAR was Full or Semi-auto only. There was no 'burst'. I believe it was on the H&K 91/93 in the 70's that the 3 round burst first appeared but wouldn't want to bet on it. Might have been on their VP70 machine pistol.

 

[AK103K]

Perhaps your friend was watching someone who knows how to properly shoot a full auto gun shoot the BAR to think it was made that way. Once you know the trigger, its easy to get three, two, or even one round bursts everytime you pull the trigger. Some of this can depend on the gun and shooter though. The HK's are the only guns I can think of that first had the burst option available. I believe they even had a high cyclic rate two shot burst on some of the PSG1's. The VP70 was a three shot burst when the stock was on and semi with it off. Some types of burst will give you "all" of the burst on one pull of the trigger while others will only give you a partial burst if the trigger is released before its finished and then the remainder on the next pull until it resets.

 

[Jim Watson]

First generation BAR was semi and full.
Second generation BAR was always full but with selection for slow and fast.

The first burst counter rifle I recall was the SIG 530 in 1971. The FN CAL could also be had with a burst setting then. H&K wasn't long in offering it.

 

[shoobe01]

Ah, ha! Somehow SiG rang a bell, but I couldn't find any old enough ones. Forgot about the 530 series.

I knew about the BAR stuff. And I guessed about the "fire short bursts" thing, but no one believes me.