What's a BAR like to fire???

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Ogre

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HI
I'm a kid of the plastic age and I've wondering what the BAR was like to use.

After watching "Kelly's heros" a few weeks ago and seeing how difficult the mag change seemed to be.
What were they like to fire, hump around, field strip, etc.
In a SHTF situation they would be better than a blunt stick.

Were they used in Korea etc???

thanks later
P
 
I never humped one, but they are heavy (good point to the weight is that it makes it easier to keep the weapon on target). They shoot nice, big .30-06 rounds. They were used into Korea (my father carried one). He said you cursed the thing all day long when you were carrying it on patrol, then you kissed the thing once the fire fight was over. The BAR is pretty much the original SAW.
 
I know why you want to know what it's like to fire - if I'm not mistaken, according to "Kelly's Heros", it jams everytime you pull the trigger!:D

Luckily though, also according to the movie, a 1928 Thompson M1 can be accurately fired from the hip at 100 yards, covering the BAR-man while he tries to unjam the bolt....
 
The BAR is ideed heavy, and the 20 round magazine is a limitation. It is pretty accurate -- from the bipod, you can easily tap off single shots, especially in the low rate of fire, and max any course of fire.

When used for "marching fire" (a flawed concept we adopted from the French) you run dry too quickly.

The Viet Namese had them early in the Viet Nam war, and I have used on one time in action -- but have seen them used many times. One very good use is to spray a tight pattern of shots at suspected enemy locations -- you see the leaves move, or a little muzzle flash, and saturate that area with bullets. It works pretty well.

The M240C, our current machinegun (the FM MAG) is essentially a BAR with a belt feed and a quick-change barrel.
 
I have the Ohio Ordnance Semi-auto version. The gun is great to fire, very accurrate, especially from the bipod. I am able to fire it as fast as I can and stay on target. From the bipod, it sort of "recoils forward" as the bolt coming forward casues it to rock slightly forward. Without the bipod I can fire it off-hand pretty good too but I get tired after awhile. With the bipod on its much harder to fire off hand.

Whenever I take it to the range, everyone stops to watch.

I have never fired a real , full-auto one. I bet they are great.

My carried one in the pacific in WWII. He thought it was great gun, he did not see combat though as he went down with encephalitis in the Fijis and was evacuated. I bought mine to take him to the range and let him have a "glory day" with it but unfortunatley as I was waiting for it to arrive he had heart surgery and never recovered. I think of him everytime I pull it from the safe.

I've talked to many WWII and Korean vets who used them in combat and thought it was the best gun they could have in combat. Nobody that fired it in anger complained about the weight.

Attached is one of my favorite BAR pictures.
 
A good friend of mine carried and used a BAR in combat in Korea. He really loved the weapon and had to constantly turn down requests from his comrades to trade for what they were carrying.

I take that to mean that if you were likely to see action the weight was an easy thing to live with.
 
When I was in the USMC in 1956 we had BAR's and M1's.

I loved them both the first time I fired them.

Our BAR's had slow and fast rate of fire. On the slow rate you could shoot accurate single shots.


Heck, talk about weight, carry a Thompson around for a while and it won't kill an enemy inside a brick building. :D
 
I fired 20 rounds from an FN-D, essentially a BAR with some changes/updates at the late Second Chance Bowling Pin Shoot.

I was shooting from offhand trying for three and four round bursts. The FN-D climbed a bit. It was heavy enough to damp some of the recoil.

The 20 round mag emptied pretty fast. I was grinning and wanted to shoot more when I got done.

BARs were expensive when I got into full auto and are very expensive now. One is on my "after I win the lotto" list.
 
"Blackcloud6
I bought mine to take him to the range and let him have a "glory day" with it but unfortunatley as I was waiting for it to arrive he had heart surgery and never recovered. I think of him everytime I pull it from the safe."

patriot2a.gif
 
My experience is limited to a magazine-full at the rental line at Knob Creek. It was right after firing a mag-full thru an AK-47. The BAR was sweeeeeeet. The recoil was back-and-up, predictable and somewhat manageable. The AK (in my hands!) sucked. It was like holding a jack-hammer. No controlling it, for me. It wasn't that it rocked me so badly, it's just that it seemed to go back into battery pointing in a different spot each time. Like ACP, "When I hit the lottery....." BTW, my 18-yo son had the same opinion.
 
Short answer: "A lot of fun" :D
Longer answer: Nice and predictable; the weight keeps the recoil down, and the rate of fire is slow enough that you have no problem getting off 2 and 3-round bursts, and they'll be hitting in the area of a basketball at most normal "combat" ranges (doorway-sized target at longer ranges). Still, there's a reason why they ended up gravitating towards the subgunner/BAR man team in WW2 combat; the reloads on the BAR do take longer than they should, but fire discipline and a buddy to CYA on the reloads take care of that problem.
 
I know why you want to know what it's like to fire - if I'm not mistaken, according to "Kelly's Heros", it jams everytime you pull the trigger!
Click to expand...

Petuko didn't seem to have any problems with his shooting down the alley in the final assault.
 
I have fired my brother in laws M1918A2. Trust me, it does NOT jam. Accurate controlled 2 or three shot bursts, and sustained fire if thats your desire. His has the fire rate control buffer, and will shoot at 350, or 550 rounds per min. It will empty a mag pretty fast, with only 20 rounds, but they are Effective rounds. :D
 
I asked my uncle Jim about it, he turned seventeen on Guadalcanal, out of 225 men in his company that left there ( this was in late 43) only him and three others were still with the Company after Okinawa. He said a BAR on full auto was like dancing with a fat drunk woman, you can nudge her to the left, bump her to the right, but if you don't hold on tight she will take off on her own and then you just hang on for the ride till she stops. I showed him a Type 99 with a bayonet a while back, asked him if it looked familiar. He said to back off twenty yards, scream "Banzai" and charge him with it and he could tell. His weapon of choice was the M1 Garand. Said it was the only one that would knock one down and keep him there at long range. They worked in squads of twelve of three fire teams each with a BAR. Two would cover and one would move up. They got a new Lieutenant at Okinawa, they were pinned down by a machine gun and the LT wanted them to make a frontal assault. Jim told him that the platoon on their left about 50 yds had just broken through and would roll up the gun in a few minutes, the Lt screamed an order is an order and we are going to assault. They all got down and ready to go, the members of Jim's squad looked at him, he shook his head no, the Lt gave the order, they all started up but stopped as soon as the Lt broke out of cover, he made it ten steps before the MG cut him in half. Fifteen minutes later the platoon on their left under Jim's squad's cover fire blew the MG up with a satchel charge. After the war ended Jim came back and finished his senior year in high school.

rk
 
Muzzle climb is significant when firing offhand... but it wieghs so much the recoil is negligible. True you run out of ammo quickly, but with a little practice you can get 'em on target effectively. It's fun to shoot propane tanks, burning cars, outhouses, bowling pins etc with a BAR. Stuff reacts when it's hit with a 30-06 at 2700 fps or so.

The BAR is my favorite FA weapon, I never turn down the chance to shoot one. Also on my Lottery list.. going rate is around $24k.
 
Have not fired one, but have heard some of the praises.

Its heavy, but apparently balances and handles quite nicely. According to "Unintended Consequences", Ad Topperwein gave a demo where he busted clay pigeons with a BAR. Its gotta handle pretty well to do that.

I also heard that it is THE most accurate FA around 20 rounds is not as much of a limitation when they all go where they're supposed to.
 
I fired a BAR a few weeks back. It was at the .50 caliber & machine gun shoot in Cheynne Wells, Co.

Some guys dressed in colonial period attire had a bunch of muzzle loaders - a half scale of a 18th century cannon, a mortar, some rifles (including a Brown Bess replica) & a 1918 BAR. (still scratching my head over that one)

I mean 1918 BAR - not 1918A2 BAR. This one was made in Novermber of 1918 by Winchester. The main difference is the selector had three positions: safe, semi-auto & full auto, whereas the 1918A2 has safe, slow & rapid.

Anyway, I just bought 1 mag & used it on a 55 gallon barrel about 100 yards away. The first 3/4's or so of the mag I shot off hand. the last 3/4's was from kneeling. Once I got my kentucky windage together (no need in altering unfamiliar sights for one mag ) it was easy to stay on the barrel (granted, it wasn't the hardest of targets but this was my first time with a BAR) The recoil was nothing compared to what you'd think & the muzzle climb wasn't too bad. then again I didn't hold the trigger down until it was empty; I fired short bursts of two to four rounds.

I regret not getting another mag (or twelve) but funds & time wouldn't allow it. I wouldn't trade one for a good Garand, but I wouldn't feelinadequately armed with it either.

Here's a post I did on the machine gun shoot. At the end there's some pics of me firing the BAR & a Garand.

If you ever get the chance to fire a BAR do so. Just don't hold the trigger down till she's dry when you're firing it offhand. Use nice short bursts. You'll be surprised how contrallable it realy is.
 
My dad was an automatic rifleman in WWII. He said it pulled away from you when fired auto, IIRC. You had to haul it back into your shoulder. It was accurate as far as the eye could see, also, according to him.
 
The weight of a BAR is always mentioned, but nobody mentions that it's a solid steel .30-06 automatic rifle, and only weighs 22 or 23 pounds. A current issue M249 SAW, which has plastic and pressed and stamped steel involved, is 23lbs loaded with a 200 round belt. And an M60 machinegun (the BAR's replacement) was 23 pounds unloaded.

So the weight is NOT that big of a deal. Yes, it's not much fun (I've humped an M60 and a SAW around Fort Knox for a week or so in the boonies) but it could be much worse!


Never got to shoot the full auto version, but a guy at my church is a retired Master Gunnery Sergeant, Korea and two-tour Vietnam vet. He much prefers the BAR to the M60 apparently for close combat, though generally the M60 is a better "all around" design. I didn't dare ask him whether he preferred the M1 over the M14 or M16! :) (He used all three..... he was in Korea in '52-53, then Vietnam in '65 and '69).
 
Had a friend who humped one all over Germany in WWII. In battle:
1. The enemy fired AT THE BAR guy as often as possible,
2. When it got hot and heavy, EVERYBODY wanted the BAR man go come where THEY were,
3. Standing orders for the platoon was: IF the platoon was completely wiped out, the BAR guy had better be the LAST one alive-the rest were to see to that as they protected him very well indeed!

VERY effective in its element when used by a well trained user.
 
I've met TWO Mac-V/SOG guys who claimed to use it in Vietnam, where it was issued to irregular troops as a crew served weapon... I've also seen footage of a true to life green beanie humping a BAR in combat.

Both guys I talked to liked the penetration power of the BAR shooting through log and dirt bunkers.

Truthfully the BAR was in service as a squad automatic weapon for a LONG time 1918-the early 60's as a front line weapon, longer still in lend/lease.

Even have seen pics of Viet Cong carrying them...

Oh and wherever "The Rundown" was filmed... a LOT of the regular army troops were armed with BARs.
 
My landlord carried a BAR in Korea.

I asked him what he thought of the weight and he went into a 10 minute rant about how heavy the steel pot helmet was and that it made him prematurely bald...

Ty
 
Tell him the Kevlar pot is heavier, and you can't cook/wash/shave/dig/etc with it either.
 
A couplle of days out of San Diego; homeward bound from a WestPac deployment with the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club in '68, the Yorktown's Marine Det was using up some of their ammo off the round down of the flight deck. They were letting anyone who wanted to, help empty the boxes. I was a flight deck trouble shooter for HS-4 and since there was no flight ops, I had time to kill. So, I killed a wooden crate the mess cooks had thrown over the side (couldn't do that now!). I was prone and using the bipod and emptied a magazine that blew the crate all to hell. The E-5 supervising the fun and games was impressed.

Heavy? Yes. Shoots straight? Yes.

A ton of fun!
 
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