why is the MP-40 so elusive?

[jason41987]

i dont understand it.. i have full sets of blueprints for almost every single firearm of world war 2, including the MP44, P-38 handgun, K98K mauser, of course colt 1911 blueprints are easy to find, also have the thompson, the sten, the garand for the most part, a large collection of blueprints of M1 carbine parts, the PPSH-41.. might even have the tokarev somewhere.. but information about the MP40 seems to be rather elusive

i can find the blueprints for the receiver, thats fine, theyre everywhere, but im wondering why such information about any other part of the MP-40 is pretty much nonexistant.. not the bolt, not the trigger parts, not even the stock

reason i ask is because i collect blueprints and especially of firearms of any kind of historical value to them.. see, some geneticists sequence the DNA of close to extinct creatures on this planet, once their entire genetic code is recorded and placed in a database then that creature, that animal can never truly go extinct because its only a matter of time before we have the technology to use that blueprint and bring them back

i do the same thing with guns, if you have a full set of blueprints of a particular design, it can never truly disappear.. so why is the MP-40 information pretty much impossible to find? anyone?

 

[Tirod]

https://www.google.com/search?q=mp4...Y5IKIDQ&ved=0CCsQsAQ&biw=1137&bih=571&dpr=0.9

Anything like what you are looking for?

Maybe not.

Might be due to it's source and notoriety. It's NFA, it's foreign, and it's much more complicated to fabricate due to the complexity of parts. It's not a tube, it's a high tech firearm.

In the day, we never saw MP40 "flats" at the gunshow. They were Ingram/MAC or tubes for Stens, garage work type products. Getting ribs and grips punched in three dimensions would be a large expense beyond the profitability of the short market lifespan.

Darn thing's too complicated to make at home, therefore, no demand. No demand, no blueprints. What blueprints that may have existed were controlled, after the war, there wasn't much interest reverse drawing one up.

Lots of excuses, but some of those may apply.

 

[Willie Sutton]

A FOIA request and copying fees would get you what you want. Aberdeen Maryland would be the place. It used to be AARDC as the entity but I'd google to see about any make changes in the command structure. There will be a designated FOIA office within the command. They have detailed tech data on everything there and all of the WW-II stuff is either declassified or permissible for declassification upon request.


Willie

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[dprice3844444]

anybody got any welrod prints?

 

[jason41987]

being NFA means nothing.. the original sten, thompson, PPSH-41, suomi M31, are all fully automatic and if im not mistaken they all originally fire from an open bolt yet blueprints are freely available.. and yeah, ive seen MP-40s in person and they are pretty much just a tube.. some light machining but theyre as simple a design as any of the other ones.. and the captive recoil system is a really cool idea

not hard to make any of these semi automatic only and firing from a closed bolt but im not even interested in that, im just looking to convert it into 3D and archive the design in a digital format

i recently got walther P-38 blueprints and i just started working on converting these to 3D... working on the frame and slide first which is easier said than done as half the numbers are unreadable.. though there does seem to be enough readable measurements to figure out the parts that are unreadable

apparently though at the end of WWII it seems some blueprints were lost, if im not mistaken the walther factory had to re-create all the blueprints and tooling for the P-38 so it might be possible that the MP-40 blueprints suffered the same fate and since no one picked up manufacturing of the MP-40 again after WWII then no ones been able to recreate them.. this might be something thatll have to be backwards engineered

i also cant seem to find much on the G-43 either

 

[Willie Sutton]

^^

They DO have prints for these in Aberdeen Maryland.



Willie

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[barnbwt]

The MP40 was both expensive, outmoded, and its manufacturing facilities were burnt to ashes, so the original plans probably were lost. But folks do a number of semi-conversions, which means the info is out there, just probably not for free. A quick search on weaponsguild found a dimensioned drawing of the barrel and trunnion, probably some info on trigger conversion there too (so probably at least pictures of parts kits if not a more detailed look at the original configuration).

Like you said; they're pretty simple tube guns much like any other overall. A good drawing of the receiver would give you most everything you need (FCG hole locations plus an idea of how the unit functions would fill nearly all the gaps needed for a very close facsimile), and photos would get you sufficiently close elsewhere. The legacy of the MP40 won't hang on whether the bolt diameter was 37mm vs. 37.2mm, so long as the CAD model would get you close enough to fit it the rest of the way

TCB

EDIT: Nope, wait, here it is

http://www.weaponeer.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=17785&PN=1
Jackpot (better save that page fast; weaponeer has been up/down a lot lately on the host service, probably going dark for good soon)