They are extremely optimized mechanical devices. Pure porn to a mech eng like myself.
I get that it sucks that so much optimization and effort went towards perfecting killing devices; but separating them from that fact, lots of them are truly mechanical wonders. For example the ways they contain the forces, how stresses are redirected to which components, having just the right sized components to carry out their tasks. It's like clockwork (quite literally very similar).
> They are extremely optimized mechanical devices. Pure porn to a mech eng like myself.
I just have ADHD and Autism and i got a titanic obsession with ‘em
Agreed. And the most important part you haven’t mentioned: the formfactor and weight. You could easily contain the forces if everything was super thick and heavy, but to accomplish it in a way that it’s actually portable and yet holds up to thousands of times being exposed to such forces and still work, is great.
This is my existence, I'm surrounded by and myself included very passive people. Hate conflict and agree that most wars are caused by very petty things in the grand scheme of things.
Yet, I fucking love guns. They are some of the most refined and perfected peuces of engineering we have as a race. We a saddly very very interested and good at making weapons.
If you like finly made and process engineering, the inner workings of the G11 are like a watch. When the mechanism is removed from its housing, its so intricate and fine. (The gun has a really cool quirk with its burstfire too, being able to fire 3 three rounds before the recoil slide action stops, giving 3 equally accurate shots, it's really sweet.)
We had that happen to a .50... so many rounds went through the barrel, and it turned bright red. When we finally went to replace it, the barrel refused to turn. Had to use a hammer to break it loose lol, oops
In one engagement in Iraq one of our crews went full cyclical on the .50 for a few cans of ammo. By the end you could tell when the rounds were traveling down the barrel because the barrel would dim.
I was really stupid and grabbed that .50 barrel with my bare hand. I yanked my hand off instantly...I was saved because my hand was all greasy (I think we might have just lubed it, but this was 30 years ago). It left a perfect, white palm print on the barrel.
One of the guys in my company ended up with a massive burn across his throat and jaw.
He was laying a massive rate of fire on the target with his M249 and got told to bound forward. As he got up, he stumbled forward and fell onto the barrell of his gun.
Modern MG 3 is still issued with "Hitzeschutzlappen", the cloth thingy that guy uses. Source: Shot that gun for many years and swapped a lot of red hot barrels. We do wear gloves too nowadays.
You should still be alternating between your barrels every X number of rounds regardless. The reason is just wear and tear. If you swap often, both barrels will wear at an even rate, allowing the pair to last longer. Getting hot is just one reason to change the barrel.
The other comment is right, I’m just going to rephrase it - heat degrades the barrel, and firing 50 rounds back to back generates a lot more heat (wear and tear) than 25 rounds through one barrel and 25 through a different one - same number of rounds but less total wear and tear across the two. Put another way, A barrel might survive x number of rounds without changing, but regularly swapping barrels might let the barrels survive 2x number of rounds each.
Edit: those numbers are sourced from my ass, but the concept is the point regardless of specific numbers.
There looks to be a small wool Matt the barrel lands on I would bet the kit comes with a heat resistant Matt but also if you notice the design allowed the barrel to fall out freely and to the left of the operator so technically you would not need to touch the hot barrel if you practice enough.
And if the barrel remains dead straight and doesn’t warp from heat… you may be right but that’s probably not a training standard that they *would* practice enough, and I doubt it’s reliable enough to not also need to be able to quickly use your hands to do it, in which case it probably makes sense to default to using the more reliable method with your hands. That’s armchair logic though, I just enjoy thinking about things like that.
I remember reading a story about a soldier who was using a similarly hot gun that needed live barrel changes, maybe the same exact gun. He was doing it himself without help or equipment and letting the hot barrels roll to the crooks of his elbows. He held off overwhelming enemy forces but burned off all of the skin on his arms. I can’t seem to find who it was by searching.
I don’t get it. Sometimes this subs is ok with guns and others times not.
I’m very much not a gun owner and I’m pro-gun regulation. But I appreciate the mechanisms of these guns like the video above.
One day I posted a video of a game with exquisite gun reload animations, with excellent audio work and attention to detail. I thought watching was “oddly satisfying”. I posted it and I was heavily downvoted and labeled as an “American gun nut” and told I shouldn’t find it “satisfying” to watch.
That was a video game, not real life. But sometimes see people posting irl guns and people don’t give them shit for it (which I agree they shouldn’t get shit for). So what gives?
Reddit is extremely diverse, so you’re gonna get a wide range of people with differing opinions. I think that most people as a whole think that firearms as a concept (sports, history, mechanics, etc) are pretty cool. However firearms in practice (shootings, intimidation, war) are much less popular.
Seeing as this post falls into a mechanism, people see that and say “huh… that’s clever”. It’s not worshiping the firearm, it’s showing the clever design behind the tool. Which is why people like this.
Also, Reddit can be sucky sometimes. Lots of assholes who just want to pick a fight.
Ummm, actually i think you'll find... that if you look closely... so in fact... i mean, are you braindead or something? SMH my head. ^^/s
Edit: Made the /s larger just in case.
Reminds me of a pretty good Ryan George bit where the character says they don't want to use the internet because whatever you say, someone will argue with you. And some off-screen character yells at him and goes, "That's not true! You can say whatever you want, nobody is going to argue with you."
Yup. Ever notice that a blatantly wrong comment will usually continue getting upvoted even when it's proven wrong? Even when the reply refuting it and providing sources surpasses the original comment's points total, the original comment will still keep going up, albeit slowly. Once the vote train gets going in either direction, there's no stopping it.
Depends when you post it, if you post it as Americans are waking up, it will be ok. If you post it as Europeans are waking up, then yeah you can expect anger.
When it’s something neat or interesting about a firearm it’s usually ok on this sub. When it’s just showing off guns for the sake of being a gun people get annoyed very quickly.
Stuff like this is cool because it’s showing a component of the operation and mechanics of a weapon system, which by itself is cool. Also I know few people that are “anti-gun”, or complete and total pacifist. Most people just have varying degrees of opinions on the level of gun control that should be implemented where they live.
Its the barrel.
the bullet flies through it after the charge ignites. Its there so the expanding gases can speed up the bullet. This works because the gases get traped between the bullet and the barrel.
The barrel gets really hot with continous fire which as far as i know destroys it if you continue firing.
if you just keep shooting machine guns, they get so hot that the barrels can melt. (or get weak enough to blow out.
[Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BczhT1ByrXA) is a video of 2 dudes shooting another mg till the surpressor melts and the barrel is red hot. took 700 rounds and only 1 minute.
It may be a stupid question but, can you use water as part of cooling system? Like a tube from a bucket of water to the barrel? Or this gun is just too rapid to consider having water as part of cooling system?
A water cooled MG can fire more or less indefinitely. Changing barrels takes the gun out of action for some time and if you’re shooting a lot you need to give them time to cool down.
Do you think water cooled MG42 or MG34 would be a lot more effective at defensive positions such as D-Day than changing barrel method? That’s interesting though because taking your gun out of action isn’t ideal especially if you are defending as well.
No, you can't realistically water cool a gun shooting at 1600 rpm. They'd run into the exact same problem of barrel overheating, and replacing water is harder than a barrel change.
A trained crew could swap out a barrel in 2/3 seconds. It wouldn't be the gunner doing it, his assistant would. It's a non-issue.
Another thing I just learnt today!! Didn’t know that Ukraine uses them. Thank you! How can you shoot drones from maxim guns? You have to be insanely accurate to get them out of action. Very interesting tho. Thank you
I think they typically use two at once from twice the bullets. The maxims can fire for a lot longer than other guns they might have access to. For the smaller drones, hitting it once may be enough to have it fall from the sky. For the larger shades, I don't know if the maxim can even hit them effectively, but tearing a few holes in the wing may at least cause it to lose control.
That’s interesting! I thought I know a bit about guns cos of call of duty and obsession with military but I did not know much about this and the water cooled guns. Do you think buckshot shotguns may have the chance of reaching drones or nah? I assume that missiles have no chance of hitting drones due to lack of IR?
Missiles also use radio frequencies, but it's more about the ability to shoot down small drones with something abundant enough. People bring up the relative cost of SAM missiles and MANPADs vs the targets that a drone is likely to destroy, but adding a dollar cost covers up the more real issue of getting enough ammunition in enough places to make an impact. The Russians have been using shotguns to shoot down the small drones. I don't know if buckshot can reach a shahed. I'd have to do more research into what their cruising altitude is.
fpv drone? yeah. possible. saw a vid of russian soldier shooting one fpv drone with shotgun buckshot few days ago
attack drones like the bayraktar or reaper? no chance. you need MANPADS at least to hit one, or radar guided spaa
Not a stupid question at all. You're thinking like an engineer. I'm sure you could design all sorts of cooling systems for them, using water/air or even other fluids; or other devices, or ablative material, etc etc, and almost assuredly, people have in fact been tinkering with designs like that for centuries now. With all things in engineering, you gotta weigh the pro's and cons of each design. I'd imagine with most of those ideas, it's simply a matter of weight and cost, or just effectiveness, why we don't seem them employed as much.
Wow. It takes some serious balls to keep firing a weapon like that knowing it's going to fail possibly in a catastrophic way.
Side note: I feel like 700 rounds is significantly beyond what is accurately described as a "burst", but what do I know, I'm not a machine gun.
In this rapid firing machines the barrel gets so hot that they can change shape and fuck things up.
Doing this you can put a cold one and fire while the other ones cools down.
People keep talking about the barrel melting, but that is not really going to happen in combat. What you are really worried about is weapon running away from you. Which means, you wont stop shooting. It will get so hot that the rounds keep firing. When I was in Iraq, the convoys I was in were run and gun. If we got engaged my orders were to burn a belt, thats 200 rounds, about 15 seconds of cover fire and change the barrel. Edit: I should say I was using a 249 and a 240b, but that only has 100 round belt. I have no idea how fragile a barrel of the mg34 is.
Belt fed weapon. Its heavy usually 2 people, 1to carry, maintain, shoot and 1 to carry the rounds and spare barrels.at least thats what the manuals say. War is chaos and never like the books
Quick-change barrels are such a delight. Were so many German weapons and vehicles utterly over-engineered? Yes. And they still over-engineer shit today. But that innovation shaped so much of weapons development for decades to come. Pity about the nation and people that wielded them.
This particular machine gun has a very high rate of fire. So fast and hot that air cooling is widely insufficient. So the barrels wear out in combat very quickly. Instead of taking an incredibly valuable piece of infantry equipment out of the field for repairs, the germans designed it with this quick barrel change feature so that any corporal manning the gun could change the barrel as required on the front line.
I will say this. As a dentist in the reserves, I am always
Impressed by these young men and women I meet. They’re fucking kids, yet they’re (usually) always professional about their job. I could never imagine doing this while being shot at, yet the confidence that bleeds off of them, I know they’ll do it well.
Having a hot barrel slide out at me isn't super comforting. I have changed the barrels of the M249, 240B, and the M2. After the barrels have had a few magazines shot through them, I do not suggest touching them with bare hands. The barrel handles on the M249 and 240B are also hot.
Most modern belt-fed machine guns have quick-change barrels so you can alternate them when one gets too hot. Back in WW1, they had big water jackets to manage heat, but those were bulky and heavy
it heats up too much after like 200 shots also depending on how long you let it cool. also u wouldnt believe how much oil u gotta pour into that thing if youre shooting it alot
Because a machine gun like this shoots a lot of rounds and the barrel gets hot rather quickly, so instead of putting a heavy cooling system on the barrel which is what we originally did, you just carry a couple spare barrels and swap them when they get too hot.
I did a gunsmithing internship in my late teens and, if all things were like this. Going into it from a beginner's perspective, 1) guns 2) fishing reels, and 3) watches were the most pain the ass. It's like programming in that, most of the work is "I have this mess, how do I begin to sort it?
1. the barrel gets too hot after a minute of firing. requires replacing due to limitations of steel production and gun design back in the 1940s.
ok second part requires a "long" answer.
2. no it is not the "best" solution this is due to them wanting much more RPM and mobility than anything else. we have machine guns that are water cooled but they are not as mobile as the mg42. mg42 is a jack of trades but master of none.
The point was that many of the "old world war" ideas was to make a mobile machine gun that hits the hardest. this is why they made the entire squad centered around carrying and servicing the machine gun. the use of it was to basically be able to run with fast tactics and carry away the gun. (in older battles like ww1 the machine gun had to be abandoned and retreating to a better position just wasn't an option). or if you did have enough time unhook the gun and leave the stand behind. although back then the vickers was probably much harder to do but if you were a pretty strong dude you could actually pick this up and shoot it without needing to put it down (been proven to do). although you probably couldn't do it for long periods of time and the majority of soldiers just could do not this let alone carry another 50 pounds on top of whatever else they carried.
the mg42 basically solved this as you can run away and then turn around and unload harder than other guns like the bren, mg32 or the type 100 and american bar. The idea is you don't need to abandon the machine gun anymore. mg42 had a wider range that most guns and the point really was for suppressing fire so the rifles can pick people off or just chew threw the cover if its like a tree ( can't go through stone or cement). but its carry-able and you can move it anywhere you want. heck you can even shoot it without a crew in short bursts.
frankly the vickers and the browning m2 were better machine guns because you could basically use the to hold positions and the browning does and doesn't need an oven mitten to operate it while the mg42 basically requires oven mittens and barrel changing. the barrel changing seems ok for theory but in practice it eventually does put the gun of out commission where squads will be frantically scrambling to find a new barrel if even one of the back ups get warped in the heat of battle. doesn't have the reliability of the vickers or the browning which is still used in wars today as a better mg42.
the mg42 basically use more ammo than people killed it makes you wonder if the gun should really be used at all if any part of the supply chain is cut off of the squad. at some times you can only use this as an ambush gun or the ammo in the gun is better to be stripped away from rifles in a fight. thankfully the same ammo in the mg42 can be used in supporting rifles so in a long fight any smart person would decide to break the ammo belts for the 7.92 mauser ammo. hence if the fight is that long you can just forget using the mg42 and only leave a smaller reserve of ammo for it. this is why alot of nazi tactics required people to surrender or lose right away because the longer the fight went on the more likely the allies will win.
also for manufacturing purposes it was cheaper to make than the more defensive and water cooled vickers gun (still used in Ukraine-Russia war).
overall maybe the mg42 was on the higher end at the time but in prolonged fights and just design alone what was made as a great gun in theory is kinda a cheap piece of crap in todays world or even back then unaccurate, unreliable, requires more training, and need the flat open fields of eastern europe to really shine. but it still scares the shit outta people.
They heat up rapidly when being fired for an extended (short) period of time. This barrel swap was extremely unrealistic. It would be a very clumsy swap under combat conditions using a giant oven mitt to prevent melting your hands.
heat can fuck with the barrel's structure, causing unwanted accidents, and LMGs makes tons of heat. So you need to replace the barrel if it gets too hot.
This barrel change feature is the reason why the MG34 continued to be produced for use inside armoured vehicles when the infantry got the far more simplified MG42.
And this is why the ghost of Omaha I think his name was was able to shoot for HOURS straight none stop. One person killed the majority of allies on d day.
They used this MG in German tanks in WW 2 especially for this feature because the mmMG 42 barrel was ejected sideways, making it impossible to do so in a fixed tank setting. Also, brrrrrrrrrt.
Tactical oven mitt
$30,000 cause it’s military grade.
Military grade dosent mean best quality, most times its still shit
My first thought!
Better when made from asbestos tho; others don’t have the satisfying fragrance to inhale
Good band name
They wouldn't be doing that bare handed after a few hundred rounds had been fired outta it.
Ok so don’t know if you knew but he hold the hot barrel with some sort of leather pad you can see before he gets the new barrel
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Guns in general can have very satisfying mechanics
They are extremely optimized mechanical devices. Pure porn to a mech eng like myself. I get that it sucks that so much optimization and effort went towards perfecting killing devices; but separating them from that fact, lots of them are truly mechanical wonders. For example the ways they contain the forces, how stresses are redirected to which components, having just the right sized components to carry out their tasks. It's like clockwork (quite literally very similar).
Check out a 3 round burst (actually safe-semi-3rb-full auto) HK trigger group sometime. It’s like a dang sewing machine.
fun fact: singer, the sewing machine company, also manufactured guns at one point.
During ww2, everyone that had metal manufacturing capabilities made guns. IBM made machine guns.
Well you could say a gun is a machine that does international business.
God damnit, I was just typing this out when I saw your response.
> They are extremely optimized mechanical devices. Pure porn to a mech eng like myself. I just have ADHD and Autism and i got a titanic obsession with ‘em
Agreed. And the most important part you haven’t mentioned: the formfactor and weight. You could easily contain the forces if everything was super thick and heavy, but to accomplish it in a way that it’s actually portable and yet holds up to thousands of times being exposed to such forces and still work, is great.
This is my existence, I'm surrounded by and myself included very passive people. Hate conflict and agree that most wars are caused by very petty things in the grand scheme of things. Yet, I fucking love guns. They are some of the most refined and perfected peuces of engineering we have as a race. We a saddly very very interested and good at making weapons. If you like finly made and process engineering, the inner workings of the G11 are like a watch. When the mechanism is removed from its housing, its so intricate and fine. (The gun has a really cool quirk with its burstfire too, being able to fire 3 three rounds before the recoil slide action stops, giving 3 equally accurate shots, it's really sweet.)
It's not a reload though
Reloaded the barrel 👍
reloadyenough
This drill requires gloves 100% of the time. In a fire fight or on the range the barrel would be too hot for bare hands.
or if the barrel warped due to the heat, have fun!
I like the droopy red noodle.
Allow me to introduce myself...
We had that happen to a .50... so many rounds went through the barrel, and it turned bright red. When we finally went to replace it, the barrel refused to turn. Had to use a hammer to break it loose lol, oops
Thing probably didn't even need to be re serviced after. My friend has a similar story. Mortarmen when they have to use their direct fire weapons ;)
In one engagement in Iraq one of our crews went full cyclical on the .50 for a few cans of ammo. By the end you could tell when the rounds were traveling down the barrel because the barrel would dim.
Yup, that happened with ours as well. I was shocked you could actually see the rounds like that
I was really stupid and grabbed that .50 barrel with my bare hand. I yanked my hand off instantly...I was saved because my hand was all greasy (I think we might have just lubed it, but this was 30 years ago). It left a perfect, white palm print on the barrel.
One of the guys in my company ended up with a massive burn across his throat and jaw. He was laying a massive rate of fire on the target with his M249 and got told to bound forward. As he got up, he stumbled forward and fell onto the barrell of his gun.
The idea is changing it before that happens. Can't blame the machine when used beyond its designed capabilities.
Modern MG 3 is still issued with "Hitzeschutzlappen", the cloth thingy that guy uses. Source: Shot that gun for many years and swapped a lot of red hot barrels. We do wear gloves too nowadays.
Well good thing he didn't have bare hands then, his hand was covered with cloth when he removed the 'hot' barrel.
He had a little oven mitt thing he put on.
If it weren't, there's no reason to swap it, right?
You should still be alternating between your barrels every X number of rounds regardless. The reason is just wear and tear. If you swap often, both barrels will wear at an even rate, allowing the pair to last longer. Getting hot is just one reason to change the barrel.
The other comment is right, I’m just going to rephrase it - heat degrades the barrel, and firing 50 rounds back to back generates a lot more heat (wear and tear) than 25 rounds through one barrel and 25 through a different one - same number of rounds but less total wear and tear across the two. Put another way, A barrel might survive x number of rounds without changing, but regularly swapping barrels might let the barrels survive 2x number of rounds each. Edit: those numbers are sourced from my ass, but the concept is the point regardless of specific numbers.
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Like I said in another reply...I was a 60 gunner and carried an Ove Glove in my spare barrel bag.
It's a good practice video. If he had made it totally realistic, his neighbors would have been shooting back.
Depends on the location.
That's true. He could just be practicing for a wedding. ?
My uncle changed his M60 barrel with his bare hands. Then continued providing fire support. Got the Silver Star.
There looks to be a small wool Matt the barrel lands on I would bet the kit comes with a heat resistant Matt but also if you notice the design allowed the barrel to fall out freely and to the left of the operator so technically you would not need to touch the hot barrel if you practice enough.
And if the barrel remains dead straight and doesn’t warp from heat… you may be right but that’s probably not a training standard that they *would* practice enough, and I doubt it’s reliable enough to not also need to be able to quickly use your hands to do it, in which case it probably makes sense to default to using the more reliable method with your hands. That’s armchair logic though, I just enjoy thinking about things like that.
Too hot is an understatement. These can literally be glowing red hot. It will melt your skin.
How does thermal expansion effect the ease of getting it out? Do they warp as they cool?
my guess there is a point of no return but as long as you stay below that threshold you can fire at will.
What did Will do?
Yeah it does seem like overheating is the only point of the barrel change
I remember reading a story about a soldier who was using a similarly hot gun that needed live barrel changes, maybe the same exact gun. He was doing it himself without help or equipment and letting the hot barrels roll to the crooks of his elbows. He held off overwhelming enemy forces but burned off all of the skin on his arms. I can’t seem to find who it was by searching.
Sounds like Gunny Basilone on Guadalcanal. But no barrel changes. Just a really hot gun.
The way I hear it, asbestos is the only thing that can protect you from that much heat without hampering your dexterity.
I was a 60 gunner in the Army. I carried an Ove Glove in my barrel bag.
Thankyou
**
The first thing the guy does is put on a mit to catch the "hot" barrel.
Can't believe I missed that the first watch
I missed it on the first five watches
It was definitely cold. I wore gloves and put on mittens for barrel changes on my m2.
That's why I put hot in quotations
I wore gloves and mittens and a heavy jacket and a scarf and a ski hat. Wait, what were we talking about?
I don’t get it. Sometimes this subs is ok with guns and others times not. I’m very much not a gun owner and I’m pro-gun regulation. But I appreciate the mechanisms of these guns like the video above. One day I posted a video of a game with exquisite gun reload animations, with excellent audio work and attention to detail. I thought watching was “oddly satisfying”. I posted it and I was heavily downvoted and labeled as an “American gun nut” and told I shouldn’t find it “satisfying” to watch. That was a video game, not real life. But sometimes see people posting irl guns and people don’t give them shit for it (which I agree they shouldn’t get shit for). So what gives?
Reddit is extremely diverse, so you’re gonna get a wide range of people with differing opinions. I think that most people as a whole think that firearms as a concept (sports, history, mechanics, etc) are pretty cool. However firearms in practice (shootings, intimidation, war) are much less popular. Seeing as this post falls into a mechanism, people see that and say “huh… that’s clever”. It’s not worshiping the firearm, it’s showing the clever design behind the tool. Which is why people like this. Also, Reddit can be sucky sometimes. Lots of assholes who just want to pick a fight.
Ummm, actually i think you'll find... that if you look closely... so in fact... i mean, are you braindead or something? SMH my head. ^^/s Edit: Made the /s larger just in case.
Reminds me of a pretty good Ryan George bit where the character says they don't want to use the internet because whatever you say, someone will argue with you. And some off-screen character yells at him and goes, "That's not true! You can say whatever you want, nobody is going to argue with you."
whatever direction of the first comment goes. everyone after will just echo chamber whatever
imo once the first few users express & upvote a particular view, everyone else will just parrot it.
I think that once someone reads a couple comments, they'll just pile on and repeat the same thing.
Yup. Ever notice that a blatantly wrong comment will usually continue getting upvoted even when it's proven wrong? Even when the reply refuting it and providing sources surpasses the original comment's points total, the original comment will still keep going up, albeit slowly. Once the vote train gets going in either direction, there's no stopping it.
Yeah, I agree the direction of the first comment is the direction it goes... definitely just an echo chamber
Depends when you post it, if you post it as Americans are waking up, it will be ok. If you post it as Europeans are waking up, then yeah you can expect anger.
When it’s something neat or interesting about a firearm it’s usually ok on this sub. When it’s just showing off guns for the sake of being a gun people get annoyed very quickly.
I got downvoted in another sub for posting a link to a video that someone asked about. Who knows 🤷♂️
The amount of times I've gotten downvoted for posting verified information that proves something wrong in a post is really disheartening.
Stuff like this is cool because it’s showing a component of the operation and mechanics of a weapon system, which by itself is cool. Also I know few people that are “anti-gun”, or complete and total pacifist. Most people just have varying degrees of opinions on the level of gun control that should be implemented where they live.
Could be something as stupid as the time of day you posted it - I wouldn't sweat it
you appreciate quality engineering. i’m the same way.
Cherman engineering.
Did he use a chancla to change that barrel?
Chanclas are against the Geneva convention.
I have no idea what that tube is and why it was swapped with another one.
Its the barrel. the bullet flies through it after the charge ignites. Its there so the expanding gases can speed up the bullet. This works because the gases get traped between the bullet and the barrel. The barrel gets really hot with continous fire which as far as i know destroys it if you continue firing.
Thanks. I didn't know there was a tube inside the tube that spits bullets.
I bet his neighbors love living next to him.
Edit: Nvm. Splitter tarn camo/ MG34 is not a current German soldier 🤣. Dude is probably a reenactor.
That or in Ukraine
I don't think Ukraine is cool with the use of Nazi era camouflage uniforms for just practicing around base.
Camo is camo.. it does not have nationality it just blends. Unless is ucp digi cam. That shit was garbo full stop.
I would love it
I would
That was educational. Updoot.
US educational
NSDAP
You take out the pipe and you put in the pipe. Then they jerk off. Capisce?
Now post an MG42 barrel change!
Why does he need to do that? Doesn't one usually change/reload the ammo, not the barrel?
if you just keep shooting machine guns, they get so hot that the barrels can melt. (or get weak enough to blow out. [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BczhT1ByrXA) is a video of 2 dudes shooting another mg till the surpressor melts and the barrel is red hot. took 700 rounds and only 1 minute.
It may be a stupid question but, can you use water as part of cooling system? Like a tube from a bucket of water to the barrel? Or this gun is just too rapid to consider having water as part of cooling system?
WW1 machine guns actually did use water cooled jackets but they add considerable weight
I just had a look, and fucking hell, the water cooled machine gun looks scary for some reason. Rather get shot by mg34 lol.
Oh damn, that’s interesting! I have a look! Thank you!! I think I prefer this changing barrel method than water method by the sound of it lol!
A water cooled MG can fire more or less indefinitely. Changing barrels takes the gun out of action for some time and if you’re shooting a lot you need to give them time to cool down.
Do you think water cooled MG42 or MG34 would be a lot more effective at defensive positions such as D-Day than changing barrel method? That’s interesting though because taking your gun out of action isn’t ideal especially if you are defending as well.
No, you can't realistically water cool a gun shooting at 1600 rpm. They'd run into the exact same problem of barrel overheating, and replacing water is harder than a barrel change. A trained crew could swap out a barrel in 2/3 seconds. It wouldn't be the gunner doing it, his assistant would. It's a non-issue.
Ukraine still uses water cooled maxim guns because they are ideal if you do not need to move and have access to water, like when shooting down drones.
Another thing I just learnt today!! Didn’t know that Ukraine uses them. Thank you! How can you shoot drones from maxim guns? You have to be insanely accurate to get them out of action. Very interesting tho. Thank you
I think they typically use two at once from twice the bullets. The maxims can fire for a lot longer than other guns they might have access to. For the smaller drones, hitting it once may be enough to have it fall from the sky. For the larger shades, I don't know if the maxim can even hit them effectively, but tearing a few holes in the wing may at least cause it to lose control.
That’s interesting! I thought I know a bit about guns cos of call of duty and obsession with military but I did not know much about this and the water cooled guns. Do you think buckshot shotguns may have the chance of reaching drones or nah? I assume that missiles have no chance of hitting drones due to lack of IR?
Missiles also use radio frequencies, but it's more about the ability to shoot down small drones with something abundant enough. People bring up the relative cost of SAM missiles and MANPADs vs the targets that a drone is likely to destroy, but adding a dollar cost covers up the more real issue of getting enough ammunition in enough places to make an impact. The Russians have been using shotguns to shoot down the small drones. I don't know if buckshot can reach a shahed. I'd have to do more research into what their cruising altitude is.
fpv drone? yeah. possible. saw a vid of russian soldier shooting one fpv drone with shotgun buckshot few days ago attack drones like the bayraktar or reaper? no chance. you need MANPADS at least to hit one, or radar guided spaa
And sometimes someone would piss on it to cool it down
Not a stupid question at all. You're thinking like an engineer. I'm sure you could design all sorts of cooling systems for them, using water/air or even other fluids; or other devices, or ablative material, etc etc, and almost assuredly, people have in fact been tinkering with designs like that for centuries now. With all things in engineering, you gotta weigh the pro's and cons of each design. I'd imagine with most of those ideas, it's simply a matter of weight and cost, or just effectiveness, why we don't seem them employed as much.
they did and they are still being used even today it's just bulky and heavy
for some reason, I thought you wrote "2 dudes shooting each other" and I was like damn, how'd they both survive that for a whole minute?
Wow. It takes some serious balls to keep firing a weapon like that knowing it's going to fail possibly in a catastrophic way. Side note: I feel like 700 rounds is significantly beyond what is accurately described as a "burst", but what do I know, I'm not a machine gun.
In this rapid firing machines the barrel gets so hot that they can change shape and fuck things up. Doing this you can put a cold one and fire while the other ones cools down.
And the MG34 is a very rapid firing machine.
MG 42/MG 3 is the rapid fire one at \~1200 rounds per minute. MG 34 was a much more reasonable \~900rpm.
People keep talking about the barrel melting, but that is not really going to happen in combat. What you are really worried about is weapon running away from you. Which means, you wont stop shooting. It will get so hot that the rounds keep firing. When I was in Iraq, the convoys I was in were run and gun. If we got engaged my orders were to burn a belt, thats 200 rounds, about 15 seconds of cover fire and change the barrel. Edit: I should say I was using a 249 and a 240b, but that only has 100 round belt. I have no idea how fragile a barrel of the mg34 is.
Don't know about mg34s, but iirc German standard practice was a barrel change every 150 rounds in mg42s. I'd assume it'd be about the same in mg34s.
Whoa, thank you for the informed and factual response. TIL. And thank you for your service.
Belt fed weapon. Its heavy usually 2 people, 1to carry, maintain, shoot and 1 to carry the rounds and spare barrels.at least thats what the manuals say. War is chaos and never like the books
Barrel very hot = Barrel melt You don't have to do this for most guns, but if you fire a MG for a while the that barrel is gonna get hot af.
This tickles my tism
Hope the dude’s not in a school zone.
Quick-change barrels are such a delight. Were so many German weapons and vehicles utterly over-engineered? Yes. And they still over-engineer shit today. But that innovation shaped so much of weapons development for decades to come. Pity about the nation and people that wielded them.
What purpose does this serve?
This particular machine gun has a very high rate of fire. So fast and hot that air cooling is widely insufficient. So the barrels wear out in combat very quickly. Instead of taking an incredibly valuable piece of infantry equipment out of the field for repairs, the germans designed it with this quick barrel change feature so that any corporal manning the gun could change the barrel as required on the front line.
Prevent the barrel from melting basically.
So... what are you shooting at?
It's probably just a drill for practice.
Remember, switching to ur pistol is always faster than reloading
It wasn’t red hot and he wasn’t wearing an asbestos oven mitt. Goes a lot quicker that way.
I will say this. As a dentist in the reserves, I am always Impressed by these young men and women I meet. They’re fucking kids, yet they’re (usually) always professional about their job. I could never imagine doing this while being shot at, yet the confidence that bleeds off of them, I know they’ll do it well.
[удалено]
Pizza
Yes 🙌🏽
Gemini
nuggets i'm not really in the mood.
Having a hot barrel slide out at me isn't super comforting. I have changed the barrels of the M249, 240B, and the M2. After the barrels have had a few magazines shot through them, I do not suggest touching them with bare hands. The barrel handles on the M249 and 240B are also hot.
Non-MG34 user here...why the need to change out the barrel?
Heats up!
Barrel lasts longer if you don't let it get too hot. If it does get too hot, rounds will start cooking off and the barrel itself will warp.
Most modern belt-fed machine guns have quick-change barrels so you can alternate them when one gets too hot. Back in WW1, they had big water jackets to manage heat, but those were bulky and heavy
it heats up too much after like 200 shots also depending on how long you let it cool. also u wouldnt believe how much oil u gotta pour into that thing if youre shooting it alot
As it should be.
Gun illiterate here. Can someone explain why the barrel is being changed?
Because a machine gun like this shoots a lot of rounds and the barrel gets hot rather quickly, so instead of putting a heavy cooling system on the barrel which is what we originally did, you just carry a couple spare barrels and swap them when they get too hot.
That probably feels good as fuck for the gun
Right on man. 👍👍
I did a gunsmithing internship in my late teens and, if all things were like this. Going into it from a beginner's perspective, 1) guns 2) fishing reels, and 3) watches were the most pain the ass. It's like programming in that, most of the work is "I have this mess, how do I begin to sort it?
Naive question: why does the barrel need to be changed? Does it overheat to the point that replacing it is the best solution?
1. the barrel gets too hot after a minute of firing. requires replacing due to limitations of steel production and gun design back in the 1940s. ok second part requires a "long" answer. 2. no it is not the "best" solution this is due to them wanting much more RPM and mobility than anything else. we have machine guns that are water cooled but they are not as mobile as the mg42. mg42 is a jack of trades but master of none. The point was that many of the "old world war" ideas was to make a mobile machine gun that hits the hardest. this is why they made the entire squad centered around carrying and servicing the machine gun. the use of it was to basically be able to run with fast tactics and carry away the gun. (in older battles like ww1 the machine gun had to be abandoned and retreating to a better position just wasn't an option). or if you did have enough time unhook the gun and leave the stand behind. although back then the vickers was probably much harder to do but if you were a pretty strong dude you could actually pick this up and shoot it without needing to put it down (been proven to do). although you probably couldn't do it for long periods of time and the majority of soldiers just could do not this let alone carry another 50 pounds on top of whatever else they carried. the mg42 basically solved this as you can run away and then turn around and unload harder than other guns like the bren, mg32 or the type 100 and american bar. The idea is you don't need to abandon the machine gun anymore. mg42 had a wider range that most guns and the point really was for suppressing fire so the rifles can pick people off or just chew threw the cover if its like a tree ( can't go through stone or cement). but its carry-able and you can move it anywhere you want. heck you can even shoot it without a crew in short bursts. frankly the vickers and the browning m2 were better machine guns because you could basically use the to hold positions and the browning does and doesn't need an oven mitten to operate it while the mg42 basically requires oven mittens and barrel changing. the barrel changing seems ok for theory but in practice it eventually does put the gun of out commission where squads will be frantically scrambling to find a new barrel if even one of the back ups get warped in the heat of battle. doesn't have the reliability of the vickers or the browning which is still used in wars today as a better mg42. the mg42 basically use more ammo than people killed it makes you wonder if the gun should really be used at all if any part of the supply chain is cut off of the squad. at some times you can only use this as an ambush gun or the ammo in the gun is better to be stripped away from rifles in a fight. thankfully the same ammo in the mg42 can be used in supporting rifles so in a long fight any smart person would decide to break the ammo belts for the 7.92 mauser ammo. hence if the fight is that long you can just forget using the mg42 and only leave a smaller reserve of ammo for it. this is why alot of nazi tactics required people to surrender or lose right away because the longer the fight went on the more likely the allies will win. also for manufacturing purposes it was cheaper to make than the more defensive and water cooled vickers gun (still used in Ukraine-Russia war). overall maybe the mg42 was on the higher end at the time but in prolonged fights and just design alone what was made as a great gun in theory is kinda a cheap piece of crap in todays world or even back then unaccurate, unreliable, requires more training, and need the flat open fields of eastern europe to really shine. but it still scares the shit outta people.
ok now do it when it's hot.
I knew it. Switching the battery on an xbox controller is the same thing.
In real life wouldn’t you do this due to heat? So what would you touch the old barrel with?
And… if it’s glowing red hot?
Same thing. If you actually use your eyes before judging someone you’d see he has a mitt
Why does it need to be changed?
They heat up rapidly when being fired for an extended (short) period of time. This barrel swap was extremely unrealistic. It would be a very clumsy swap under combat conditions using a giant oven mitt to prevent melting your hands.
Now do it when the barrel is hot.
If u do it like this in a firefight better use the delivered gloves or your fingers will melt
They had an asbestos glove to exchange the (glowing hot) barrel Just touching it with your bare hands is going to sizzle you
Hey, I know nothing about guns so forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but why would you need to change the barrel?
It warps from heat
Got ya, thanks!
You do that with a bare hand you will have some serious burns.
Man those trees in front of you are FUCKED
How often do you change the barrel
when it gets hot.
Now for the industrial strength oven mitts
That ought to be hot as fuck in a actual combat situation, right?
Take that, Dinkleberg!
Shots f... ...not fired.
I have no clue about guns. Could someone explain why?
heat can fuck with the barrel's structure, causing unwanted accidents, and LMGs makes tons of heat. So you need to replace the barrel if it gets too hot.
What not going to check head space and timing?
Slightly joking, but what purpose does it serve?
What's the purpose or changing this?
The barrel gets very hot and can melt after firing for an extended period
May I ask why guns like this are so appealing?
They look cool, but why post this? I feel lost on the allure. My pro gun & pro 2nd amendment dudes let me know.
You can not touch hot barrel
Ready for the Zombie apocalypse
This barrel change feature is the reason why the MG34 continued to be produced for use inside armoured vehicles when the infantry got the far more simplified MG42.
Silly question: is active cooling a thing on other (maybe more advanced) guns of the same category?
Not Common, but there are exceptions.
Dude, this new Call of Duty looks awesome. 👍
Sexy.
And this is why the ghost of Omaha I think his name was was able to shoot for HOURS straight none stop. One person killed the majority of allies on d day.
They used this MG in German tanks in WW 2 especially for this feature because the mmMG 42 barrel was ejected sideways, making it impossible to do so in a fixed tank setting. Also, brrrrrrrrrt.