M240 aka MAG58

[Combat Diver]

I got to instruct on the M240 7.62x51mm machine gun today. Guns action is an inverted Browning M1918 BAR with the FN BAR Type D quick change barrel (1935) with a German MG42 feed system. The FN MAG58 competed against the M60 machine in the US machine trails of 1958. We chose the M60 to replace the M1919 .30 machine guns then in service. Years later the MAG58 would be adopted by the US Army as the coaxil machine gun in the M1 Abrams tank and M2/M3 Bradley IFV during the late 1970s. Later after GW1 in the 1990s it would replace all M60s in service.



slow motion


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[Slacker]

I have fond memories of its smaller cousin the M249.
I remember PVT Snuffy putting a round into the floor with a 249. "Fires from an open bolt" was a concept he had not yet mastered.
Does the 240 belted ammo have a tracer every xx rds or is it all ball?

 

[Combat Diver]

I have fond memories of its smaller cousin the M249.
I remember PVT Snuffy putting a round into the floor with a 249. "Fires from an open bolt" was a concept he had not yet mastered.
Does the 240 belted ammo have a tracer every xx rds or is it all ball?

Ammo used today was either 4 Ball/1 Tracer or 4 AP/1 Tracer. You can see some of the tracers burning in the sand berm in the second video.

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[Slacker]

Ammo used today was either 4 Ball/1 Tracer or 4 AP/1 Tracer. You can see some of the tracers burning in the sand berm in the second video.

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I was always amazed at the odd trajectories of the tracer rounds.

 

[BigWaylon]

In slow-mo, it’s almost like jingle bells to me.