Poll - Favorite 7.62mm MG

[TiggerCCW UK]

Called me old fashioned but I went with the Bren.

I was lucky enough to fire a .303 version when I was a army cadet many years ago

Ramjam, if you substitute marine cadet for army cadet I could have written that What unit were you with I spent time with Lincolnshire ACF as an instructor when I lived in England.

I love the Bren, either in 7.62 or .303. The magazine capacity is a bit on the low side, but its a great piece of kit. Only thing I didn't like was the chance of it ripping your fingers off when you let the working parts forward after a field strip - the ejection port is on the bottom of th weapon and its easy to accidently have your fingers a bit to far in....

I'm a big fan of the Lewis gun as well, simply on a 'looks' basis

[perardua]

The L7A2 GPMG. I accepted it into my life as my personal saviour and have yet to regret the decision.

[headquarters]

MG-3

Of the actual MGs I've gotten to play with (M60, MAG and 240s, HK21, MG3, and the PK) the PK stands head and shoulders above the rest of them as a light machinegun for a guy or two to actually have to haul around and fight.

We called it the "chain saw".

good range ,scary rate of fire,good ergonomics .plain fun to shoot .

Nowadays it comes with plastic drums that in effect is like a magazine with the belt stacked up inside.

This gun is a sob piece of kit that just keeps on going trough all sorts of abuse .

It weighs in at 11 kg though ,making it a bit cumbersome .But it can still be used as a personal weapon in a pinch .(well-sort of ).

[pmulcahy11b]

The L7A2 GPMG. I accepted it into my life as my personal saviour and have yet to regret the decision.

Imagine some person in a post-apoc future coming upon that statement, and a religion growing up around it..."have you accepted the Jimpy as your personal lord and savior"

[perardua]

Frankly, that would be awesome. I am so tempted to go away and start working on the tenets of that religion. Possibly in the style of the Holy Hand Grenade.

[pmulcahy11b]

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest mother f**cker in the valley,
Thy Jimpy and thy Holy Hand Grenade, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a firebase before me in the presence of my enemies;
Thou annnoistest my head with Kevlar; My ammunition runneth over.

[Abbott Shaull]

Being when I was in, the M60 still was in inventory. The M240s were with Mechanized/Armor units due to being the co-axis gun on the Tanks/APC/IFV/CFVs roaming around in the US Army, but the ground element in those unit usually lugged the M60.

The M60, much like the early M16s suffered from number of issue that were due to training. And again, both weapon with such low tolerance it shows when compared with AK/PK family.

Since we are dealing with GPMG for multi roles. I still have a fond spot for the M60, but it wouldn't matter all were good systems. The two things I would have to look at, is how the gun was to be used primarily, and if it would the end user would want to make accurate short burst or use the spray and pray method of sending rounds down range. I mean would the weapon be vehicle mounted with the option of taking it that mount for dismount use Would it be used be the Platoon MG team weapon Vehicle would probably be M240, if it was the Platoon MG or dismount team MG it would be M60 from the past. The PK wouldn't be bad choice if you were looking for spray and pray too keep head downs.

MG3 being basically WWII designed (ironic same one used as based for the M60 and M240/MAG) scaled to 7.62N wouldn't be bad choice either. Forget which WWII era gun it based off, I want to say MG42 and Allied troops hated it since it had such a high rate of fire. Of course by this time of the war the Germans had the habit of issuing less Rifles and more sub-machineguns too. Oh well.

[HorseSoldier]

MG3 --> Directly descended from the MG42.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Yeah, the history of the MG3 goes something like this -
MG1 was reverse engineered from original MG42 but couldn't be put into production soon enough so MG2 was produced in the interim.
MG2 was basically the MG42 re-chambered from 7.92mm Mauser to 7.62mm NATO.
MG1 went through a few tweaks to become the MG3
I think the MG2 was also updated to the MG3 configuration.

While the M60 took parts of the MG42 and also the FG42 rifle, the FN MAG is not related to the MG42 at all. The MAG is basically the Browning M1918 BAR mechanism turned upside down and given a belt feed.

[Abbott Shaull]

Okay I stand correct on the MAG/M240...Gee Browning knew how to build them..lol

No wonder the US after several year of using it as Co-axial gun placed the M240 in general service. Never made much sense to have Armor/Mechanized forces using one MG for the vehicle and using the M60 for the ground pounders...

[HorseSoldier]

And the 240 coaxes were adopted because the coaxial version of the M60 was a flop (and the preceding M73 coax MG was just an utter POS, apparently).

[StainlessSteelCynic]

...Gee Browning knew how to build them..lol

Yeah, I personally think John Browning was the single most influential person in modern firearms design. If he had designed just one or two items that improved firearms, he'd be just another inventor but he designed the most important aspect of self-loading handguns (the telescoping bolt as well as integrating the barrel and bolt into the slide mechanism), the gas-recoil operated machinegun and went on to design several firearms that are basically unchanged from the day he invented them (the M1911 pistol, the M2 MG, the Browning Auto-5 shotgun) nearly 90-100 years ago

[Abbott Shaull]

Yeah and the .30 cal machine guns and the BAR seem to last a long time than many people would give them credit for. The .30 cal either air or water cooled weren't the best weapon in class, but were more functional than some of the garbage others were peddling around.

Could you think if he had made an Assault Rifle system. It probably would still be in use and no one would ever bother with AK...Oh well.

[pmulcahy11b]

Yeah and the .30 cal machine guns and the BAR seem to last a long time than many people would give them credit for. The .30 cal either air or water cooled weren't the best weapon in class, but were more functional than some of the garbage others were peddling around.

Could you think if he had made an Assault Rifle system. It probably would still be in use and no one would ever bother with AK...Oh well.

Yeah, what could have been...unfortunately, he died part-way through the design process of the HP-35. At least FN continued on with making the HP-35 his way, and I'm sure they're happy they made that decision every day. I sometimes wonder if FN is getting royalties from all those pistol manufacturers that copied John Browning's HP-35 operation in their pistols.

I still think that one of the best assault rifle designs post-World War 2 was the Enfield EM-2. It sucks that the US were politically such bullies in NATO at the time - that .280 round was also being tested with the prototypes of the FAL and the CETME-58, and it was a damn sight better than the 7.62mm NATO and the later 5.56mm NATO.

[HorseSoldier]

P-35's story is kind of complicated, and actually more Dieudionne Saive's creation in its final form than Browning's -- Browning designed a striker fired pistol that used Saive's double-stack magazine capacity to get the mag capacity required by the French military contract they were competing for. The production version of the pistol used the lockwork Browning had designed (which is where the verbiage about Browning's patent on the slide comes from) but otherwise it was mostly sorted out by Saive (who later went on to design the FAL).

(And complete agreement on the EM-2 and the British 280 round.)