"Army Finds .50-Cal. MG Still Shooting after 90 Years " Topic

"The .50 caliber M2 machine gun was designed in 1918, near the end of World War I by John Browning.

Production began in 1921 and the weapon was designed so a single receiver could be turned into seven different variants by adding jackets, barrels or other components.

Roughly 94 years after the first production run of M2 machine guns came off the assembly line, the 324th weapon produced made it to Anniston Army Depot for overhaul and upgrade.

In more than 90 years of existence, the receiver with serial number 324 has never been overhauled…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Somehow I read this and am not surprised, but wish I could have it.

The ones in my Arms room (1978) were all built in the 40's

If it could only talk, the stories it could tell!

"There I was…"

Everybody loves Ma Deuce !

I remember then jamming a lot on our AAV's. Nice weapons but boy did you have to pamper and beat them to keep them firing.

As strict as all our branches of service are regarding tracking locations of weapons, somewhere there has to be
enough records to track this old beast's journey.

Like zone said, wouldn't you love to know.

to paraphrase the Old Corps quote " I wore out more seabags than you have shoe laces."

"I wore out more barrels than you have fired rounds."

Git Some, Ma Deuce!

If you think the M-2 jams you should have had to deal with the M-85.

Amazing that the only changes made to the design in 100 years has been to remove the variable timing features (because modern machining is precise enough to no longer require it).

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

I never had a problem with the M2 or M85 jamming. As with all things mechanical, they work when you perform correct maintenance. The M2 was a lot more fun to shoot.

Yes, setting head space and timing could be a bit of a pain in the butt. But like a lot of Iron Monsters, she may need a little catering and TLC. But she is worth it, IMO …

We must have still been using the older version, Lion … I remember each gun having a timing gauge, etc. …

Ain't no school like old school!

Always loved the Ma Deuce…

Sent 1,000s of rounds down range at Knox and at Graf…

Absolutely wonderful weapon.

I personally never had it jam up or have ANY problems with it.

Only problem is that thing was sure heavy hauling from the arms room down in the basement all the way to the motor pool for exercises, gunneries, border deployments, and of course, everyone's favorite…the wonderful blaring alarm alerts at zero dark thirty…

the 240 Charlie coax on the other hand…grrrrrrrrr….

Frank

Yeah, She's a heavy mother !

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Frank (or anyone else)

Is the 240 better than an M60 or worse?

John T

The M60 was replaced by the M240 … All my 60s in my Mech Co., '87-'89, were rebuilds. They jammed often. I was gone by the time they got the M240s. Everything I heard the M240 was better than the old M60s ….

M60s were VERY prone to jamming if you didn't feed the belt fairly straight going into the feed tray…

We had the M240 Charlie as our coax in the Bradleys. Also very prone to jamming…

Probably one of the main reasons the M2 50cal has been around 100 years and why we all love her so well.

Hard to improve on perfection ;)

You hang unto the handles, push that cool looking butterfly trigger and it's like the Eveready Bunny. It just keeps going, and going, and going…

The other 2…it's like you're just bracing yourself to deal with the next jam…

Getting through a load of ammo cleanly should not give you a sigh of relief, it should be expected!!!

You want something that works automatically without having to pay any attention to it… You want to keep your focus on putting rounds down range into the target.

The M2 is one of those weapons…

Frank

So the 240 is not really much of an improvement over the 60 … sorry to hear that ? Good thing each of my Mech Squads had 2 M249 SAWs and all my tracks and M35 Cgo Trk [Deuce & 1/2] had .50s …

I have to wonder if that weapon did not spend a lot of time parked in a warehouse at the back somewhere. In the 1990s we got issued some stuff that had been packed in 1942 as I recall, and we where the first to pop the crates.

I also remember one time we got C-rats that had luckystrikes in them. I was the only one who knew what that meant.

Owen

I never messed with the coax version, but the 240G beat the hell out of the 60E3. A really simple weapon to maintain and get into action, the only problems we had was one particular gun whose chamber would swell. I'd have to get up and kick the damn barrel off to change it! That one got shipped to H&S Company ;)

V/R,
Jack

I would imaging the Commonwealth troops would tell similar stories about the .303 Vickers watercooled HMG.

@L4: The A1 version of Ma Deuce didn't happen until 2001 or so. Took a long time before people realized that we could make tolerances tight enough that you didn't need timing gauges anymore.

But yeah, talk about perfection. Though personally, I'm wondering if you could scale up an MG3 to .50cal, maybe save some weight over the Browning design.

I also remember one time we got C-rats that had luckystrikes in them

Got some those when I was a cadet, '75-'79 and then in the early '80s, with the 101 … I don't smoke and always traded them for the Pound Cake.

L4: The A1 version of Ma Deuce didn't happen until 2001 or so.

Well I got RIF'd in early '90. So I never saw any of those !

Got to experience C rats during basic/OSUT at Knox in 83.

Sure wish I had been able to keep at least ONE P-38…talk about a useful piece of kit…always kept one hung around my neck along with my dog tags…

Everybody loves Ma Deuce!

Except the individuals on the recieving end.

Sure wish I had been able to keep at least ONE P-38.

Still have two of them along with a B52 (I.E. bigger version far easier to use).

I also remember when C-Rations came with smokes you could get things for those if you did not smoke.

I also have two of the really good M1951 Entrenching Tool, you know the one with the pick & shovel.

link

Both times I was issued one of these so when it came time to turn my gear in when I was PCS'ing I would stop by the Store and buy one of those crappy folding Entrenching Tools and turn that in instead.

Man you guys know how to get the memories flooding back…

back in the day when I was

let's say it all together…

"Young, dumb, and full of cum!" :D

Oh Yeah !