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WW-II BAR: part two.

Fatstrat
Went to machine gun shoot last weekend. Was planning on shooting a BAR. Had paid my money and was in line to shoot (3 guns: BAR, Thompson, MP-40) when the firing pin broke on the BAR. The guy thast owned it was upset. Said there was no telling how long it might take to find one. I asked if anyone made aftermarket parts. Not that he knew of. Said he'd have find one being parted out. I find it amazing that no one makes parts such as the FP for them.
Anyway, ended up shooting the Thompson and a MG-42. Had a BLAST![:D]
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Comments

11 comments

Date Votes
  • oscat271
    I would have been looking to shoot an openbolt M2 .50 BMG if I had the
    chance. I just read about it being out there.
    I wonder if It is an improvement over all the old closedbolt ones I
    used to blast away with?
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  • Fatstrat
    They had some 50's there. Out of my price range to shoot. Basically $5. a round. I was afraid how much to ask to shoot a Mini Gun.
    The 50 Cal sniper rifles were awesome. You could FEEL the blast, 25-30 yrds away. Sounded/felt like a cannon going off.
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  • givette
    quote:Originally posted by oscat271
    I would have been looking to shoot an openbolt M2 .50 BMG if I had the
    chance. I just read about it being out there.
    I wonder if It is an improvement over all the old closedbolt ones I
    used to blast away with?

    Dubious..(not you, the thought)

    M2's from WWI through Vietnam were closed-bolt. Sometime after V/N they retrofitted a new assembly into the M2's?

    I need someone to tell me they've handled an M2 that fired from open-bolt. Till then, I'll remain dubious. Best, Joe
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  • allen griggs
    I would love to shoot a MG42.
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  • dcs shooters
    Come to Fort Harmar Rifle Club's Historical Military Gun Match 10-31-10, in Marietta, OH. There is a guy with twin MG-42's, mini-guns,50's, ect.
    We have the match every Memorial Day Sunday and the Sunday closest to Holloween.
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  • wpage
    Want to shoot twin 50's someday.
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  • Emmett Dunham
    I read the first listing posted and noticed that it was said that it could not be believed how fast the ammo went out of automatic weapons. One of the major problems with the BAR was it did no have the kind of capacity to be an over all good platoon machine gun because of the magazine capacity. To use the rifle the operator had to learn how to shoot the rifle so as to make it effective, not hold back the trigger until the ammo is all gone. I think that all automatic rifles are the same, hit the target, canserve the ammo.


    Emmett
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  • v35
    The BAR has two rates of fire. Using the slow rate of fire, it was easy to send off single rounds.
    With little practice you could send off a few rounds at a time with the A4 and M2-50 and single rounds with the hold down latch on the 50 disengaged.
    Calling the 50 BMG in a sniper rifle, a rifle is a misnomer. It's really a cannon, outclassing all rifle rounds by far.
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  • beantownshootah
    On the firing pin, yeah, these are **SO** hard to locate it took me fully 60 seconds to find one on the Numrich website:

    http://www.gunpartscorp.com/catalog/Detail.aspx?pid=28870&filter=Browning+firing+pin&catid=0
    quote:
    Firing Pin
    U.S. MILITARY
    1918, 1918A1, 1918A2 BROWNING AUTO RIFLE

    Firing Pin

    Product No. 28870
    $10.80


    EDIT: In case Numrich is out, here are a few more sources:
    $20 http://www.bmgparts.com/bar.html
    http://www.midwestgunworks.com/page/mgwi/ctgy/browning-bar-rifle-parts





    quote:Originally posted by v35
    Calling the 50 BMG in a sniper rifle, a rifle is a misnomer. It's really a cannon, outclassing all rifle rounds by far.

    You can think of it as a miniature piece of artillery.

    On machine guns, they typically cycle at 600-800 rounds per minute.

    That's 10-12 rounds per SECOND.

    Even with relatively cheap pistol ammo that costs $0.25 per round commercially, you're still talking $2.50 PER SECOND shooting costs!

    IMO, machine guns are overrated. I won't dare say firing them isn't fun, but I think a lot of that fun is because they are heavily restricted.

    While I wouldn't turn up the chance to fire one (and have done so in the past), in general, I usually prefer firing the same guns in semi-automatic mode.
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  • the41cadguy
    The main thing that I remember about firing the BAR for familiarization in the Army was that it chewed my shoulder up, bouncing up and down on it. It would have taken a lot more than one magazine full to learn how to control it. My hat's off to those guys who used them as a personal weapon.
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  • Don McManus
    quote:Originally posted by the41cadguy
    The main thing that I remember about firing the BAR for familiarization in the Army was that it chewed my shoulder up, bouncing up and down on it. It would have taken a lot more than one magazine full to learn how to control it. My hat's off to those guys who used them as a personal weapon.


    Agreed.

    I've got one of the Ohio Ordnance semis and cannot imagine lugging it around an Island in the South Pacific.

    Last time out with it, however, I was able to manage a five shot group in under 20 seconds with a 1.5" group of four and one 3" flyer. The guts of the beast can be accurate.
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