8 minute read
TECH: AGM MG42
GIVING THE BUZZSAW SOME TEETH!
LAST MONTH WE LOOKED IN DEPTH AT THE WEAPONS, AND THEIR AIRSOFT REPLICAS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN USED ON D-DAY AND IN OUR RED CELL “SPECIAL” JIMMY HAD A FEW CHOICE WORDS TO SAY ABOUT THE AGM MG42! AS PROMISED HE NOW BRINGS IN HIS FULL ASSESSMENT, AND THE STEPS HE TOOK TO TURN A WELL-PRICED SUPPORT GUN INTO A TRUE BB-CHUCKING BEAST!
When it comes to weapons of an era I do prefer the more modern models, although I do have a small interest in weapons of Cold War. While WWII replicas are still very popular a lot of them don’t really interest me; that said there are a few which do grab my attention such as the Colt 1911 Government, Browning 9mm, the BREN and let’s not forget the wrecking machine that is the MG42! As I have become quite familiar with the MG42 I shall give an insight into my experience with its workings, and the ensuing issues I faced, but first let’s have a little history on its real counterpart!
The MG 42 (shortened from German: Maschinengewehr 42, or “machine gun 42”) was a 7.92×57mm general-purpose machine gun designed by Mauser in Germany and used extensively by the
Wehrmacht and German Forces during the second half of World War II. Entering production in 1942, it was intended to supplement and replace the earlier MG 34, which was more expensive and took much longer to produce, but both weapons were produced until the end of the war, and in the case of the MG42 far longer, but more on that later! Designed to be low-cost and easy to build, the MG 42 proved to be highly reliable and easy to operate. It is most notable for its very high cyclic rate for a gun using full power service cartridges, averaging about 1,200 rounds per minute compared to around 850 for the MG 34 and perhaps 450 to 600 for other common machine guns like the M1919 Browning or FM 24/29 or Bren. This ability made it extremely effective in providing suppressive fire, and its unique sound led
to it being nicknamed “Hitler’s Buzzsaw”.
The MG 42 was adopted by several armed organizations after the war, and was both copied and built under licence. The MG 42’s lineage continued past the AXIS defeat, forming the basis for the nearly identical MG1 (MG 42/59), chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO, which subsequently evolved into the MG1A3, and later the Bundeswehr’s MG 3, Italian MG 42/59 and Austrian MG 74. It also spawned the Yugoslav unlicensed nearly identical Zastava M53… strangely there was a small car which took the name Zastava made by Yugo…. But let’s get back to the matter in hand.
GIVE ME LOVE!
I got my hands on the AGM MG42 due to it needing some much required maintenance and a bit of true tech love as it was misfeeding… sorry; make that not feeding at all! Velocity was very poor and in general it just sounded horrible. One thing that is fast apparent with the MG is it’s colossal presence; it’s a beast of a machine and when fully loaded with magazine and it’s large capacity of BBs it really is
heavy at nearly 6000g, so anyone running around with this all day deserves credit.
Aesthetically stunning it is a well-built platform from its large muzzle device right down to the fin shaped stock. One thing I found to be a bit of an annoyance is the bipod, that thing does what it wants to. I understand it needed to give the user a
wide range of manoeuvrability but when you’re trying to work on it or move from point to point it just flaps all over the place.
Designed with one thing in mind, “suppression”, the airsoft variant takes quite a beating and sadly AGM didn’t use the best quality internal parts and they also adopted certain standards which don’t follow suit of other parts manufacturers which makes part sourcing a bit of a nightmare. When it works it is fun to use and due to its internal barrel being in excess of 700mm it is amazing! The range you can get most airsoft platforms similar to this have much shorter barrels and can’t find the same range.
The big old drum mag can be a bit of a fiddle to fit, especially the locking catch, and you have to get it lined up perfect in order for it to clip in and can take two or three attempts at that, but once on it is very well secured so no worries of it falling off. I like the idea of having it hardwired but powered from its own power source requiring 4 AA batteries; no need to push any buttons or switches just pull the trigger and the mag will self-wind.
The way they have set up the mechanics is nice also as you have two complete separate sections, the lower section which houses your gears and your trigger mechanism and the upper portion which deals solely with your compression side of things, making life a bit easier when it comes to maintenance as both are incredibly easy to remove. Battery space is better than most to be honest, batteries are stored in the rear of the body and the stock although caution should be taken when fitting the stock as you have to twist the stock on which could compromise a wire.
INTERNALLY UNREMARKABLE
Getting into the internals AGM have used standardquality budget parts and not much diligence has been used in putting them all together. I found the gears were very poorly shimmed with little to no grease, the safety switch was very stiff, motor height was way off, the piston was of poor quality and again there was no lubrication where it was needed except just smeared on areas where no contact of parts were.
So my job was to unfudge the fudgery!
When installing the new piston I discovered the original piston to be marginally thinner that the three models that I tried to fit, resulting in the new ones jamming when the shell was closed and forcing me to modify the piston to allow smooth operation. I had to trim a couple of mill off the tappet plate as the nozzle was being held open way too long causing drastic power loss. Shimming the gears required them to be sat as low as possible in order for the sector gear to get a good engagement of the piston rack meaning I couldn’t get the motor to sit as high as I would have liked which can be detrimental to either the pinion or bevel gears, but time will tell I suppose.
The main reason for the misfeeding was down to a number of issues; the main factor was the length of the nozzle as it was way too long and due to the odd size AGM had used, no aftermarket part was available so I had to carefully machine material away until I had reached the correct length which took several attempts to get right. The old saying you can take more off you can’t put any back so this resulted in best part of an afternoon to get just right.
Another problem was with the hop unit alignment to the upper half of the compression housing. Although the hop unit fixed directly to the housing when installed the two parts were not linear, so it sat a little too high. This platform tested my abilities and at times had me questioning myself and made me feel I was out of my depth, but perseverance prevailed and the beast succumbed finally to my wishes.
Now fully operational I was happier than a pig in mud. So a platform that looked amazing on the outside was lacklustre on the inside, but with a few choice enhancements and a fair amount of my time it became the machine it should have been. Running on 11.1v it has a very crisp sound and will pump out a very healthy 18rps which isn’t far from the real MG42’s rof, at between 345 & 350fps so I’m very pleased with that.
I always like a challenge, and I find that the more AEGs I work on, the more I understand their individual characters and the MG42 although initially hard to fathom turned out just fine with some thought and perseverance. Unless you’re a skilled tech with a wellset up workshop I’d say getting the most from one of these AEGs will be hard, so my advice to you is to take it to a good tech who will find the correct path, with the correct parts, to really put some teeth into your Buzzsaw! AA
