That is how the Jeep came to be. The Army put out a specification that everyone else tried to meet. Bantam, which was almost bankrupt and making one last attempt to stay in business, built the vehicle that they thought the Army really needed. The rest is history.
One of the few instances where "No, what you think you want is stupid. I KNOW what you really need/want" Actually worked. Though it does seem to happen more frequently with military equipment, like Pithicus said with the Jeep, when North American said "How about instead of a liscened P-40 with a Merlin, we make something ourselves with that Engine". And kinda the XM-16, when Colt and the USAF got Springfield Armory to finally try it, instead of propping up the M-14 and just sabotaging the AR-15 (Which they still ended up doing anyways with the powder swap and lack of cleaning kits they didn't tell the designers about. Though the 1 magazine = droopy and drifting pencil barrels actually were the guns fault from immature tech and metallurgy knowledge).
That's a thing. I don't work in gunsmithing, but the best piece of advice I ever got from a senior coworker was "Stop doing what the boss tells you, and just do what you know needs to be done!"
Henry Ford: If I listened to my customers, I'd've invented a faster horse. EDIT: You should listen to your customers, but don't slavishly build to their demands.
There is also the case where the customer does not necessarily mean what he said. When the US air force looked for a new fighter to replace the F15, they emphasized speed and stealth, not improvement in maneuverability. Two planes were down selected: YF22 and YF23. The YF23 was clearly better in terms of stealth and speed. The YF22 was more conventional but would have been more maneuverable. In the end YF22 won. Most believed Lockheed talked to people in private and figure out the top brass were always conservative and more conventional design was really what they wanted.
That’s because Germans over engineer things. Redundancies can be useful, but they chose an elegant approach when the simple “push more gas through gun” would’ve worked decent enough
Armies were generally pretty conservative, even hidebound, when it comes to small arms. An argument used against issuing repeating or semi-auto weapons was "if we give the troops a weapon that can fire X rounds in rapid succession, then the troops will use it." That or something like that was said in response to the US Cav looking at a revolver. Then there were the Brits with the SMLE. They built a rifle with a detachable 10 round box mag but the doctrine was still to single load using the magazine cutoff and only use the magazine if things got desperate. Reloading was with 5 round stripper clips because squaddies were supposed to keep their one extra box mag in reserve in case things got REALLY desperate. The early FJ-42s had a pistol grip that was nearly the same angle as the K-98s. "It's what the last rifle had so the new rifle has to have it too"
The opening sound is pretty sweet too. There's gotta be some deliberate effort on Ian's part to make sure all these mechanical sounds are captured so nicely and it is very much appreciated.
That bolt release is such a cool feature for the time. I completely understand why it was removed for it's complexity bit it seems to foreshadow the bolt release placement on the AR platform.
Good ideas appear and then disappear when the technology isn't right. So many things "were invented 100 years ago" but you've got to have that intersection of ideas and social/technological situations.
The 1911 technically has a similar feature in the slide release, the bolt is just part of the slide. So I don't know about foreshadow, but placing the control which finishes the reloading process physically near to where the reloading is done seems like a simple engineering choice
The AR platform has a more clunky non-reciprocating charging handle, definitely has more merit with the AR. And then again the AK platform (unless they changed something in newer revisions) has no hold open at all.
If I were the guys who made the Reising, I'd want to hide the proof marks with the name on it and wear a disguise! That gun was a disgrace to American ordnance, let's face it
If the Germans had developed and perfected roller-delayed blowback earlier before or during the war, perhaps they could have fixed their problematic Gewehr 41 / G41(W) before adopting the Gewehr 43 / G43 and Sturmgewehr 44 / StG-44 later on.
@@christopherwang4392 Well, the development of a "Simpler" STG44 eventually led to the STG45(M) - the first proper Roller-Delayed blowback design. This eventually led (postwar) to the CETME, and the H&K buying the license for the design and the rest is history.
The SKS-45 might not have had the longest service life with the army it was designed for, but comparing it to that G41 (W) in the video is day and night. The SKS is just so much simpler and it just works!
Up till about a year ago I owned sn# 7,00X. By then the "Push Botton" had been deleted, but it still had the "G.41(W)" markings. Every little part was sn#ed matching like your example, but mine had a sn# on the handguard. Back outer left edge of the black handguard - if I remember correctly. It also has scope rails. The only issue with it was a sanded stock that lost the sn# on it.
@@browngreen933 - I bought for $4700 and sold for something like $5500. Its hard finding people with large amounts of money laying around for such a purchase. The sanded stock hurt the value too. I'm sure it would have been $8000 with an unsanded stock.
If you look on the right forums you can find detailed pics of that rifle I took. It is also pictured in a book titled something like "Italian Partisians and their Weapons" and was used as a model for the "Sralingrad" video game.
I keep watching these videos thinking that they are 7 years old and like now this one just came out 😂 Sorry Ian one would think there can't possibly be that much firearm history! Yet every vid is new and intriguing, well done!
Well, starting from the very first crude hand cannon, people have been making guns for over a thousand years. Ian will never run out of unique and interesting things to talk about... 😋
I was just researching that. It took me a while to understand how the Grossfuss Sturmgewehr works. But it makes sense. 1. A recess for a gas piston is drilled in the barrel. In front of the chamber. 2. When the gun fires, the piston shoots up and catches the bolt. 3. This basically delays the opening of the action.
I miss the days where you could post the link to the auction house so we could take a look at the estimated value. I am curious for this one. Edit; currently sitting at 6.5K, estimated at 12 to 15.
that seems like a very conservative estimate to me. With it being a matching trials gun + the general upcharge anything nazi brings I would guess more like 40-50k but I'm no auction appraiser so what do I know
@@Jehty_ UA-cam anti gun policies. They can't link to any sites selling guns (including auction houses), nor are they allowed to give away guns trough youtube.
I remember when Klein's in Chicago had G 43s for sale and would ship them to your house. Along with just about any other surplus rifle you could imagine including M1 carbines and M1 Garands. Now they want fingerprints to buy ammo. Hopefully Bruen will change all that.
Is there a timeline anywhere of when various small arms came into “common use” throughout WWII? I’m interested if historically we see movement towards sub machine guns and semi autos as the war progresses (due to lessons learned in modern urban warfare) or if these were recognized early on but limited due to supply chain / manufacturing / cost.
SMGs certainly became much more prevalent as the war went on. But they were cheap and quick to make in huge numbers (Sten, PPS43, Grease Gun etc) whereas rifles were more technically challenging and expensive. Retooling to produce a brand new rifle design amidst total war was not seen as a good idea by eg. the UK, when the existing arms were deemed good enough and more pressing projects were underway.
Rifles and sub guns are both useful but in different circumstances. So it could also depend on whether fight shifts between open and urban environments.
I think so. Once a war starts, it's difficult to get something into full production. Unless it's something super easy like the STEN. I mean, the MP36 was developed before the war. Which would eventually develop into the MP-40. But with the rifles, there was already a lot of Stripper Clips in production. And I don't think they realized the full potential of Autoloading rifles. Until they started seeing the effects of the Sturmgewehr. When it was fielded a few years later.
@@rdrrr Because usually, rifles need a locked breech. Unless you have a bolt that's heavy enough. Or a delayed blowback system. In the case of the VG1-5, the bolt was heavy enough for the cartridge. I believe German engineers at the time said it needed to be 3.3 lbs.
It is strange that the German military still in 1941 was very much against conventional gas operated firearms with a gas port drilled in the barrel. By this time Germany had used the excellent conventionally gas operated Czech ZB-26 light machine guns without any problems and must've had at least some knowledge about the Lewis gun- a very successful weapon in WW1 which also had a gas port drilled in the barrel.
It wasn't just the Germans. The M1 Garand, as adopted in 1936, was a gas trap system. Incidentally, that's why the Garand has that long funky op rod. Fortunately someone realized how stupid they were and the design was adapted to use a gas port, which wound up being relatively simple (necessitating a redesign of the end of the op rod and the incorporation of a gas system near the muzzle) Very few of the original config exist because they were all converted.
@@ironhead2008 The American case is even more strange since the US military had the M1918 BAR with drilled gas port in service at the same time when the M1 Garand was adopted and was kept in service as long as the Garand. And even before the BAR the US military had used several weapons with drilled gas ports: the Colt Browning M1895, the Hotchkiss M1909 Benet-Mercie and the Hotchkiss M1914.
@@hendriktonisson2915 Keep in mind the US military has always had an obsession with individual marksmanship. I'll wager it was an attitude of "There's no way drilling a hole for as gas system doesn't screw with long term accuracy!!!" from the brass (likely ignoring data saying it doesn't really matter) and so they initially wouldn't approve a more standard gas system (remember the Pedersen was delayed blowback). I'll wager that same brass figured gas ports were fine for MGs because they didn't expect that kind of marksmanship out of them. I need to dig up Ian's video on the first gas trap Garands because I'm curious as to whether it was wiser heads prevailing or someone bringing up the issue of cleaning that led to the change to the long stroke gas system we know and love being adopted.
It never ceases to amaze me the proliferation of ideas the Germans had in WWII. Seriously, how many designs were there we don't even know about? Awesome work as always Ian, keep up the good stuff!
Between the intel services ransacking all the German factories at the end of the war and the current collector interest, I am pretty confident we have a really good understanding of the German small arms programs. Probably a lot more unknown stuff from the Allied side.
I swear the allies missed destroying the german tool stamp factories, they couldn't possibly produce anything without having a serial number on nearly every part
That weird gas trap cone at the front seriously makes this look like a Star Wars gun. I was not familiar with the Bang system before this video so I had no idea what I was looking at lol
And curiously the Vollmer M35 is completely different from both rifles, also, I don't get it why Walther choose the flapper locks instead of their own proprietary tilting bolt that the Czechs adopted years later, they went as far as using the same impingement system from the G41 but as a gas port instead of a gas trap.
The Garand was adopted in 1936 and Germany must have known about it before that. I'm a bit surprised that they didn't get an earlier start on their own.
Quite opposite. The Germans developed their first assault rifle concept in 1938. But like the Russian Empire, and then the Soviet Union, they faced a dilemma: either few new rifles ("Fedorov Avtomat") or many old ones. Only if Russia had a lack of production capacity, then Germany had a lack of raw materials. You see, as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, most of Germany's weapons were destroyed. Of course, they hid a hundred or two thousand rifles, but this would not solve the problem of arming even the Reichswehr, not to mention the Wehrmacht. Therefore, they relied on the production of machine guns and old German carbines.
There’s a bit of a glitch in your timeline Ian. You said trials began in the spring of 1941, but Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, didn’t begin until the summer . If that’s the case, soldier reports of encountering the Soviet semi automatic rifles could not have spurred German development their own. It might have sped up development, formal adoption and manufacturer of the G 41 rifle, but your time line suggests that the German Army was developing a semi automatic rifle before the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Important point. One can mull over, however, on the possibility of Germans having been made aware of Tokarevs during Polish campaign or by via Finns after Winter war. I don't know whether automatic Tokarevs were in use already in those campaigns bit it's a possibility. You are correct, however, that the initial spurring for G .41 cannot have been reports from Barbarossa.
@@JohnSmith-yv6eq The Tokarev was first adopted by the USSR in 1938. I doubt that production was sufficient to equip a significant number of units with it until later. It’s possible that the Germans knew about it before the invasion, less likely that they could appreciate how effective it would be.
@@stalhandske9649 Nope. SVT has a full surprise for them. Two points: practical and ideological. Practical: Soviet counterintelligence was very effective and the Wehrmacht was not aware of such novelties as the T-34 or KV-1, even despite the prototypes captured by the Finns. Because there is a huge gap between test samples and full size production of conveyor lines. Ideological: the Slavs are "subhuman" according to the Nazi ideology of "the superiority of the Aryan race", so the Soviet industry could at best copy, but not develop independently. Officially, the Wehrmacht, and I'm not talking about the SS and other Nazi structures, but about the Army, stopped treat the Red Army as an "army of subhumans" in 1943. Too late by then, in my opinion.
@@JohnSmith-yv6eq When I studied trading, and It was trade not allied, agreements between Nazi Germany and the USSR that I never came across a mention of the Germans purchasing samples of Soviet technology. Neither. One. Time. All they were interested in was raw materials for the war industry and providing food for the population during the war. From the side of the USSR, the picture is completely opposite: the Soviet side was interested in technology and only technology, as well as complex and expensive industrial equipment and even warships. I think such a picture only strengthened the opinion of the German side in its superiority. Almost made them hold their nose too high.
Most technologically advanced, maybe, but best? I'd say the Selbstladegewehr 259(r) or the Selbstladegewehr 251(a) were better. The Germans basically were handed serviceable captured autoloaders and asked to copy them. They came back with, "Nah, fam, we're going to (re) invent the proper German wheel on this one." It'd be like if the British had said, "This Czech ZB thingy is okay, but we think Vickers can make a better one from scratch..."
"Walther Cheated?" So, did Harley-Davidson! The US army asked for a 500 ss Motorcycle, and Indian met that Requirement! Harley-Davidson Supplied a 750 cc Bike!
Something odd in the timeline. Germary invaded the URSS in june 1941. They had already 40 or so for testing. When the troops had previous contact with tvs-40?
When the Germans were "friends" with the URSS...(Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) they would have shared MOST of their technology advances... you know, as friends do?
@@Matt-xc6sp if every WW2 Veterans are still alive and in their age of 40s they would be beating down the wannabe Nazis or just shoot them with no mercy if they keep waving those Neo Nazi flags Like imagine seeing your young fellow countrymen embracing the worst thing the Veterans fought They would definitely snap
Wish so badly people still played Ro2. No idea why not; it's not like the game is expensive or hard to run. Rs2 is cool and all but Vietnam just isn't the same as the eastern and pacific fronts. Just some Russians and Chinese playing now.
A very interesting trial "Push-Button" 41 (W) but was not easy for handle and to maintain because it was complicated to maintain and was expensive even more than twice to manufacture compared to the ubiquitous Karabiner 98 Kurz...
The bolt release looks awkwardly placed to me. I normally load top-fed rifles with my right hand; and would reach over the receiver to reach the release. When the bolt flew forward the handle would likely catch my arm: "Walther Wrist"
I feel like addressing that whilst its true for the US that there was an abundance of semi automatic garands, for the russians the germans took every svt 40 they could they usually only handed them out to good marksmen since the russians didnt have many either so there wasnt an abundance of svt 40s that just landed in wehrmacht arsenals.
there are scopes made for the post trial rifle, I have seen a few mounted in pictures, looked like a glimpse into the future, ala a modern AR-15 system.
I work for an engineering company. One of our customers, a high-ranking general, once asked "How dare you just do everything I ask? You're supposed to be the expert!"
Ian, i don't know if you forgot to blurr the "symbol" in the thumbnail like you have in previous thumbnails or if you weren't going to bother, just thought I'd point it out
As I understand it the Germans where convinced that any gas port drilled in the barrel was going to greatly reduce barrel life etc. so they wouldn't consider many designs using them.
I just bought a set of decals for the vertical stabilisers of German WW2 aircraft that aren't with the kits, for historical accuracy. I don't think I'm doing something wrong.
Did I see correctly, that the handle at the end (safety or whatever it is) was more protruding to the side on the trials gun than the production gun? That they made the piece smaller and less protrusive out the side to maybe avoid it catching on webbing and stuff?
"Walther won because they ignored some or the requirements" Honestly as someone who studied the German War Machine in WW2 for years that's very much the hyped "German Wunderwaffenschmiede" for you. A politically bloated apparatus, that had clear wants from the Troops like copy the SVD40 and what do they do? Add an eplethera of idiotic things to the list of requirements. Kinda like the Porsche Tiger, the German AM radios etc. Yes it's nice to want the best equipment but complicated production, overengeneering and shere lack of technological advancement in factories made the problems even more severe.
So true. But it seem that it got only a bit better since then. I recommend Perun's video on the topic. Over ten years of "trials" for a new helment for paratroopers that was already in use in the US-Army. It's nearly unbelieveable. ua-cam.com/video/8jDUVtUA7rg/v-deo.html
It’s also weird in that the German armaments manufacturers were independent businesses, vying for contracts, and not actually controlled by the state. You get the impression that the Nazi state was this single, giant entity. In reality it was a group of corporations vying for government contracts, not dissimilar to the Allies.
@@andrewallason4530 Albert Speer, the Reich minster of Armaments and War Production, fashioned this kind of commission where different branches of Military and representatives of related industry were represented, being a bit of an _ad hoc_ tool for relaying wishes of Military to industry and reversely informing Military of the realities of industry. He recalled in his memoirs that peculiarly in WW2, a socialist country like Germany (his words) needed to employ more capitalistic methods in production than before and conversely capitalistic countries had to resort to more socialistic approaches than in peacetime.
I always remember how the Luftwaffe specified that their four-engined heavy bomber should also be able to dive-bomb. So Heinkel had to combine the engines into pods, which overheated, and it never worked properly.
@@davidcox3076 I can't see a Nazi era gun being sent back to the arsenal, and if it was captured, then THAT is a hell of a story, that gun was collected by somebody's great grandpa who smashed their way into the factory and took anything that wasn't bolted down and looked interesting. But even then, why would this be laying around? This is a VERY interesting and unique gun, it's a shame we don't know more about it.
Germany invading the Soviet Union on History Channel: *blitzkrieg-ing the land using Panzers and subguns* Germany invading the Soviet Union in reality: *mostly horses and Mauser bolt actions when the rest of the world at least had a semi auto in testing*
Actually, German troops found the SVTs unreliable and traded them to rear line troops. The Soviets tested the SVT against the G41(W) and found the German rifle more reliable.
How could the german army react to soldiers using soviet guns and not domestic production ones, resulting in "spring 1941" prototypes of Mauser and Walther, when Barbarossa started only in 22nd June of that year? Seems more like the german army recognized the need for such a rifle before invading the soviet union.
The common narrative is that the Wehrmacht was that superior high tech army, fighting a bunch of raggedy, underequipped Red Army war slaves, throwing sticks at them, but in reality it was almost the other way around. When you read war time accounts and memoirs from German soldiers talking about the Eastern Front, they all talk about how impressed and jealous they were of Soviet equipment, from day 1 of the invasion. They marveled at all those fancy American trucks and the canned food from Canada and all the other stuff the Red Army had, while they were transporting their supplies with horse drawn wagons and were pulling their larger guns with tractors they had looted from French farmers. One such book I read talked a lot about how frustrating it was to have all those American trucks the Russians left behind and not being able to do anything with them, because there was no diesel fuel. (The Wehrmacht reserved all the diesel for the Navy and the Army had to use petrol engines, even on their tanks.)
They did end up using diesel in one of their later armored scout cars. I remember seeing a Tank Museum video about one which also addressed the fuel issue and they couldn't find anything in the reports about diesel shortages for them. Then again those reports were from the western front and the things were far less numerous.
@@rdrrr It was mostly the Soviet Union, which wanted to make their victory more heroic and have an excuse for how they got routed during the first half of the war. There is no reason for why anyone would just adopt the losing side's propaganda for no good reason, especially not in "the West".
@@rdrrr Sure, the problem with that is just that they did the opposite, because they wanted the people to worry about the enemy, so they could get more funding. You never heard of "The Bomber Gap"? Really, the Soviets were the only ones who profited from the "poor peasants stopping the mighty Nazi war machine just through sacrifice and perseverance and with no help"-narrative.
I own a Walther G41 and love it. The G41 is my favorite firearm. It’s difficult to convey why. The DUV ‘43 one I own is a bring-back from Normandy. I love it very much and shoot it about once a year. I’ve never had any fouling failures with the gas trap/port. I haven’t ran it super hard, but hard enough to to make an assessment. I’ve shot historical 2-Gun (dressed in WW2 Wehrmacht gear using only their equipment) and it’s a lot of fun. I use the same smock Karl has (Wehrmacht Sümpfmuster 43/44. Commonly known as water-tan or marsh). The G41 is seen as “rare” but there were far more than people would probably imagine. There were a bunch in Normandy. Pioneer, Grenadier and assault Kampfgruppe’s utilized them a lot. Kampfgruppe Von Luck, for example, had a bunch in Normandy. Here’s some examples of those in Normandy equipped with them: imgur.io/a/3B4zGrn
"No moving parts outside the gun but it has to have a bolt action as a backup." That sounds like the high-ups probably threw a drunken party and every one could write one thing they wanted on a sheet of paper which they threw in a bin and at some point they drew a couple of sheets and concluded those are the requirements for the rifle.
You forgot to mention why this first itteration of a German semi auto rifle was so clunky. The German high command prohibited the use of a regular gas tap through a small hole in the barrel so they had to design a method of getting enough gas pressure from the end of the barrel and guide that back all the way to the receiver. This is what made this rifle so clunky and also made it prone to being unreliable after extended use.
“Walther won because they realized what the army was asking for was stupid.” Love Ian’s editorials.
That is how the Jeep came to be. The Army put out a specification that everyone else tried to meet. Bantam, which was almost bankrupt and making one last attempt to stay in business, built the vehicle that they thought the Army really needed. The rest is history.
One of the few instances where "No, what you think you want is stupid. I KNOW what you really need/want" Actually worked.
Though it does seem to happen more frequently with military equipment, like Pithicus said with the Jeep, when North American said "How about instead of a liscened P-40 with a Merlin, we make something ourselves with that Engine". And kinda the XM-16, when Colt and the USAF got Springfield Armory to finally try it, instead of propping up the M-14 and just sabotaging the AR-15 (Which they still ended up doing anyways with the powder swap and lack of cleaning kits they didn't tell the designers about. Though the 1 magazine = droopy and drifting pencil barrels actually were the guns fault from immature tech and metallurgy knowledge).
That's a thing. I don't work in gunsmithing, but the best piece of advice I ever got from a senior coworker was "Stop doing what the boss tells you, and just do what you know needs to be done!"
Henry Ford: If I listened to my customers, I'd've invented a faster horse.
EDIT: You should listen to your customers, but don't slavishly build to their demands.
There is also the case where the customer does not necessarily mean what he said. When the US air force looked for a new fighter to replace the F15, they emphasized speed and stealth, not improvement in maneuverability. Two planes were down selected: YF22 and YF23. The YF23 was clearly better in terms of stealth and speed. The YF22 was more conventional but would have been more maneuverable. In the end YF22 won. Most believed Lockheed talked to people in private and figure out the top brass were always conservative and more conventional design was really what they wanted.
The Army. "Give us all these impossible features for our new rifle."
Walther. "Fuck off, you get this, and you'll like it."
The Army. "Ok."
Followed by
Walther: "say my name"
The Luftwaffe: "Give us all these impossible features for our new rifle/machine gun hybrid."
Rheinmetall: "Done."
The Luftwaffe: "Wait, what?"
@@SnoopReddogg
Waltuh!
@@asteroidrules Bunch of show-offs lol. God I want to shoot one of the select-fire originals.
It’s interesting that the army asked for a bolt action function in case it stopped working, rather than a semi automatic rifle that worked.
That’s because Germans over engineer things. Redundancies can be useful, but they chose an elegant approach when the simple “push more gas through gun” would’ve worked decent enough
Armies were generally pretty conservative, even hidebound, when it comes to small arms. An argument used against issuing repeating or semi-auto weapons was "if we give the troops a weapon that can fire X rounds in rapid succession, then the troops will use it." That or something like that was said in response to the US Cav looking at a revolver.
Then there were the Brits with the SMLE. They built a rifle with a detachable 10 round box mag but the doctrine was still to single load using the magazine cutoff and only use the magazine if things got desperate. Reloading was with 5 round stripper clips because squaddies were supposed to keep their one extra box mag in reserve in case things got REALLY desperate.
The early FJ-42s had a pistol grip that was nearly the same angle as the K-98s.
"It's what the last rifle had so the new rifle has to have it too"
That sound when the bolt closes at 5:40, that's music to my ears...
KTSHIK
It really is a satisfying sound.
The opening sound is pretty sweet too. There's gotta be some deliberate effort on Ian's part to make sure all these mechanical sounds are captured so nicely and it is very much appreciated.
For real.. it sounds like a b&t.. Soo smooth
That bolt release is such a cool feature for the time. I completely understand why it was removed for it's complexity bit it seems to foreshadow the bolt release placement on the AR platform.
Good ideas appear and then disappear when the technology isn't right. So many things "were invented 100 years ago" but you've got to have that intersection of ideas and social/technological situations.
The 1911 technically has a similar feature in the slide release, the bolt is just part of the slide.
So I don't know about foreshadow, but placing the control which finishes the reloading process physically near to where the reloading is done seems like a simple engineering choice
The AR platform has a more clunky non-reciprocating charging handle, definitely has more merit with the AR. And then again the AK platform (unless they changed something in newer revisions) has no hold open at all.
@@Guillotines_For_Globalists I think you meant to say charging handle, not bolt ..
@@beargillium2369 Fixed! I meant to type "bolt handle" but my brain was elsewhere.
I can only feverishly imagine the hammer price that this thing will command.
I got an easy one for you. Over or under 100k?
@@rogainegaming6924 Under
Psh hammers are like 15$ try again sweety 💅🏻
@@hgill257 $2.99 for a stubby hammer at Harbor Freight!
@@rogainegaming6924 over
"The Germans were big fans of serial numbers on every part" Bet the Marines wished the Reising had done that. LOL
If I were the guys who made the Reising, I'd want to hide the proof marks with the name on it and wear a disguise! That gun was a disgrace to American ordnance, let's face it
I’ve never heard an svt referred to as simply
“Tokarev”. But it totally works
Same here. I used to associate Tokarevs with the handgun but I immediately realized he was referring to SVTs from the context.
I used to refer to Simonov and Kalashnikov, but SKS and AK are terms far more readily understood. Ian uses proper gun-nerd terminology for us.
"No moving parts on the outside of the gun" Even a matchlock has a moving part on the outside.
A trigger is a moving part on the outside of a gun.
Even the simplest gun, a slamfire shotgun has one external moving part, the barrel.
it should have fired by the pure will of the aryan soldier holding it and hitlers orders! :DDD
Maybe they just want a non reciprocating charging handle like the one on the AR-15
Ian... PLEASE bring back your auction sale summaries!
Miss your old videos where you gave a de-briefing on how much each gun sold for.
Morphy's and RIA both post the hammer prices on their websites.
I recall him saying he wasn't going to do that anymore. To get it something to do with UA-cam's policies being what they are.
Unfortunately he’s not allowed to do it due to UA-cam’s policies :( those videos were great
UA-cam doesn't allow talk of price. It's bullshit.
@@ducksrgud -- Weak.
You underestimate the joy, punching numbers in metal gives...
Clearly the Germans see it your way.
I wonder how many Gewehr thumbs developers got during the testing prosess before they add the button?
nein
@@dayeeoliver I too hate humor
@@dayeeoliver You must be fun at parties.
@@dayeeoliver 독일인이 재미없는 이유는?
유머인들을 전부 죽여서
@@dayeeoliver Nine? It's a joke, dufus.
Imagine if they found out about Roller-Delayed blowback.
And made their equivalent to the HK-SL7 in 1941.
The MG 42 had a roller block assembly but no delay ,some of them were in the field by 1941. Hitler's buzzsaw. 1400 rpm
America wouldn't have been able to overrun them so easily..
If the Germans had developed and perfected roller-delayed blowback earlier before or during the war, perhaps they could have fixed their problematic Gewehr 41 / G41(W) before adopting the Gewehr 43 / G43 and Sturmgewehr 44 / StG-44 later on.
@@christopherwang4392 Well, the development of a "Simpler" STG44 eventually led to the STG45(M) - the first proper Roller-Delayed blowback design. This eventually led (postwar) to the CETME, and the H&K buying the license for the design and the rest is history.
Gewehr 44 Mauser/Gerat 07
Am I a joke to you?
The SKS-45 might not have had the longest service life with the army it was designed for, but comparing it to that G41 (W) in the video is day and night. The SKS is just so much simpler and it just works!
Someone I know owns a W and an M model and despite their quirkiness and cumbersome weight they are a joy to shoot.
Up till about a year ago I owned sn# 7,00X. By then the "Push Botton" had been deleted, but it still had the "G.41(W)" markings. Every little part was sn#ed matching like your example, but mine had a sn# on the handguard. Back outer left edge of the black handguard - if I remember correctly. It also has scope rails. The only issue with it was a sanded stock that lost the sn# on it.
@@browngreen933 - I bought for $4700 and sold for something like $5500. Its hard finding people with large amounts of money laying around for such a purchase. The sanded stock hurt the value too. I'm sure it would have been $8000 with an unsanded stock.
If you look on the right forums you can find detailed pics of that rifle I took. It is also pictured in a book titled something like "Italian Partisians and their Weapons" and was used as a model for the "Sralingrad" video game.
I keep watching these videos thinking that they are 7 years old and like now this one just came out 😂 Sorry Ian one would think there can't possibly be that much firearm history! Yet every vid is new and intriguing, well done!
Well, starting from the very first crude hand cannon, people have been making guns for over a thousand years. Ian will never run out of unique and interesting things to talk about... 😋
Interesting that the subcontractor for the butt-plate (bpr), is Johannes Grossfuss, Döbeln, who also produced the Grossfuss Sturmgewehr.
I was just researching that.
It took me a while to understand how the Grossfuss Sturmgewehr works. But it makes sense.
1. A recess for a gas piston is drilled in the barrel. In front of the chamber.
2. When the gun fires, the piston shoots up and catches the bolt.
3. This basically delays the opening of the action.
I miss the days where you could post the link to the auction house so we could take a look at the estimated value.
I am curious for this one.
Edit; currently sitting at 6.5K, estimated at 12 to 15.
that seems like a very conservative estimate to me. With it being a matching trials gun + the general upcharge anything nazi brings I would guess more like 40-50k but I'm no auction appraiser so what do I know
Miss the final sales videos.
Wait, why can't Ian post links?
Why can't he post the links anymore?
@@Jehty_ UA-cam anti gun policies. They can't link to any sites selling guns (including auction houses), nor are they allowed to give away guns trough youtube.
I remember when Klein's in Chicago had G 43s for sale and would ship them to your house. Along with just about any other surplus rifle you could imagine including M1 carbines and M1 Garands. Now they want fingerprints to buy ammo. Hopefully Bruen will change all that.
Is there a timeline anywhere of when various small arms came into “common use” throughout WWII? I’m interested if historically we see movement towards sub machine guns and semi autos as the war progresses (due to lessons learned in modern urban warfare) or if these were recognized early on but limited due to supply chain / manufacturing / cost.
SMGs certainly became much more prevalent as the war went on. But they were cheap and quick to make in huge numbers (Sten, PPS43, Grease Gun etc) whereas rifles were more technically challenging and expensive. Retooling to produce a brand new rifle design amidst total war was not seen as a good idea by eg. the UK, when the existing arms were deemed good enough and more pressing projects were underway.
Rifles and sub guns are both useful but in different circumstances. So it could also depend on whether fight shifts between open and urban environments.
I think so. Once a war starts, it's difficult to get something into full production. Unless it's something super easy like the STEN.
I mean, the MP36 was developed before the war. Which would eventually develop into the MP-40.
But with the rifles, there was already a lot of Stripper Clips in production.
And I don't think they realized the full potential of Autoloading rifles. Until they started seeing the effects of the Sturmgewehr. When it was fielded a few years later.
@@rdrrr Because usually, rifles need a locked breech. Unless you have a bolt that's heavy enough.
Or a delayed blowback system.
In the case of the VG1-5, the bolt was heavy enough for the cartridge. I believe German engineers at the time said it needed to be 3.3 lbs.
@@rdrrr 12.3 lbs.
_and_ the stock isn't lacquered! What a find!
Oh man, that thing must be worth some serious Reichsmarks! What a cool piece of history.
Fantastic, first to see! Always so, so interesting to see experimental or trial weapons like this!
It is strange that the German military still in 1941 was very much against conventional gas operated firearms with a gas port drilled in the barrel. By this time Germany had used the excellent conventionally gas operated Czech ZB-26 light machine guns without any problems and must've had at least some knowledge about the Lewis gun- a very successful weapon in WW1 which also had a gas port drilled in the barrel.
It wasn't just the Germans. The M1 Garand, as adopted in 1936, was a gas trap system. Incidentally, that's why the Garand has that long funky op rod. Fortunately someone realized how stupid they were and the design was adapted to use a gas port, which wound up being relatively simple (necessitating a redesign of the end of the op rod and the incorporation of a gas system near the muzzle) Very few of the original config exist because they were all converted.
@@ironhead2008 The American case is even more strange since the US military had the M1918 BAR with drilled gas port in service at the same time when the M1 Garand was adopted and was kept in service as long as the Garand. And even before the BAR the US military had used several weapons with drilled gas ports: the Colt Browning M1895, the Hotchkiss M1909 Benet-Mercie and the Hotchkiss M1914.
@@hendriktonisson2915 Keep in mind the US military has always had an obsession with individual marksmanship. I'll wager it was an attitude of "There's no way drilling a hole for as gas system doesn't screw with long term accuracy!!!" from the brass (likely ignoring data saying it doesn't really matter) and so they initially wouldn't approve a more standard gas system (remember the Pedersen was delayed blowback). I'll wager that same brass figured gas ports were fine for MGs because they didn't expect that kind of marksmanship out of them. I need to dig up Ian's video on the first gas trap Garands because I'm curious as to whether it was wiser heads prevailing or someone bringing up the issue of cleaning that led to the change to the long stroke gas system we know and love being adopted.
A lot of people at the time thought that drilling a hole in the barrel would affect accuracy.
That's why the Germans went with the Bang System first.
It never ceases to amaze me the proliferation of ideas the Germans had in WWII. Seriously, how many designs were there we don't even know about?
Awesome work as always Ian, keep up the good stuff!
Between the intel services ransacking all the German factories at the end of the war and the current collector interest, I am pretty confident we have a really good understanding of the German small arms programs. Probably a lot more unknown stuff from the Allied side.
@@ForgottenWeapons good point, I never thought of it that way. Thanks again!
I swear the allies missed destroying the german tool stamp factories, they couldn't possibly produce anything without having a serial number on nearly every part
you can see where the SKS got its loading procedure from, fixed box, stripper clip loading, but a simpler tipping bolt design.
Thanks again Ian for another super rare gun for our entertainment.
That weird gas trap cone at the front seriously makes this look like a Star Wars gun. I was not familiar with the Bang system before this video so I had no idea what I was looking at lol
huh huh huh "Bang system"
...c'mon, it's funny.
Bang system? Now I've gotta look this up lol
That was a real treat and next to a later production model with the German logo and all
And curiously the Vollmer M35 is completely different from both rifles, also, I don't get it why Walther choose the flapper locks instead of their own proprietary tilting bolt that the Czechs adopted years later, they went as far as using the same impingement system from the G41 but as a gas port instead of a gas trap.
Ian has looked identical for like a decade now. I expect and honestly hope this man is a vampire
If Reising would have been as serial number happy their sub-machine guns would have a much better reputation.
The Garand was adopted in 1936 and Germany must have known about it before that. I'm a bit surprised that they didn't get an earlier start on their own.
Probably thought Americans would sit out the war again
Quite opposite. The Germans developed their first assault rifle concept in 1938. But like the Russian Empire, and then the Soviet Union, they faced a dilemma: either few new rifles ("Fedorov Avtomat") or many old ones. Only if Russia had a lack of production capacity, then Germany had a lack of raw materials. You see, as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, most of Germany's weapons were destroyed. Of course, they hid a hundred or two thousand rifles, but this would not solve the problem of arming even the Reichswehr, not to mention the Wehrmacht. Therefore, they relied on the production of machine guns and old German carbines.
Most of the gun: Carl Walther, Zella-Mehlis, Thuringia.
4:58 Buttplate: "bpr" Johannes Grossfuss, Metall- u. Lackierwarenfabrik, Doebeln, Saxony.
Thumbnail with hooked cross. You are a man of courage I see 😂
There’s a bit of a glitch in your timeline Ian. You said trials began in the spring of 1941, but Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, didn’t begin until the summer . If that’s the case, soldier reports of encountering the Soviet semi automatic rifles could not have spurred German development their own. It might have sped up development, formal adoption and manufacturer of the G 41 rifle, but your time line suggests that the German Army was developing a semi automatic rifle before the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Important point. One can mull over, however, on the possibility of Germans having been made aware of Tokarevs during Polish campaign or by via Finns after Winter war. I don't know whether automatic Tokarevs were in use already in those campaigns bit it's a possibility. You are correct, however, that the initial spurring for G .41 cannot have been reports from Barbarossa.
Until Germany invaded they had a Pact with URSS....so as friends they wold have shared knowledge re most technologies????
@@JohnSmith-yv6eq The Tokarev was first adopted by the USSR in 1938. I doubt that production was sufficient to equip a significant number of units with it until later. It’s possible that the Germans knew about it before the invasion, less likely that they could appreciate how effective it would be.
@@stalhandske9649 Nope. SVT has a full surprise for them. Two points: practical and ideological. Practical: Soviet counterintelligence was very effective and the Wehrmacht was not aware of such novelties as the T-34 or KV-1, even despite the prototypes captured by the Finns. Because there is a huge gap between test samples and full size production of conveyor lines. Ideological: the Slavs are "subhuman" according to the Nazi ideology of "the superiority of the Aryan race", so the Soviet industry could at best copy, but not develop independently. Officially, the Wehrmacht, and I'm not talking about the SS and other Nazi structures, but about the Army, stopped treat the Red Army as an "army of subhumans" in 1943. Too late by then, in my opinion.
@@JohnSmith-yv6eq When I studied trading, and It was trade not allied, agreements between Nazi Germany and the USSR that I never came across a mention of the Germans purchasing samples of Soviet technology. Neither. One. Time. All they were interested in was raw materials for the war industry and providing food for the population during the war. From the side of the USSR, the picture is completely opposite: the Soviet side was interested in technology and only technology, as well as complex and expensive industrial equipment and even warships.
I think such a picture only strengthened the opinion of the German side in its superiority. Almost made them hold their nose too high.
Most technologically advanced, maybe, but best? I'd say the Selbstladegewehr 259(r) or the Selbstladegewehr 251(a) were better. The Germans basically were handed serviceable captured autoloaders and asked to copy them. They came back with, "Nah, fam, we're going to (re) invent the proper German wheel on this one." It'd be like if the British had said, "This Czech ZB thingy is okay, but we think Vickers can make a better one from scratch..."
"Walther Cheated?" So, did Harley-Davidson! The US army asked for a 500 ss Motorcycle, and Indian met that Requirement! Harley-Davidson Supplied a 750 cc Bike!
Something odd in the timeline.
Germary invaded the URSS in june 1941.
They had already 40 or so for testing. When the troops had previous contact with tvs-40?
When the Germans were "friends" with the URSS...(Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact)
they would have shared MOST of their technology advances...
you know, as friends do?
Maybe that (W) stands for WAUSER.
To be correct, Wehrmacht hadn’t invaded USSR in spring of 41 but in the end of June, if I understood Ian’ words correctly
The invasion started on June 22nd. The first day of Summer is June 21st. So I suppose you sir are correct lol
Keep bucking Ian !!!
Great vid and what a rare item
Thanks
Thank you for the video.
Scary windmill in the thumbnail, inb4 youtube throws a paddy over it
@Matt I hope you aren't implying it be banned in historical instances such as it's use for this video thumbnail.
@@Matt-xc6sp never happened except for a handful of trolls.
@@zacharyread5303 Bots have no imagination.
@@Matt-xc6sp if every WW2 Veterans are still alive and in their age of 40s they would be beating down the wannabe Nazis or just shoot them with no mercy if they keep waving those Neo Nazi flags
Like imagine seeing your young fellow countrymen embracing the worst thing the Veterans fought
They would definitely snap
It was an Indian piece symbol long before National Socialists used it as a rallying call.
People who played Red Orchestra 2 know this gun very well
Wish so badly people still played Ro2. No idea why not; it's not like the game is expensive or hard to run. Rs2 is cool and all but Vietnam just isn't the same as the eastern and pacific fronts. Just some Russians and Chinese playing now.
A very interesting trial "Push-Button" 41 (W) but was not easy for handle and to maintain because it was complicated to maintain and was expensive even more than twice to manufacture compared to the ubiquitous Karabiner 98 Kurz...
That piece is worth every penny
Wouldn't spring of 1941 imply that the invasion of the Soviet union hadn't happened yet? (Operation Barbarossa started on the 22th of June 1941)
We love you Ian
_"Bal-tehr"_
This aside, another great video Ian, thank you very much.
00:39-00:42 🎵"Whenever🔁Wherever[...]"🎵
The bolt release looks awkwardly placed to me.
I normally load top-fed rifles with my right hand; and would reach over the receiver to reach the release. When the bolt flew forward the handle would likely catch my arm:
"Walther Wrist"
I feel like addressing that whilst its true for the US that there was an abundance of semi automatic garands, for the russians the germans took every svt 40 they could they usually only handed them out to good marksmen since the russians didnt have many either so there wasnt an abundance of svt 40s that just landed in wehrmacht arsenals.
0:48
Wehrmacht: Not true! We had an SLR based upon the Bang mechanical system.... and it was as idiotic as it sounded. Gonna go lie down now......
there are scopes made for the post trial rifle, I have seen a few mounted in pictures, looked like a glimpse into the future, ala a modern AR-15 system.
I work for an engineering company. One of our customers, a high-ranking general, once asked "How dare you just do everything I ask? You're supposed to be the expert!"
Thank you!!!
I can see the bolt release button being pressed accidentialy while reloading.
blimey, here before the notification!!
Ian, i don't know if you forgot to blurr the "symbol" in the thumbnail like you have in previous thumbnails or if you weren't going to bother, just thought I'd point it out
that little-almost freudian slip in the start of the video about a "soviet auto rifle" ... ELBONIA NEEDS THIS
Kind of surprised they didn't end up changing the gas-trap design to impingement like what happened with the Garand, but I guess it works.
As I understand it the Germans where convinced that any gas port drilled in the barrel was going to greatly reduce barrel life etc. so they wouldn't consider many designs using them.
oh hell yeah
so I guess no range video tomorrow then.
I just bought a set of decals for the vertical stabilisers of German WW2 aircraft that aren't with the kits, for historical accuracy. I don't think I'm doing something wrong.
You'll be fine as long as you'll stay away from Germany.
I wanted to see if they had a tutorial on how to make a Gewehr 41 out of lego, i cant believe no one heard about this
Did I see correctly, that the handle at the end (safety or whatever it is) was more protruding to the side on the trials gun than the production gun? That they made the piece smaller and less protrusive out the side to maybe avoid it catching on webbing and stuff?
Woah, Ian used the naughty thumbnail for this one. I haven't seen that in a long time.
"Walther won because they ignored some or the requirements"
Honestly as someone who studied the German War Machine in WW2 for years that's very much the hyped "German Wunderwaffenschmiede" for you.
A politically bloated apparatus, that had clear wants from the Troops like copy the SVD40 and what do they do? Add an eplethera of idiotic things to the list of requirements. Kinda like the Porsche Tiger, the German AM radios etc. Yes it's nice to want the best equipment but complicated production, overengeneering and shere lack of technological advancement in factories made the problems even more severe.
So true. But it seem that it got only a bit better since then. I recommend Perun's video on the topic. Over ten years of "trials" for a new helment for paratroopers that was already in use in the US-Army. It's nearly unbelieveable. ua-cam.com/video/8jDUVtUA7rg/v-deo.html
It’s also weird in that the German armaments manufacturers were independent businesses, vying for contracts, and not actually controlled by the state. You get the impression that the Nazi state was this single, giant entity. In reality it was a group of corporations vying for government contracts, not dissimilar to the Allies.
@@andrewallason4530 Albert Speer, the Reich minster of Armaments and War Production, fashioned this kind of commission where different branches of Military and representatives of related industry were represented, being a bit of an _ad hoc_ tool for relaying wishes of Military to industry and reversely informing Military of the realities of industry.
He recalled in his memoirs that peculiarly in WW2, a socialist country like Germany (his words) needed to employ more capitalistic methods in production than before and conversely capitalistic countries had to resort to more socialistic approaches than in peacetime.
I always remember how the Luftwaffe specified that their four-engined heavy bomber should also be able to dive-bomb. So Heinkel had to combine the engines into pods, which overheated, and it never worked properly.
The "W" in "G41(W)" is short for WUMBO
There is one in a ww2 museum in Mason Tx
There's got to be an extremely interesting story about how that gun found its way to the US.
It might have been captured early or maybe sent back to the factory or arsenal for some reason. It likely has a very unique history.
@@davidcox3076 I can't see a Nazi era gun being sent back to the arsenal, and if it was captured, then THAT is a hell of a story, that gun was collected by somebody's great grandpa who smashed their way into the factory and took anything that wasn't bolted down and looked interesting. But even then, why would this be laying around?
This is a VERY interesting and unique gun, it's a shame we don't know more about it.
Fascinating weapon.
So Basically the Mauser G41 was basically a German Mondragon rifle?
(In it's function)
No, it really was not.
If it was, it would be way better...
@@ForgottenWeapons
I am referring to the fact that Mondragon rifle had a pull bolt action
Great video
3 videos in a row with no tear down? 🤨
Oh hey, the naughty shape makes a return.
Never underestimate the power of governments to ask for stupid stuff, never.
Germany invading the Soviet Union on History Channel: *blitzkrieg-ing the land using Panzers and subguns*
Germany invading the Soviet Union in reality: *mostly horses and Mauser bolt actions when the rest of the world at least had a semi auto in testing*
Just noticed the thumbnail now, since when has UA-cam stopped being psychotic about the forbidden windmill?
An uncensored thumbnail! Has UA-cam come to their senses?
Maybe, but I doubt it...they're probably too freaked out about Twatter in the clutches of Darth Elon to play attention to thumbnails. 😏
i see you can use the symbol for historical ref now on You-Tube that's awesome Ian
Actually, German troops found the SVTs unreliable and traded them to rear line troops. The Soviets tested the SVT against the G41(W) and found the German rifle more reliable.
Love the thumbnail very classic FW 😉
How could the german army react to soldiers using soviet guns and not domestic production ones, resulting in "spring 1941" prototypes of Mauser and Walther, when Barbarossa started only in 22nd June of that year? Seems more like the german army recognized the need for such a rifle before invading the soviet union.
gun Jesus resurrected a unicorn! Troop trial gun with all matching numbers.. that is unbelievable… so cool!!!
The common narrative is that the Wehrmacht was that superior high tech army, fighting a bunch of raggedy, underequipped Red Army war slaves, throwing sticks at them, but in reality it was almost the other way around.
When you read war time accounts and memoirs from German soldiers talking about the Eastern Front, they all talk about how impressed and jealous they were of Soviet equipment, from day 1 of the invasion. They marveled at all those fancy American trucks and the canned food from Canada and all the other stuff the Red Army had, while they were transporting their supplies with horse drawn wagons and were pulling their larger guns with tractors they had looted from French farmers.
One such book I read talked a lot about how frustrating it was to have all those American trucks the Russians left behind and not being able to do anything with them, because there was no diesel fuel. (The Wehrmacht reserved all the diesel for the Navy and the Army had to use petrol engines, even on their tanks.)
Can't mention that it was the west which built the Soviet Union 🤭 that's forgotten history!
They did end up using diesel in one of their later armored scout cars. I remember seeing a Tank Museum video about one which also addressed the fuel issue and they couldn't find anything in the reports about diesel shortages for them. Then again those reports were from the western front and the things were far less numerous.
@@rdrrr It was mostly the Soviet Union, which wanted to make their victory more heroic and have an excuse for how they got routed during the first half of the war.
There is no reason for why anyone would just adopt the losing side's propaganda for no good reason, especially not in "the West".
@@rdrrr Sure, the problem with that is just that they did the opposite, because they wanted the people to worry about the enemy, so they could get more funding.
You never heard of "The Bomber Gap"?
Really, the Soviets were the only ones who profited from the "poor peasants stopping the mighty Nazi war machine just through sacrifice and perseverance and with no help"-narrative.
Nice gun.
I own a Walther G41 and love it. The G41 is my favorite firearm. It’s difficult to convey why. The DUV ‘43 one I own is a bring-back from Normandy. I love it very much and shoot it about once a year. I’ve never had any fouling failures with the gas trap/port. I haven’t ran it super hard, but hard enough to to make an assessment. I’ve shot historical 2-Gun (dressed in WW2 Wehrmacht gear using only their equipment) and it’s a lot of fun. I use the same smock Karl has (Wehrmacht Sümpfmuster 43/44. Commonly known as water-tan or marsh). The G41 is seen as “rare” but there were far more than people would probably imagine. There were a bunch in Normandy. Pioneer, Grenadier and assault Kampfgruppe’s utilized them a lot. Kampfgruppe Von Luck, for example, had a bunch in Normandy. Here’s some examples of those in Normandy equipped with them:
imgur.io/a/3B4zGrn
"No moving parts outside the gun but it has to have a bolt action as a backup."
That sounds like the high-ups probably threw a drunken party and every one could write one thing they wanted on a sheet of paper which they threw in a bin and at some point they drew a couple of sheets and concluded those are the requirements for the rifle.
Wow an update on the operating system would have really been nice. The original "review" is from 10 years ago, 360p and much less experienced Ean :)
When people ask what you would get if you won the lottery.
They should have went with the Vollmer carbine.
Seriously, though, is there a video I missed where he explained why he's suddenly putting swastikas on thumbnails now?
I guess UA-cam is allowing it now? maybe he's testing the waters.
Waltuh, put your G41 away Waltuh
Brilliant. The bolt release button prevented Fritz from acquiring M-1 thumb and I can personally attest you really do not want that.
I have tested to resele a H&k G3 bolt on my thumb. It hurts.
Did we enjoy the video? SURE DID!
You forgot to mention why this first itteration of a German semi auto rifle was so clunky.
The German high command prohibited the use of a regular gas tap through a small hole in the barrel so they had to design a method of getting enough gas pressure from the end of the barrel and guide that back all the way to the receiver.
This is what made this rifle so clunky and also made it prone to being unreliable after extended use.