All the way in and three and a half out, ...... use the headspace gauge as a bottle opener instead. Back before I was in M60A1 tanks, we had the M2HBTT .50, either in the commander's cupola or on a Chrysler gun mount on top of the turret roof. I was known for wearing a headspace and timing gage on my dogtags, and I got kidded, but I also got to be the *go-to* guy when somebody couldn't find theirs.
Then I was off to the 70th Armor, which had M60 tanks, and in HQ Company, three M60A1s- my babies. And they had the M85 .50 in the commander's cupe, which had a quick-change barrel and didn't need a HS&T gage. Haven't carried one since, 'cept for about ten days in Israel in '73. They had M2s [and .30 Brownings reworked to 7,62!] atop their old ex-German Army M48A2s.
Yeah that M85 messed me up .... different links . Whose idea was that FUBAR ? We had to seek out help on a sat phone from a EOD team in Germany to go get us some links off a gunnery range. A pallet full of 20mm cans full of german dirt and weeds and rocks showed up on a C130. We used a cement mixer we stole from Red Horse Engineers to “make a brass polisher” per se to clean the M85 links with all that free Saudi sand.
Then we made a ammo linker with a couple of 10x12 board that we made channels in with or K12 saw. Laid out the links and ammo we stripped from M2 resources, then laid another board on top, Eased the tire on the humvee on the board, click click click click..... perfect belts of M85 ammo.
We used M60A3’s with M9 engineering blades modified for clearing submunition off runways and roads ...... Our Ma Duce on the top worked fine yet when I got down to the M85 it was like WTF ?
I’m the best trained tanker in EOD .... one week of basing around Eglin AFB boonies, replaced the track ONCE.. Got issued a length of string and a wrench to adjust the tension on the track, a old Lincoln grease gun, 5 gallon can of grease and a 5 foot tall stack of manuals and enough “do not remove before use tags” to fill a king size mattress. We were in our element !!!
Pre-positioned ships, operated by the Army delivered 4 of em to my 8 man USAF EOD team on the docks in Saudi, Along with 4 M113’s .......:o) What could go wrong ...:o) We had more armor than we could drive.
USAF EOD using M60A3’s ...
US Army using Navy Ships...
Hell of a quick war....LOL !