Posted on 05/29/2016 8:30:47 PM PDT by MtnClimber
I’m jealous. Hickok45 has a circa 1919 full-auto Browning BAR that has been upgraded to World War II standards. It remains one of my two favorite machine guns of all time (the other is the late 1960s-early 1970s Smith & Wesson M76 9mm submachine gun).
(Excerpt) Read more at bearingarms.com ...
Great video at link.
Awesome. Thanks.
http://www.ohioordnanceworks.com/rifles/semi-auto/oow-line/1918a3/1918a3-slr-walnut-stock Just semi-auto, but cool nonetheless.
30-06 in full auto. Imagine being on the receiving end.
Sadly, BAR operators had a life-expectancy measured in minutes in the field of combat.
“I like to miss fast when I miss.” lol
I’d love to shoot that thing! Slow fire sounds great to my ears.
Would not want to lug that beast around with 5-10 loaded magazines.
Oh, baby!
What a great little machine. I am a fan of anything Browning.
Where’s Kirby when you need him?
They tried to replace it during VN with the M-14E2 with its pistol grip stock, selector, front hand grip & compensator.
Didn’t work out, but an M-14A semi-auto with that stock is absolutely awesome! Amazing with a NM scope mount.
He took out quite a few Krauts with that BAR. Sergeant Saunders could always count on him.
The BAR was a favorite of Clyde Barrow because its bullets could go through cars, walls and small trees. Gangsters would cut down the stocks and barrels.
They also do the HCAR in .30-06 which is also cool but cheaper IIRC.
On this Memorial Day, this is a reminder of what fighting for America’s Freedom is all about.
Prayers go out to the servicemen and women and their families who sacrificed blood, sweat and tears. They are the real Americans who understand God, Honor and Country.
There was a former Freeper here whom I miss very much named ‘SneakyPete’ who was a US Army Special Forces soldier in Vietnam from 1966-1968 and wore sterile uniforms and non-standard weapons who used a Browning BAR in their SF base near Cambodia against NVA regulars on the Ho Chi Minh trail.
He had nothing but great things to say about the BAR, even with it’s non-changeable barrel and limited mag size: He said that from the bipod it could shoot arms and legs off of oncoming enemy soldiers from 800 yards out and was a sure kill weapon against anyone you aimed it at. If you could see them, you could directly engage them with the iron sights. You would certainly hit and they’d certainly go down and not come back up. Anywhere on the body and they’re done for. All he said negatively about it was that it was heavy but that made zero difference since all the BARs they had were entrenched in sandbagged fortified locations and never moved from their spot. Even the Browning .30 cal LMGs they had firing the same .30-06 round just didn’t have the ‘bingo’ dead-on accuracy as the BAR had.
The 7.62x51mm NATO light machine-guns by comparison also just seemed to have less reach and less effectiveness than the BARs past 600m, which I must agree with. Among my other duties in a USMC Weapons platoon I served as an M60 gunner for awhile and always thought of that gun as too lightweight for sustained fire and seemed to lose it’s oomph out past 600m. That .30-06 round just has a good deal more energy behind it than 7.62 NATO even if the ballistics charts for the load don’t seem to suggest much difference.
Standard training for all in 1957. We fired the BAR the Thompson, the Grease Gun, the M1 and the full auto M2 carbine model 1911 45 sparingly.
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