Shooting the Browning BAR, Full-Auto

Bearing Arms ^ | 29 May, 2016 | Bob Owens

[M1911A1]

My father was the BAR man in his squad before battlefield seniority made him a platoon sergeant.

He said it was tops for showing careless Germans who thought they were out of accurate small arms range that they were wrong.

He also said it wasn’t up to snuff against the MG42, but he once took out a MG42 team via textbook blind fire at night. He presighted the BAR on a likely spot, and set up limiting stakes. When it got dark he heard the MG team setting up where he’d guessed, and put three magazines downrange and took off, and he could hear screaming from the target. In the morning they found a shot-up MG42, a perforated helmet, a lot of blood, bandages but no bodies, the Germans had taken the injured and dead with them.

He seemed to be a little proud of that, and indicated most BAR duels with German MG teams didn’t end well for the BAR gunner unless he’d gotten “the drop” on the Germans.

Tough business. Great old weapon. I got to fire one once, it was amazing.

[LibWhacker]

Marines? I enlisted in the Army ten years later in 1967. I got to fire the M14 a lot, but no pistols and nothing automatic. I was even on KP the day everyone else got to go out and throw a grenade, grrrrrrrrr!

[ObamaMustGo2012]

My Dad was a BAR man during WWII. It took many years before he would answer my questions about his experiences with the gun, but when he finally did, his answers were impressive.

[Chainmail]

It was great to see and hear the BAR again but that video was painful to watch with all that whining about its weight. Maybe they should have handed it to a Marine to show them how it's really done! What did they think the bipod was for? Civilians are too worried about getting dirty and getting down on the ground to use the thing the way it was intended.

I carried one in ITR for a few days and it was accurate, controllable and you could actually see your bullet strikes through the peep sight while you were shooting. It didn't take long to realize how effective the BAR was and to build the muscles needed to carry it.

Wish I'd had one in Vietnam.

[elcid1970]

That 20 round BAR magazine vs a belt fed MG-42’s 1200+ rpm must have been a real handicap.

[R. Scott]

My first encounter with it was in Viet Nam with the ARVNS, the smallest man in the squad would carry it. I carried a full auto M-14.

[rlmorel]

The Omega Man, if I am not mistaken!

[elcid1970]

I have an M-14A that somebody duded up with all the M-14E2 fixin’s, which are scarce as hens’ teeth nowadays.

[Lionheartusa1]

,,,,, bump fire is also a lot of fun . I’m sure it upsets the gun control nutz when they see it .

[Lionheartusa1]

,,,,, bump fire is also a lot of fun . I’m sure it upsets the gun control nutz when they see it .

[central_va]

I fired an M-60 on full auto. It was awesome.

[mad_as_he$$]

I still run across Sneaky Pete on other forums - from time to time.

[itsahoot]

I was even on KP the day everyone else got to go out and throw a grenade, grrrrrrrrr!

We had to throw those too. Both the old pineapple and the newer round wire jobs. You had to be able to throw practice grenades far enough to qualify to throw a real one. We had people fail that, though I don't know how, I was the smallest guy in the company at 5'5 and 107 lbs and I qualified.

The platoon leader had fun with me, had me fire a grenade from an M1, from the shoulder, that caused my whole right shoulder to turn black and blue.

[itsahoot]

I forgot to answer your question. Not Marines, Army. I enlisted in the OK National Guard when I was 16. The unit was actually AA so I got to fire Quad 50s at summer camp, nearly deaf today. I was active there 2 years then went RA served 3 years got out messed around a while and joined the Navy on a lark, just to see the world.

[Tallguy]

Father-in-Law carried one in Korea. They regularly ‘lost’ the bi-pods before moving out on patrol. He complained about them getting caught in vegetation or wire (barbed?) when moving about at night. I suppose if the weapon was supported on a sandbag, the lack of the bi-pods probably didn’t much matter?

[R. Scott]

I had a standard M-14. I learned to convert it from a Navy gunners mate – all it took was a ball pen spring.

[elcid1970]

Uh...does an M-60 fire any other way?

Anyway, I’ll see your M-60 and raise you one M-249, fired from the hip, got to use out all this ammo. Awesome!

I’ve called it the “fun gun” ever since.

[BlueLancer]

For my first three years in the Army, I was part of C Company, 2/12 Cavalry, 1st Cav Div. Started off as airmobile, training as a door gunner and dismounted M-60 gunner; then we were shifted to mech infantry and I was still the M-60 gunner (at 5'6" and 135 pounds). I carried that pig for three years, before my promotion to SGT/E5.

Over in Germany, at Hohenfels, our platoon was brought on-line for a live fire exercise. There were four M-60s in the platoon, one for each squad and one in the HQ element. We were given 1000 rounds to fire off, every fifth round a tracer round.

By the end of the exercise, I was the only M-60 gunner still firing; the other weapons had jammed or had some other sort of failure, so all of their ammo was transferred to me.

I must have fired off close to 4000 rounds, in three to 10 round bursts, and swapped out the barrel once. That was the most fun that I had ever had with my clothes on ...

[MileHi]

I enjoyed conversing with pete.