FG42 vs M1 Garand: 2-Gun Action Match 

A Sauerkraut Eastern?

After Monte Cassino got bombed to crap, the dirt and rubble environment actually would look similar to the range...

Western spaghetti

pretend meant exactly the same

I woud like to remember that brazilian FEB was there...just saying

I was just about to make a similar comment when i saw yours. I really want to use this quote one day.

I MUST get one of those t-shirts.

They are available for sale... And yeah, the stock was a definitely whoopsie. Don't mortar-clear a rifle that doesn't have a metal buttplate!

Forgotten Weapons The only problem is I would have to get a second mortgage on my house to buy one. I saw one of them at the Bullpup Shoot this year and was blown away.

Military Arms Channel It is a really odd weapon but pretty good one. The Fallschirmjäger 42 is rare if you can find one that's not a reproduction.....

Douglas Newell That's a serious understatement - originals go for $100k plus when you can actually find them.

Same

It's a thing of beauty.

He had the sleight of hand perk to drop his reload time from 3.26 sec to 2.41 sec

Mqnlicher clips are fucking magic. They load faster than most box mags.

My son and I ran Garands in 3 gun and the reloads were fairly fast. Of course all the SO's had to come around to hear the "ping".

joseph cunningham I agree, weapons back then we're simply made for killing and they were good at it. It was made for War.

They lack in volume of fire and shooter profile but they are good for a dmr

Kyle Laughinghouse remind me how an MG42 lacks volume of fire

The M14

joseph cunningham Artillery. WWII had a shit load of artillery. Small arms don’t matter logistically speaking.

Flint lock would win, because it is more reliable than the A1

Musket steamrolls

L851A vs Nerf Strongarm... Wins the Nerf Strongarm.

hey 2 gun matches are supposed to be fair the L85 is far outclassed by the musket

Thats a fair swop.

yeah it gave me -flashbacks too

Oh, I loved the bayonet kill! A little unorthodox for a 2 gun match but it did the job! I was laughing my tail off when he ran off with the target hanging off the end of his rifle!🤣

PotatoGunsRule Notice the lower gun lift on the FG42, it takes the M1 Garand a little longer to recover.

Lol, I just kept staring at the M1 Garand

They are both beauties in their own right.

If 8mm mauser was still common id use it (fg42) for my all around instead of my 308 Winchester m100

@@1johnnygunn That was in .308 and they can be made in other calibers as they are order-made rifles. They cost 5 grand, but yeah, they're good.

@Joe Smoe yes.

And without fxxx being said once or twice in every sentence.

+AH Glasher Ah you're right man.

that's what i've thought. they have discipline to use weapons.

yo mama

MrSebfrench76 "gun crazies"? Ok libtard

That's not totally true, a lot of bolt action can be better

Depends on the size of the fixed mag and detachable mags

Well these guns did face each other in real life. Heck in Burma the English used whatever they could to arm the Burmese in ww2 including muskets!

I don't think this person has seen the M1 vs SVT-40 video

Ok, sure, all y'all... Prove me wrong. Renegade25, Karl and Ian addressed exactly that. More than once. I've only seen like 2½ of the 5 times I know of... (Nice couch, Karl...) Wraith, erm... No I haven't. I stand by my statement... Only a design defect can overcome a simple truth, one action is faster than three.

Steven Swingler Very good - we have one like that. Have a look: www.full30.com/video/f33231c7bbff5febfcc8d6d1ff6d9f44

Steven Swingler It is a high powered rifle with a 20round Magazine if im correct but it is kinda heavy even for DMR Standards and the short Barrel comprimises the velocity the 7.92x57 IS would be capable off.It was only developed because the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe did not like each other and so the Wehrmacht produced the STG44 while the FG42 was produced for the Luftwaffe paratroopers pls correct me if im wrong it was just hearsay i picked up

You R right , the FG-42 was Build for the paratroopers of the Luftwaffe (FG = FalschirmjägerGewehr/Paratroopers-Rifle) Greetings from Germany ^^

Look at the Barrel length of bolt Action rifles like the Kar98k wich had a 24 Inch Barrel. Back in WW1 era full length rifles used to have even longer Barrels. Compared to those lengths the FG42 is on the short side and cant utillize the full potential of the 8x57IS rounds. The Sturmgewehr 44 had a shorter Barrel with 420mm and intermediate cartridges and was still pretty Close in therms of muzzlevelozity.

Im gonna Quote myself now ... "pls correct me if im wrong it was just hearsay i picked up" ...My original Point was that the STG44 with its intermediate cartridge 8x33k was a much better weapon and allowed the soldiers to actually use the full Auto Feature in situations other than Close combat. With its cartridge and a low ROF of 500 rounds a Minute it was pretty controllable wich cannot be said about the FG42. Although using it as an LMG with its bipod would work its 20rnd mag is a severe Limitation. I just dont understand why the FG 42 is considered to be a good weapon

but the G43 is crap even if it would be more accurate

Wouldn't G43 vs M1 Garand be more interesting? After all, FG42 also had full auto option, it had larger magazine, and so it was far better than Garand, on the other hand G43 had 10 round mag, was semi-auto only and was even called ''German Garand'' or ''Hitler's Garand''. So we should see which Garand is better, the original, or german.

Nahhh , AVS-36 vs FG-42

@@fanta4897 There is no worse or bettet. The most important part of a gun is behind the trigger so yeah, "technically" the german garand was better till around mid 1944.

@@LocalDeepstateAgent Agreed.

Made in 1942

@@Collectorfirearms developed in 42, believe they statred production in 1943. Frankly it really wasn't ever used for the role it was designed as fallschirmjager stopped being used in a significant paratrooper role after crete, essentially became a lightweight short magazine fed lewis gun.

@@mikec8086 you got it right

@@VrilWaffen Well, I mean, you kinda just proven the "edge in firepower" point. And German infantry tactics aren't really unique to them since the British were doing the same with the Bren gun. In German infantry unit tactics, the machine gun would provide suppressive fire as the infantry would flank the enemy, which with the MG34/42 is not a probability but a certainty. And once flanked, what would the enemy have to shoot at you back? The M1 semi-automatic rifle, which, compared and opposed to your standard German infantryman's bolt-action Kar98k, you could kind of see their point. The M1 Rifle doesn't give the American squad the edge in firepower over German squads, but German squads often create small opportunities for the Americans to do. Also consider that the German squad has nine men and the entire squad-level maneuvre unit is all armed with rifles. Proper fire and maneuvre with truly superior small-arms firepower can only take place at platoon and company level where the Germans have access to three to five machine guns. My sources for this mostly come from: KStN 131n "Schützenkompanie (n.A.)" and Alex Buchner's German Infantry Handbook. But I do agree that Patton overhypes the M1 as much as he overhypes himself.

Chris D Although that could be a potential problem, if you are alone fighting against one or even more opponents that are not constantly shooting they could hear that really extraordinary "ping" sound... sooner or later you've been shot or captured...

Urban legend. How far can your opponent run in the

Nunya Bidniz Well, I now have realised that I was wrongly informed the whole time, thank you. And now to open up a new theme, as much as I like the Garand, I fell in love with the Kar98k (or sometimes called m98b) as soon as I saw it. What are your opinions on it?

The K98k is the quintessential bolt action rifle: they were still making them [Yugo M48, Madsen '49?] after WWII was well over with and the way forward had been shown to belong to semi- & full-auto weapons; it's just that good. OTOH, the sights are ridiculously outdated and the original 198gr 8x57mm load is punishing to shoot. But if you've got a K98k and ammo to feed it, you can take on the world a la' _Brown on Resolution_. ;-) Me personally, I'd rather have a m41 Swede tho': that 6.5x55 is just a sweetheart of a cartridge.

Its called the "Ping"!!!

true true, but that doesn't mean the guy next to him is out :D

***** ***** the enemies wouldn't hear it. The fighting would be too loud. (all the guns and explosions)

Depends on how close you are, but yeah, you're right. Didn't think of that.

we are all right really. there are many circumstances.

They certainly did - die Grüne Teufel where a respected bunch of troops. My grandfather actually fought against them, and he had allot of respect for them being good and professional soldiers. It is nice to chat to someone with an appreciation for history!

Colour of the Gods it was also a nice propagandic opportunity, for the germans to prove their point as defenders of Europe, as monte cassino was basically a monument of christian heritage and civilization that stood the test of time, only to be btfo'd by the same allied bombers that were wrecking germany.

mountainhobo yeah cause the germans were totally announcing their camps to the world. Notice i said "propagandic".

Ha, ha, ha. Allies won - isn't that hilarious? Ha, ha, ha.

I live in Cassino

utubeo4r And the FG42, looks pretty damn sexy as well!

There is half a mil g43 and some 200000 stg 44s if you really want to play the numbers game.

Germany was ahead in firearms design...

***** Exactly. America picked a "good enough" design that was quick and easy to mass produce and made a million of them - Germany made high quality, arguably "over engineered" stuff, and made many less of them - and was then worn down by sheer numbers. That was the plan, and it worked. General George Patton wrote in January, 1945, "In my opinion, the M1 Rifle is the greatest battle implement ever devised."

Michael Russell Well you're mostly correct in my opinion, however there are some points might not tell the whole story.You're right, the USA can win wars on logistics alone and its been shown. However That luxury has never been afforded to Germany.Germany has limited personnel, assets and rescores. Which is why you see them throughout history always going with the quality side, not the quantity.That doctrine is mostly out of necessity, not flash in my opinion.Also Prussia, from as early as the 1600's have had a fighting strategy of rapid maneuver and tactical superiority.Germany has never really had a military strategy of mass wave Attrition like Russia and the US have in recent centuries.In my opinion you're mostly correct, but Keep in mind Attrition doctrine works only sometimes.Even going back to the Greco-Persian wars, The Persia during the battle of Thermopolis, The small elite forces of Greeks inflicted such perilous casualties it almost ended the Persian campaign.So basically, in some instances Mass producing "good enough" weapons and equipment may work,In other instances it may not.I wouldn't degrade Germany however, because invention comes from necessity. cheers.

Ernie Castaneda ahead in firearms, tank, and imo airplane design, but with the bombing had trouble producing enough to fully integrate (im aware i more than likely spelled that wrong) but no joke the germans were amazing at mass production, before the bombings, they finished 2 bf109s every hour and a half and 1 anywhere between 25-45 minutes

***** Basically you failed to understand German doctrine during WWII. The Infantry's firepower came from the machine gun, which is why German machine guns were practically better in every way shape and form then the allies could produce. The squad automatic weapon was the Mg-42, Which no matter how many BAR's or Bren guns you put on the map, facing the mg-42 was terrifying to allied soldiers. Also something to note during the last century the highest killing weapon was the Machine gun. Not even the automic bomb or firebombings killed more people then machine guns. Basically Germany did their homework. And basing squad firepower from a machinegun isn't a bad idea...

oh yes, gotta love the bitchfights in the comments :D often more entertaining than the video itself...

Not sure how adversely that would have affected them. If they already knew how to use the execrable sights on a K98 and work a bolt, the M1 would have taken about 10 minutes instruction and been *so* much softer shooting that they must have considered themselves downright fortunate...

Of course the M1 is a great rifle and far more easy to handle than a k98, today we can see that very clearly, but remember the resistance of some military in adopting new tecnology or new concepts, the StG 44 for exemple was a "space age weapon" for the time and Hitler simply denied the mass production of that rifle.

Having shot both, I can say with confidence that the FG42 would run circles around a 1918 BAR...no competition there at all. A match between a G43 and M1 would come down to shooter skill, as long as the G43 didn't break. The matchups you're describing for WWII aren't quite accurate. The US issued M1s to the general infantry, because the riflemen were the basis of American small-unit firepower. The Germans used the MG42 (or MG34) as the focal point of their small units, with K98k-armed riflemen supporting it and supplying ammunition. For this reason, it isn't so simple as bolt action vs semiauto.

Forgotten Weapons Fascinating, why do you feel the FG42 would perform better than the BAR? Superior sights/optics on the FG42? It's also interesting to hear about the G43's reliability, I thought the G41 was the semi auto rifle with reliability issues. As for deployment of the MG34/42 among their units that is something I didn't take into consideration. How about American use of the M1919 among units though? It just seems that since the k98k being the most wide spread weapon of the Germans put them at a disadvantage in firepower compared to the Americans carrying a semi auto that holds an additional 3 rounds. Even really compared to the British with their 10 round SMLE's carrying 10 rounds and having a fast action.

chrisloUSA The FG is far easier to actually handle than the BAR. Have you ever tried shooting a BAR from the shoulder? It's 4 or 5 pounds heavier than the FG, and the balance on the BAR is pretty terrible for offhand use. The question of tactics used with the MG34/42 and M1919A4 is complex enough that it deserves a full blog post rather than a RU-vid comment. I'll see if I can work on that writeup...

Once again, thanks for the insight. I never even held a M1918 BAR so I was totally in the dark on how it handles in the real world. Does all that extra weight even help reduce recoil? I look forward to that blog post, may I ask what the web address is to your blog?

chrisloUSA The weight does certainly help control recoil, but that's of limited usefulness when you can't hold the gun steady on target because of its weight. :) My blog is at www.forgottenweapons.com

WarHammer1911A1 No, but I should. :)

Forgotten Weapons lol I was just about to ask if you got a handicap for being wrong handed :b

+WarHammer1911A1 And by the way, would the FG-42 be comfortable as a left handed :v ? (if usable at all)

+Gianni Carrea Well, you hold the grip with your left hand and extend your right arm. There's no chance of the mag interfering with you are. Besides, the handguard is so close to the action that you don't have to stretch your left arm when shooting right-handed or your right arm when shooting left. You kind of bend it downwards either way, so it's pretty comfortable.

+WarHammer1911A1 lol I showed my 8yr old niece that movie for the first time like 3 days ago

+The Major The first pattern guns can be; the second pattern ones cannot be.

Thanks so much for the info and the fast reply! Much appreciated!

Nice semi colon.

Get that semi colon out on a tray. Nice!

Sake Laine I get it 😁

I own an M96 and a K31. Love them both, but I'd give the edge to the K31.

I will forever regret passing up a $500 1915 dated Swedish Mauser with a high accuracy rating and in superb condition.

He said it didn't cause any issues, and he really never noticed it being there (which is a good thing).

That's probably the best compliment you can give to a feature of the weapon: That you never noticed it.

After Operation Mercury on Crete (the first all-out paratroop invasion, staged by the german paratroop-forces), you also wouldn't be happy with K98s (and MP40s, they were mainly NCO and officers weapons,.Hollywood misconception that they were widely available) being dropped in containers far off your landing zone, would you? ;) Sorry to point it out, but it wasn't due to the limitation of their capability in gunfights why they needed something else than the K98 (the standard rifle of the Wehrmacht), but due to difficulty to jump with that thing, being to heavy or cumbersome. The FG 42 was designed so they could jump with it, there was even a special 10-round magazine (instead of the normal 20) for parachuting. Interesting is, they did develop it, even though Hitler considered further mass-scale paratrooper operation uneffective, so there wasn't really a need anymore for them. Still has one hell of a look to it... especially the first version with the bakelite stock, looks more modern than any od its contemporaries, I think. Have a nice evening

Corristo89 How could you say the Garand was outdated for WW2! It was one of the weapon that defined WW2. How do you even measure if it is "out dated"? we still use bolts!

Are you serious? Going into WWII the U.S was the only nation who had a standard service rifle that was semi-auto. Other countries tried to copy it with guns like the G43 because they saw how effective it was but they couldn't match its effectiveness and reliability. And even then they couldn't do so until late in the war. The British used the Enfield as standard till the end of the war, and the Germans used the K98K up until '44 when they began replacing it with the stg. It wouldn't have been called the gun that won the war if it was outdated.

mark shuler I also remember hearing the Japanese tried to copy it with their own rip off

Corristo89 I disagree that it was outdated. It was a semi auto battle rifle when pretty much every other nation was filled mostly with bolt action rifles ( including Germany). It was the shock of how much more firepower American riflemen armed with semi automatics had over their own troops that led to other nations incorporating many more automatic weapons like MGs into their infantry. Everyone goes on about Germany incorporating so many machine guns but they never mention that their is only so many MGs that infantry could have and were ammunition hungry. MGs also consolidate most of your fire power in one spot and draw lots of attention doing it as well without being very mobile. Even today the derivative of the M1 Granad, the M14 is being used actively in the military. Granted it is used in a more DMR manner but still effectively. In addition, America had developed the M1 carbine which is also an intermediate cartridge, which was available in selective fire( initially not included due to the need to get production rolling).

After some thumb fixings. I learn it quite better😂😂😂

Nunya Bidniz You're correct, for more accurate testing they should follow that methodology.

Yep, the T44 was an FG42 with an MG42 feed system/top cover kludged onto the side in place of the magazine well. It was the first step in the development of the M60.

Didn't the T-44 lay down the test bed for what became the M60?

CrazyBlackDragon Yup.

yes, germany was so far ahead all other countries , its mindblowing. =O jikes,.. Tactics,strategy,science, equipment. allthough they missed out ( or neglected) on two VERY important things that actually wins wars,not just battles. and thats logistics and production. sure, the M4 sherman tank was not that great compared to german tanks. and alot of jokes were made about its performance, but it mattered little because we had like a gaziljon of them, AND we got em out fast to the battlefield.

what do you mean "they escalated the war" ?

haha my thoughts exactly

Bar and sturmgewehr 44 would be cool

+Edelweiß 72 ok then

Still not comparable weapons. The Allies didn't really field *anything* comparable to the FG-42, that's why it's such an iconic weapon. Closest thing we had in WW2 would be the Johnson LMG, which was handicapped by being a private development actively sabotaged by U.S. Ordnance as opposed to the FG-42's official procurement & fully supported development [albeit via Nazi Germany's incredibly balkanized & contentious official channels.] Does anyone offer a repop of the Johnson LMG? Too bad IWI never made a semi-auto Dror like they repop'd the M1 Carbine... that would be cool!

Well because both garand and FG use full rifle round while carbine is firing practiacally a pistol round.

These things are hard to a hold of, I'm sure if we can we will...it certainly would be an interesting match up!

I've only fired a G41 once and if its accuracy was indicative of the type the Garand would rule. That G41 was probably the worst semi auto I've ever fired, as far as accuracy was concerned. We used surplus ammo and we aren't terrible shots (not to brag but I've got a couple worthless medals from camp Perry).

+Charlie Mods full auto with such weapon is only accurate with bipod use: if shot from hand it's possible to miss a elephant in a hall...

True, but it's not just me that wants to see that

Except that even if the Germans could produce them in better numbers the Germans were still ever so slightly outnumbered by fighting almost the entire rest of the planet.

"we might all be speaking German today." No instead your going to be speaking spanish in the USA, Arabic in france, and Pakistani in England.

+wal martian Here from the future. Getting worse.

Most danes still speak german, so why are you complaining...

@@walmartian422 another update, getting worse then you could've ever imagined. The whole world has gone to shit. Ww3 is something to look forward to, but I wish it weren't.

+Micheal Knight the bolt catch/release is somewhat sticky, especially if you're loading it gingerly to avoid M1-thumb; sometimes just inserting the clip is enough to break the bolt free, but a lot of the times you need that little extra oomph to send it on it's way home

Alex Vogel Thanks a ton for clearing that up for me man; I've always been confused, because I see people loading it both ways, with the mechanism either working like a charm sliding closed, grabbing a round as soon as pressure is let off the top round, and other where people have to slap the bolt a bit. One more question if you don't mind.. I plan on buying an M1 in the next week or so, and what should I look for to ensure that I get one that has a smooth loading mechanism, and isn't finicky. & How do I ensure once I have my rifle, that the mechanism will work properly, without the risk of the M1 thumb happening to me, being an M1 virgin?

+Micheal Knight The tension of the enblock with 8 rounds is tight by design. It is normal to bump the op-rod after loading a full clip. Get your M1 from the CMP, and enjoy it in CMP regional, and club level games matches. M1 thumb comes from not having the bolt fully locked to the rear with only the follower holding it like a mouse trap.

DG Ficklin Thanks for very much, I had heard of the CMP, but wasn't sure if there was one is Louisiana or not, or the whereabouts. I'm definitely going to be getting one, and hopefully I can find a good sticker to put on the end of the barrel! :]

+Micheal Knight The only CMP locations are in Alabama and Ohio. Also side note, just received my M1 from the CMP today and it's awesome. If you just watch some of the videos on here about M1 thumb you can prevent it fairly easily.

+THEREALBONZO My non-GI holster wouldn't fit on a cartridge belt, so I used a pistol belt instead. Since the courses of fire only required a couple clips, the mag pouch worked fine.

For it to be completely fair they should run both with both guns twice. That way they remove the abilities of the shooter from the equation as well as a "bad run" or unfamiliarity with the weapon.

@@HappyBeezerStudios yea but it looks hot as balls out there

@@HappyBeezerStudios 3 times as a rule

Even better, against a BM59. It's also chambered in 308.

PotatoGunsRule shit

inanç sönmezocak As opposed to fg42. which would be less classic bust cost an arm and a leg.

Yeah, but it does seem like it's become popular to hate on well renowned things. "Smashing Pumpkins is one of my favorite bands." Me. "Oh, I think they were overrated, I prefer Turds Of Misery." Common Hipster. "The M1 Riffle was one of the best rifles ever." Me. "Oh, I think the M1941 Johnson Rifle, you've probably never heard of it." Common Hipster.

@Joshua ...... A common hipster that knows enough about guns to know about the M1941? You mean a gun hipster?

The FG-42 and STG44 were not experimental weapons in WWII. The M1 Garand could have been developed in .276 Peterson fired from 10 round en bloc or 20+ round BAR magazine. Army Ordinance insisted on an inferior, more traditional/old-fashioned weapon to send the soldiers into battle with because of bad ideas about infantrymen needing to make long range shots like snipers, completely contrary to what was coming up in WWII. The M1 Carbine could have been a select-fire M2, which would have been the most effective American small arm in the war. The BAR could have been configured so much better than it was by the US military in WWII, more like how other users were using it. Lighter, pistol grip, other improvements. The German engineers had far harsher limitations but they still produced uncompromised, superior weapons. Politics didn't get in their way, it gave them a list of requirements and selected the best rifle their industry could create. In the USA there were other political factors in deciding which weapon other than which will best minimize American casualties. Arm an army with inferior weapons and you are accepting that more of your soldiers will perish. There may be some convincing arguments about convenient arms facilitating overall better armament when under time constraints, but some of the actions of Army Ordinance in this era in my opinion are borderline treasonous. There were some inexcusable reasons for giving our soldiers inferior weapons to defend their lives with.

I don't know what rock you crawled out from under but the STG44 and other Volksturm weapons were absolutely experimental. I will ad!it the FG42 was not but it wasn't produced or issued in large quantities. The standard long arms of the Wehrmacht were not superior to standard allies long arms in any way. The Kar98K is a nice rifle but it's bolt-action, the MP40 is useless beyond 50 meters, and there sidearms were complicated and prone to jamming. The Germans made fine machine guns but the notion that the average wehrmacht soldier was better equipped than an America Infantryman is misinformed at best and ludicrous at worst. I'd also like to stress that your idea that politics had nothing to do with German arms production is also wrong. Many terrible decisions regarding wehrmacht equipment were made in the basis of political motivation. I don't know what history books you've been reading but you're completely wrong about all the things you mentioned in your comment with exception to the production of the FG42.

@@OhioGuy216 and just so we're clear, when I say their sidearms are complicated I'm referring to mechanically complicated not complicated to operate. Like many things German their sidearms are prone to over engineering and odd mechanical systems like the toggle lock.