In an article Jeff Cooper wrote on the MP38/40 he mentioned an incident witnessed by the German veteran who narrated it to him; it happened somewhere in the Russian front when the platoon the individual in question belonged to was pinned down by a Soviet sniper perched up on a tree some 250 meters away, to make the story short a captain showed up and borrowed the MP gun from someone around there and made quick work of stitching the sniper up from that distance. It tells of the effectiveness of the gun in the hands of a trained user.
So I walk into a Surplus store that was going out of business yesterday. And I'm looking at their mausers I look on the wall and there's an old rusted MP40. I asked the guy if it was for sale and he said yeah for $150. He said that an old WW2 veteran had gone back to Europe and found it around the Bastogne area and had it declared nonfunctional and brought it back. Needless to say I bought it on the spot.
What a crock. You really trying to tell us that no one had tried to buy that before? You really REALLY think that in this day and age they had no clue that even a relic with verbal history would be worth thousands .........Post a vid, theres a good chap.
I know someone who’s grandpa brought it back apparently they played with it also as a kid and years later found out it was fully functional! I don’t know what happened to it maybe they still have it
I have extensively fired an MP40. I never had any magazine problems. What I don't like about the magazine is that it takes so long to load the magazine. I like the MP40 because it is easy to disassemble and clean, and it is fun to shoot. At the present time I do not have an all-original MP40 in my machinegun collection. They are not cheap, but who knows what the future will bring.
The MP40 was easily the best submachine gun of the war...ya there ones with a higher rate of fire...but you don't need a submachine gun to fire that fast...that's only for MGs. A lower rate of fire means it's a lot more controllable and more accurate
High rate of fire doesn't mean better. The M3 grease gun, MK5 Sten (also known as sterling), ppsh, and kp44 were all good guns. I dont really think one would really be better than the other among these and all are cool historic guns.
After having seen German soldiers "effortlessly" use these in countless war movies (as a kid), I was shocked to pick one up (at a gun show) & realize they weigh as much as my 'underfolder' M70-AB2 (Yugo AK) does... lol *I thought they were supposed to be 'easier to use' SUB-machine guns... lol
Most German veterans I met said the k98 was their best friend in combat . The mp40 was not very widespread. Heck they used to laugh at 60s WWII movies depicting a whole squad or platoon armed with mp40s
The Vollmer telescoping bolt spring housing and the double stack, single feed magazine design were used in the MP38 and MP40 not because they were good features, but because they were patented. Royalties for the use of these features were paid on each gun produced.
You cannot make a movie without Nazis out of central casting carrying an MP 40 . It’s the Law ! Open breech subs like this were all much easier to make, but some like the Sten and several of the Italian models were junk , the later closed breech selective fire subs stayed cleaner and jammed less , the MP40s are truly the Iconic SMP of that era . The Russians had some cool subs that fired drums of Makarov ammo . The barrel shroud looked very strange but it really grows on you after a while . Check out Gun Jesus ‘ vids on these !
One more name skipped in Development of MP38/40 Volmer..Its an Erma/Vomer design submachine gun,Steyr or Haenel got nothing to do with design rather than contractors....Steyr Dimler was second most large producer of MG34,MP40,98K and STG44 systems and replacement parts....It all begun with enigmatic Erma MP36 which later was upgraded and overworked to become MP38 than MP40 and with Hugo Schmeiser MP41...While the Erma developed and designed submachine gun itself there was various malfunctions leads to bolt and recoil mechanism,Heinrich Volmer had patented his telescoping tubes for recoil mechanism assembly and there was 2 major reasons for such improvement...First to keep recoil assembly clean out of dirt and debree while second in addition with firing pin buffer act as rate reducer...The early MP38/40 designs had slightly thinner recoil assembly which was lead to high rate of fire which was cost numerous jammings and stoppages..By making new large size recoil spring,buffer and telescoping tubes the all earlier issues was resolved and proved satisfactory among testing at front lines...MP38/40 is not the first enigmatic firearm Germans had developed during WW2,there was STG44 Sturmgewehr and FG42 Fallschirmjägergewehr which is very impressive models at their own and leads to develop assault rifle program and M60 machine gun,this is truly remarkable accomplishments in the small duration time....
My Grandfather carried one during WWII. He told us that it was a POS. Constantly jammed. Most likely from the open bolt position. Mud, dirt, squirrels, whatever would get in there and just foul up the works. Never understood the 'OPEN BOLT' design. That's just asking for trouble. Besides that. It is an iconic weapon.
What is it that makes a submachine gun from a machine gun? The Thompson was a hand carried light machine gun that was developed in the 1920's and was carried throughout Europe and the Pacific theaters for the entire war. Why wouldn't the Thompson be considered the first assault weapon?
Submachine guns are pistol caliber full auto guns. Machinegun can actually mean different things, it depends on if your talking about the legal definition (any firearm capable of firing more than one cartridge with one function of the trigger) or the military definition (typically referring to full auto guns that are chambered in full power rifle cartridges and meant for long strings of fire but this typically makes them heavy and not very man portable) Thompson is not a light machinegun machinegun, it's a submachine gun just like the MP40 and MP5. An "assault rifle" is a rifle that is chambered in an intermediate cartridge (a cartridge that is more powerful than a pistol cartridge but not as powerful as a full power rifle cartridge), is selective fire (able to have both semi-auto and full-auto), and uses a box magazine. A light machinegun is a squad automatic weapon thats able to handle decent long strings of fire (not as much as a machinegun), chambered in both full power rifle cartridges and intermediate cartridges, and easily man portable (typically they weight less than 20ish pounds? Honestly the Thompson sucks due to its size, weight, design, and cost at the time. The U.S. and British only used the Thompson because that was all they had available to them at the time because they were both draging their feet in developing a submachine till about the time WW2 was happening. Both countries dropped the Thompson as soon as they could (the US adopted the M3 "Grease gun" and the British adopted the Sten). Old/new movies and video games show the Thompson being in wide use by gangsters or soldiers but it really wasn't as prevalent or popular as many people think.
Never shoot the MP 40 while holding the magazine. The mag can be a little loose in the mag well, it's a big reason for feed issues - although you can shoot without issues holding the mag well, not the magazine. The guy in the vid did it right, holding it by the area behind the mag well.
