I've never served, so I never got to play with either of these toys.  But can someone explain to me the difference between these two belt-feds?  What was there about the design of the M240 that did the job better than the M60?  Thanx in advance.

This post is John Rambo approved.

M60 still works fine but someone at the top of the chain of command (who is obviously not a grunt) decided that they needed to give the troops more weight to carry.

M240 is heavier and has a slightly higher rate of fire.

The M60 was an abortion of the perfectly good MG42.  The 240 is an excellent weapon.

I have not served either but my google-fu is strong.






 

The 240 is built like a tank.

this

 

nvrmnd

What about the MG3?

I'm a Marine, so I have no experience with the M60.  The M240 did seem to cause a lot of bitching and moaning amongst the MG section attached to my platoon though

The M240 is the best GPMG ever devised. The M60 went through four or five generations before it worked well enough to be in service anywhere and that only happened after the M240 was adopted.

Many would say the PKM is better than the M240.

 

Works fine;

OK, I'm assuming they took what they learned from the 60 & applied it to the 240 (at least one would hope so).  Does anyone happen to know what those technical details were?

The M240 is more reliable, but it is also heavier and not well balanced.

The M60 is very well balanced and lighter, but is more prone to stoppages.

Personally, I think the US Ordnance M60E4 is the best current belt-fed 7.62mm NATO machine gun out there today for use by light infantry. There are no reliability issues with that variant of the weapon. And it is smaller and lighter than the original version of the M60. This is the weapon that should be in the hands of grunts. The 240 should be on gun trucks, tanks, APCs, helicopters, etc.

M240 looks like it could survive an free fall from outer space, that thing is very robust.



I heard opinions from servicemen who used the M60 and said the M240 was much better. But I also heard several people say their 60s were flawless. I think it, with anything else depends on if the armorer and the unit is doing their job in maintaining the weapons properly and replace worn out parts.



M240s only major flaw is it's weight, otherwise it is very reliable. Though, we did have one M240 go down in a firefight out in sector, but that was an M240 that was sort of abused and not really taken care of because it was CONSTANTLY on a gun truck and they didn't have time to take it off, tear it down and clean it.

this.

The 240 is pure, sweet, sugary nipples.

A modular PKM in 7.62 NATO would be better than both.

The M-60 was a less than ideal adaptation of the MG-42 which has been pointed out.

240 smokes the 60 any day of the week in my opinion.

240 is much more reliable.
240 is far easier to make repairs and do maintenance on.  It only goes together one way.
You can have rounds on the feed tray with the bolt forward (make sure the bolt is forward before you put the rounds on the tray )
240 has a much lower risk of a runaway
I find the 240 to be much more accurate and controllable


The 60 is much easier to fire from a standing offhand, and is lighter.  thats about all I will give it.

Not really, the FN MAG and the M60 were designed at nearly the same time (late 40-mid 50s).

When you add a rail system on the feed cover and on the barrel to put on PEQs and ELCONs, would it really have the weight advantage anymore?



The whole operating system was designed around the rimmed rifle cartridge. Who knows if the weapon would be AS reliable with it being chambered for 7.62 NATO





 

Put the firing pin in the 60 backwards and then couldn't figure out why it wouldn't fire?

I have experience with both weapons in Iraq.  I have fired both of them, carried both of them, and my truck rolled out the gate everyday with one or the other.  I would feel comfortable with either weapon but if I had to choose one it would be the M240B.


They are both excellent weapons, but I will try to detail some of the differences.

M60 is Lighter than the 240B by a pound or three.  

Both were absolutely reliable if properly cared for.  The M60 required just a little more work to keep running smoothly.

The M60 was easier to shoot "Rambo Style" from the hip.  (just a fun observation)

The 240B has a higher rate of fire and is more accurate from a turret mount than the M60.

The M60 can be assembled incorrectly and break.(gas piston) We had to restrict cleaning to the armorer only after our mechanics borrowed, cleaned, and destroyed an M60.

Gas tube had to be wired shut on the M60.

The 240B has a quick change barrel that you can change without an asbestos glove.

The 240B has a rail on the feed tray cover that allows you to mount an optic.  Very useful from a static position.

The "mean rounds before failure" (? I think that is the term) on the 240B is about 4x the M60.

The majority of M60s left in service with the Army are worn out rattle traps and there are very few soldiers trained to operate them correctly.

The 240 is tits.  Easy to change barrels, adjustable gas settings to overcome sluggish operation, easy assembly/ dis-assembly.  I've carried them many a mile, and shot tens of thousands of rounds through them.





I know a titanium receiver was in development for them, which would cut weight down.  

 

Perfect, that was just the inflamation I was looking for, from someone who has used both.  Thank you very much.

+1
Take the worst parts of the MG42, the Lewis gun and several other WWII-and-before MGs and you get the M60. It was designed by a refrigeration engineering division of a major corporation (IIRC) in ~60 days.

Take a BAR's locking mechanism, attach an MG42's feed and fire control mechanisms and you get the M240.

Kharn

I <3 M60's

Gas piston in backwards = now bolt-action machine gun?

We had that happen once.  Our platoon was ordered to lend an M60 to the maintenance platoon so they could send a truck out on a recovery mission the next day.  Apparently they took it apart to clean it that night and put everything in backwards.   When we got it back it was a sniper machine gun.  No spare parts available, so that gun was stripped to keep our other two running.

LOL!

Yup, gas piston was the most popular.

I feel like there was another part that was occasionally put in backwards, but I cant remember what it was for the life of me

Developed simultaneously.  I believe the feeding mechanism is similar.




Depends on the use.  I'd rather pack the PKM, but if you are talking about using a tripod or vehicle mount I will take the 240.

The MAG is probably the best MG for mounted ops.  Its a full 12 pounds heavier than the PKM and carries very awkwardly. Not saying you can't carry one, but its both heavy and not well designed for dismounted ops.



For dismounted ops, PKM is hard to match.  Not only light weight, but even more reliable and carries much easier.

12 pounds is a lot in your arms.  It adds up.

The issue tripod for the PKM is also very well done, but the T&E on it sucks.



240B with old school tripod and T&E is scary good.  I have never used the new one, just played with it, so I can't judge.



the pig was easy to carry, which made the jams, falling off pieces and wiring the fucking thing together a little less a PITA.

Never used the MG-3, but I have heard them.  Drops rounds fast.  Wouldn't mind having that thing on mounted ops.  don't know the accuracy or recoil on it./

And the MAG shares a lot of design details with the Browning BAR.

 

The qick change barrels on the M240 is nice...and they are very easy to keep running well....I was a 60 gunner when I was in the Army...and I deal with M240's in my job now...I love the M240B

OK, LOL x12.  That was fukkin funny.

I have seen gunners put firing pins in backwards, sears in backwards, gas pistons in backwards, launch buffers, and lose the pistol grip leaf spring.





I've see the pin that holds the feed paws in the feed tray cover lose its cotter pin and work itself out, having the parts work free.





The M-60 was lighter, but you really needed to be on your game to use and maintain it.





While the M-240 is heavier and longer, when we worked with the M-67 90mm RR in Berlin, that thing was a REAL pig.  The added weight of the M-240 is only a minor annoyance.





Unless I could pick and train my gunners to my standards, give me a M-240 any day of the week.





 

Big +1

Possibly, but they want ONE GPMG.



 

The new M240L is so much lighter

Give me a Pig any day of the week.  I was issued one by Uncle Sam (sadly, had to give it back) and I would give my left kidney to have one in my safe. Do a Youtube search for "M60 machine Gun 850 rounds).

The L is 13ozs lighter than the M-60, but still 5" longer.





 

After two years as an armorer, and a total of 25 years being the small arms go-to guy in most of the units I was in, mere words cannot describe the level of hatred I feel for the M60, and the people who foisted that abortion on us. The only thing saving the M60 from going down in history as the Worst Machine Gun, Ever(tm) would be the brief period of time we inflicted the Chauchat on ourselves.

Here's what you can install backwards, and still manage to assemble the weapon:

*Firing pin
*Gas piston
*Sear
*Bolt
*Firing pin sleeve and firing pin spring
*Bolt cam sleeve and firing pin retention plug (which leaves that little pin as an extra part, to get lost...)
*Pistol grip retention pins
*Spring plate that retains the retention pins

Of these parts, the worst choice of things to fuck up on is probably the firing pin. That leaves you with a non-firing weapon. The gas piston, you get a straight-pull, bolt-action belt-fed rifle. The sear gets you a runaway gun, assuming you're stupid enough to load a belt into a weapon the bolt won't stay back on. All the rest, well... You just have varying degrees of non-functionality and potential for parts to fall off while in the field. I once had a weapon returned to my arms room that had everything possible put back together wrong, and on top of that, the idiots had taken the safety wire off of the gas system. I still don't understand how they got the bolt onto the operating rod backwards, and then into the receiver. Took a mallet and brass drift to get that damn thing apart, afterwards...

A well-designed weapon will not allow itself to be reassembled in any other way than the one that it's meant to be. The M60 fails that test, miserably. On that factor alone, they should have sent the thing back to the designer with a big "Let's try this, again, shall we?" note applied to it. Instead, they bought tens of thousands of the damn things, and made it an issue item for decades.

Additionally, the damn things gas system required a series of fixes to be applied, because it had the habit of spontaneously self-disassembling itself. Any weapon requiring the armorer to use aircraft safety wire to hold the thing together? Well, let us simply say "Self-evident design failure". That's another point where someone should have said "Hmmm... Bad idea, start over...".

Let's not even get into the way that the bolt, operating rod, and sear had this lovely habit of beating each other to death. A set of stones had to be supplied to the armorer's tool kit, simply to keep the peening to a minimum. This problem was bad enough when they issued LSA as a lubricant, but when they went to BreakFree, the M60s started dying left, right, and center. My speculation is that the much thicker and tenacious LSA served as a cushion between the battering parts, and prevented the weapons from wearing out quickly. After BreakFree came in, the damn things suddenly demonstrated much lower reliability, higher maintenance, and much shorter serviceable lifespans. They should have stuck with LSA for everything besides the M16, in my opinion.

The M60 was an utter piece of shit, and my perennial maintenance and training nightmare for most of my career. I hear the guys who served in Vietnam laud the things to the sky, and all I can do is look at them in utter bewilderment, and wonder if we're talking about the same weapon. The M60 should never have made it out of troop trials in the form that it did, and the fact that it somehow won out over the MAG58 during those trials leads me to wonder what they were thinking. It's ironic that the MAG58 wound up being procured as the M240 for coax use in tanks, and then got back-doored into being our standard MG thirty years later, and without significant trials in that role. The success of the M240B speaks volumes as to the validity of those early trials which resulted in the M60 being fielded.

Both the M16 and M60 are indications that the Army's small arms procurement systems were broken mid-century, and the fact that those weapons were standard issue for as long as they were is something  that still amazes me. After the Ichord committee got done, they should have gone through the procurement system with fire and sword, fired everyone involved, and started fresh.

That they didn't? Well, that's why we're still trying to shoehorn the M16 into the 21st century as the M4, and why the Marines and Rangers had to do an end-run around the system to get the M60 replaced with the M240G and B models. Criminal incompetence.

Sadly, agreed.  I've been issued both for the exact roles mentioned, and there is a huge compromise to get one GPMG to do that.  

Linked for your dining and dancing pleasure.

I saw a crewchief manage to get the whole bolt assembled onto a 60D oprod backwards, and then got it all closed up and wondered why the function check didnt function. During an earlier deployment one gun did not have the wire installed so the piston plug began threading off while the gun fired. It kept firing, the plug put huge pressure on the oprod housing, you could almost see the bend in the gun as the barrel flexed upward. It took 45 minutes to get the barrel off. On my current deployment the factors that slow down or stop the M240H is carbon/copper build up in the gas port, poorly arranged belt in the ammo can, and lack of lube.

Fukkin A, man, that was awesome!

I am intrigued by your ideas, and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I started off on the M60 and as long as I did my part she purred like a kitten when needed.  I moved on to the M249 and that was one temperamental bitch.  Then I moved up in rank and by that time the M240 came along.  I only got to fire it for familiarization and when there were extra rounds nobody wanted to turn back in.  

I will say the M240 is a dream when it's mounted on a vehicle or tripod, but to hump it sucks.  I took the 240 many a time when one of my guys was lagging on a patrol.  

I always thought the 60 shouldered better balance wise and seemed easier to handle because there were more places to put your hands on it.   However, the 240 due to it's design forces the shooter to prone out and shoot properly whereas the 60 could cause troops to "Rambo" the weapon.  

Either weapon with proper training and maintenance would be well served in our soldiers hands.

I rost several times.

So what you are saying is that the only thing able to fuck up something more than a grunt in the field is the procurement bureau around a conference table?

Shall we dance?

I really wish the M60E4 was given a chance.  Heck, the navy small boat guys seem to like them and got rid of them when they couldnt get the navy to upgrade/buy M60E4's (according to an article in Small Arms Review).  The M60 had some problems, there were several parts that could be mis-assembled, but the E4 variant corrected most of these.