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Posted: 10/23/2004 6:41:27 PM EDT
I know very little about this particular firearm, but my brother seems to think it would be an interesting addition to our WWII collection. Anyone interested in educating me on availability / price / anything to watch out for when looking to purchase one? 
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A very nice rifle give a bad name by the poorly trained conscripts that used it. Contrary to popular belief the rifle was used throughout the war by Soviet Marines and elite guards units. If kept clean, it is a very acurate and reliable weapon. The break comes in 4 and six slotted models. Be sure to check the gas syestem and the bore. Some times they will be rusty due to the corrosive ammo used. Other than that, nothing really out of the ordinary to look for. They are fine weapons and have a great ballence to them. They are particular to what ammo they like, and the heavy ball is not something they like. Stick with the 147 grain ammo. Czech silver tip is always a good bet. Just be sure to clean the gas system as well as the rest of the rifle. That is the part the Russian grunts forgot about. Don't worry about getting an extra magazine. They were made for stripper clip loading into the mag. The Russians only carried one spare anyway. They are fine rifles, and cheap to shoot. |
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I've never seen any SVT-38s around... I would suspect most were scrapped, as they would get beaten to peices because they were not strong enough for the 7.62x54r. I HAVE seen a couple Gewehr 41s on a couple auction sites before. Those would be interesting... I think the next nice C&R I'm going to try to get will be an SVT-40. I won't shoot it much, it's more for my WWII rifle collection. The holy grail will be a Gewehr 43. They're quite pricey, for sure. |
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Yeah, but FG-42's of either configuration are damn near impossible to find. Contrary to popular belief, they were rarely used in FA mode any way, so you are looking at a very expensive MG that was hardly ever used in he MG mode. The G-43 was not a POS by any means. They are decnt designs, but built with poor quality steel. As usual, they were over engineered. If they had been built with better materials, they might have been as good as the Garand. I wouldn't down play the role of the mag. fed battle rifle. The FAL and M-14 served the west quite a long time. Both far longer than the SKS, and with the M-14 back in service, it has outlived the AK-47 by 30 years. |
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I agree the FG42 would be like gold. Very rare, tho, only about 20,000 were made. Kinda insane design, IMHO... 7.92 at 700 rounds per minute? Very hard to control... at maybe 3-400rpm, it may be easier. But it would have worked good as a semiauto rifle. The G43 was the evolution of the G41. Originally Wehrmacht specs called for NO holes to be drilled in the barrel, because they thought it would negatively impact accuracy. The G41 captured gas at the muzzle to cycle the action, which turned out to be very unreliable. Then the krauts got a hold of a few SVT40s. They found that tapping the gas from the barrel to drive a piston was a good system of operation. Any captured M1s would have told them the same. Then the G43 was born. I think both Mauser and Walther submitted designs, and I can't remember who got the winning nod. Given time, the G43 would have been a great rifle. If I ever end up with one, it will not be shot much at all. It's more of a collector's peice for me. As will the SVT40. |
Same here. I was very happy to see the inclusion of the G43 and SVT40, in the unscoped variety. The first expansion to MOH pissed me off adding them as sniper rifles ONLY, and then nerfing them by lowering the rate of fire. CoD did it pretty well... HOWEVER... one little nitpick, is that most of the time, soldiers issued the G43 and SVT40 would reload the rifle from the top using stripper clips made for the KAR98 and Mosin Nagant respectively. They didn't swap the magazine out. I'm not sure about the Russian soldiers, but I read that the German soldiers were issued the G43 with three magazines total, and were then issued ammunition in 5 round stripper clips. I think an SVT40 will be high on the list of rifles to get once I get a couple more SKSs. |
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Russians were issued two mags and one ammo pouch for strippers worn on the belt. As for the Germans and the G-43 mags. When issued, normally only one G-43 pouch was supplied along with the mag. for the rifle. the pouch would hold two mags. Additional ammunition was kept on stripper clips in a standard K98 pouch. Regulations called for the G-43 pouch to be worn on the left side of the belt, and the K98 pouch on the right. |
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