Oh thank the heavens, I was worried his absence would lead to a significant decrease of gun previews from your stock. So when can we expect the complete disassembly of the bigger items?
One reason grease guns were hard to get is many of them were kept in military stocks and issued to tank crews up until the first gulf war. (i.e., post-1986)
It was about 1991 or 92 in Hohenfels, Germany and while walking around with a buddy or two, I saw a couple of tankers pass in front of us with Grease Guns slung on their shoulders. The finish was almost completely worn off, but the shocking thing for me was to see them at all.
No, it's the "Ineffective at Close but Barely Able to Function at Mid to Long Range" variant that costed about 6.5 million dollars to research and 7 million to develop.
@@iateuranium-235forbreakfas7 Yes, hence the quotation marks. And a pistol caliber carbine is indeed effective at close range. Especially if you're indoors and you want a lower chance of going deaf.
But as a closed-bolt gun, it should be nicer to shoot than the original open-bolt greasegun, so there's that. And with the longer barrel, it should have slightly better ballistics.
Scrolled down to make the same comment and see I'm not the only one thinking this. The point of the grease gun was simple and cheap. To buy a closed bolt one that is likely well north of a grand is just wrong.
@@r5cpt Not really. Most modern auto pistol cartridges have gone through a full burn in about 8-12 inches of barrel. After that you actually start to lose velocity. Magnum revolver cartridges on the other hand..., those start behaving like pint sized rifle cartridges and are still accelerating as far out as 24-26 inches of barrel. It has a lot to do with the powder burn rate and what you're expected to be firing the cartridge out of.
Still had them for armored vehicle crews into the 90s. I can’t say much because I only had training on the M16 and M60. My best friend went on to serve in both Mech Infantry and Armored roles . He said it was hard to anything with them.
they are fantastic and she worked well with what the state of washington allowed her to do! I have one, and not one bit of trouble out of it. With the exception of the long barrel, I'd say yeah, a faithful recreation.
In my father's Viet nam picture albums is a group of lots of guys posing in a bunker. One of the pics is dad and 2 of his squad mates all 3 with 303 belts cris crossed their shoulders, dad with an m16 in each hand at high ready, the guy to his right has a shotgun and the guy to his left has an m3 at low ready. All smiles none of the gravity of their situation at all in any of their faces. It's my favorite picture of him. I'll try to scan them to online, when I inherit them, that is.
My grandfather carried a M3 in Vietnam and carried a burlap sack on his lap with the subgun across it so that when he was driving he could spray without burning his leg. He drove his own jeep in nam after the first time ambushed and his driver panicked. He was a high ranking officer by that time. He also carried a Reising smg in WW2 which is known as a Marine gun but he was in the army. He was a target shooter in the civilian world and liked boltactions, yet carried smgs in combat
They're in photo albums in a dark place with no humidity. I saw them 8 years ago and they looked just like they always have. My father turned 71 this year I'll have them before too long.
My Grandfather was a tank commander in Vietnam and was issued a Grease Gun. He has some great stories about them; my favorite is one involving a requisition of ammo (apparently they had to re-qualify with their issued small arms once in country ? and they all trained with the M14 in the states) Well there was a typo in the form, an extra 0 or something... And instead of getting 2,000 rounds they got 20,000 rounds of 45acp. Typical Army bureaucracy meant it wouldve taken more effort to return than it would to just shoot it all up. So thats what they did. He and his crew spent all day at the base range shooting their Grease Guns. Theyd shoot one till it was hot and immediately switch to another. He said they all got so good with the Greasegun they could shoot it from the hip walking the rounds in at full-auto and make hits at 100 yards. Instinct snap shooting but with a submachine gun basically lol.
There must be a fascinating story behind Valerie Johnson and her entry into the world of firearms manufacturing. Thank you, Ian, for another thoroughly interesting dive into the weirder side of firearms.
It's ugly and sad. It's so off that any respectable reenactment wouldn't let you reenact with it. Gotta make it comply with the government? Fine. But if it doesn't look right, it won't sell
@@MrDgwphotos - beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In this story it mentions that they were in active inventory until 1992, www.wearethemighty.com/gear-tech/what-happened-m3-grease-gun?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1.
It was stated during the video that no else made stamping dies to reproduce the original grease gun - that's not correct as Medea Corporation in Florida produced the M3A1 full-auto shells (and sold to others to complete the assembly (they did complete a few for sale on their own) - I had one)-less than 75 were made for "public" consumption (transferable) - were made from/patterned after an original (with a proprietary process as I understand) - the die sets were progressive and VERY expensive - most produced around 1983 though a few produced after 1986 cut-off date - can still find occasionally but they're pricey - Frank Iannamico wrote a good article on them based on info he gathered from the principals.
The fact that theoretically a criminal can just buy this and cut down the barrel but a normal buyer can't does make the law seem rather pointless... Almost as if it doesn't actually stop anything and instead only penalizes normal people. >__> Short barrel rifle laws in particular are utterly nonsensical.
Until watching your videos I never realized how much of a firearms industry we have here in Washington. I live in Seattle, and my father is a farmer who lives in Olympia. We all have guns, and firearms in general are quite common here to the extent that people often open carry without really attracting much extra attention. I think the stereotype most people have of Seattle is of a place so limp wristed and liberal that there's nothing we're good for but modern art and programming. Of course reality is always more complicated, and having lived here for 25 years it's clear to me we're a place of hard workers that value stoicism and poise. Sometimes the stuff you read on the internet is enough to make you doubt your own lived experience. Even cable news wants you to think we're just a mini San Francisco. But the longer I live here, the more people I meet, and the more I learn about our culture and history, the more proud I become to be a part of this unique place. I feel both free and taken care of. A difficult balance to strike for any government, big or small. There is one gun law I don't like, that being we're not supposed to fire within like 200ft of any privately owned building. There's exceptions for self defense and gun ranges of course. I get it, you don't want people carelessly shooting their neighbor, but I'd still rather shoot in my backyard than in my friends basement range. Idk if this is a common law in other places.
I'm happy to see you doing these semi conversions which is what most viewers own or can own. Next do one on the TNW Suomi M31 in semi and the Wiselite M53 in semi. which would be cool to see how they converted them.
@@Inexpressable Jeep killers too. I met an Air force vet who despised these after one went postal, all by itself, in a jeep, ruining a perfectly good jeep.
@@jeffreyroot6300 I was telling it as it was told to me. What I assume happened is either the bolt was locked back and it was jarred or it fell with enough force to chamber a round and ran away due to some damage to the trigger assembly. The safety cover did have a tendency to jar loose.
Kelsey Devereux I believe you, and the most likely explanation is generally human error. Given the construction of the M3A1, and he would have had a twenty plus year old semi disposable weapon by then, it’s certainly possible the dust cover safety did jar loose and produce a run away slam fire. I just hear “ the gun did it!” Too often.
Thing is, the original’s rate of fire is so slow, you may even be able to pull the trigger faster in semi auto. Look up Jerry Mickulak shooting M3 Grease Gun
Sim Crawford I recall I think a recent InRange Q&A where they said that there was a time in the early 90s IIRC where the first AR-based PCCs were being developed, all in 45 using Grease Gun mags. They were super common on the surplus market, if only briefly.
I know Ian said that they were used in WW2 and Korea. They were actually in the inventory far longer than that. We had 2 of them in the arms room at A Btry 5/44 ADA Bn, Spangdahlem in 1989. Makes me wonder what happened to them.
By the time they would have been sold to the civilian market the 1986 act concerning new MGs had come into effect. Therefore not sellable. Ian stated that most were destroyed. Since the time they were made and when they were retired. The US military had also changed from .45 to 9mm. Keeping this in the supply chain adds to logistics problems. There had been better SMGs manufactured. A new customer would want something more modern that came with a standardized round, and easy to get replacement parts. Limited number of parts if the manufacturer had quit making them.
@@shawnr771 I know that they couldn't have been sold to civilians because of the Hughes Amendment, but they could have gone to a military museum. The ammo issue you think is an issue, isn't, or wasn't then. We still had WW2 issue 1911's well past the issue date of the M9. The Army is a huge organization, and re issuing anything within that takes quite a bit of time. Tank units still had the grease gun at that time too.
@@towtruckmafia Yes but by Desert Storm with the exception of Special Ops most M1911s had been removed from service. The government was no longer manufacturing .45 ammo at Lake City. Due to the Graham Ruddnan base closure and realignment two of the three military ammunition production facilities were closed or were in the process of closing. Any time you can simplify logistics you should do so.
@@shawnr771 I was stationed on both the USS Abe Lincoln and USS Mobile Bay from 1990-1994 respectively. While TAD to MAA on the Lincoln, I used the Mossberg 12 guage shotgun and the M1911 . While onboard the MOB, the Security force was issued either a select fire M-14 or an M1911. The M-14 was also used to shoot a shot line to another ship. Why they were the rare select fire version is beyond me. Didn't realize how rare they were until I left the service-John in Texas
I bought one of these in 1995 at a gun show. The guy that had it was keen on getting rid of it and sold it to me for $200. I guess he was tired of dragging it around from show to show. He threw in 4 mags. and it is a blast to shot. I've picked up 6 other magazines and it get a lot of attention at the range. I got one bad mag. but all the rest run flawlessly. It is a pretty faithful copy of the original except the barrel but, it's a lot more accurate than the 8" version.
Their website has still been up for years but they never bother to get back to anyone like Ian said in the video they treated good people like dogshit ! There are new De lisle's being built in the UK but they are banned from import to the USA. :(
@@RJM1011 No they didn't treat people like dogshit. I personally know Val and know what happened. After the M3's came out Wa. started coming down on her hard, especially with the fake silencers. Every other week they shut her down for an "inspection". Orders taken were delayed and others couldn't be taken while being "inspected". Val and her partner sold their business to another gun shop, they had NOTHING to do with Valkyrie Arms shortly after the M3's came out. Hence why the website said "Under new management". It wasn't Val and her partner. Not long ago I talked to Val and she and her now wife have left Wa. state and are planning to start a new business. I have one of her early M3A1's and she said when she gets set up she wants me to send her mine for upgrades. Mine has no set screw for the barrel, she has made a set screw and correct looking spring. She also is going to make my stock collapsible since it's legal to do so in Idaho like it wasn't in Wa. Last I heard she was working on a lever conversion charging handle for her original design. She's a great person who loves history and was a member as I was of the Confederate Airforce. The gun it this video is very late made and may not have been built under her management or ownership. Mine is a 1000 times more realistic and has more original parts than this one. Those grip panels are horrendous. " Simon- we are currently setting up a new location- we have moved out of Communist WaSnake. I hope to have a new FFL sometime this year. Converting to a collapsible stock is easy, just lots of labor. I think I've done most of the old fixed stocks over the years. Thank you, Val "
@@digbick1241 I'm not sure if they married or not. She was in a bad relationship right before I met her. Since I met her and we talked she would talk about her new relationship she always referred to her as her partner. They could have since married I suppose I haven't spoken to her in a while actually.
A friend of mine had one of these years ago, where she discovered that steel cased (Wolf brand) 45 auto ammo was a "no-no" to feed this firearm; as after several rounds, it bent the extractor. She sent the unit back to Valkyrie for a fix; where it was returned to the owner weeks later, repaired, with an attached note to inform the owner not to use steel cased ammo.
I actually talked to Val about ammo in her guns. She told me it will run anything. Mine has run everything I have put through it for the past 17 years steel or otherwise. Remember that someone else took over her shop when she left Washington for Utah and the quality went down when the business folded. She wasn't there when it did. her guns never had a problem far as I know. I still keep in touch with her and she last said that she'd like to start up again in Utah.
@@bad74maverick1 Cmon, get her to do a crowd funded project if that's what needed to get it done. She obviously has the history to show that she can do it to raise the money. She could probably do it without using any of her money for startup.
@@jamestate9180 I agree. She's an awesome person to talk to. The state of Washington is really the driving force that put her out of business and why she went to Utah.
@@stg45 oh my gosh that's actually terrible. Europe is such a dump right now. I'm waiting for the nationalist elections or coups to start in the next 20 years
@@flamegator3251 They are regulated not banned. And guns are not all that hard to get in pretty much all european countries. Sure you have to do more than a surface level background check and a few days of waiting but it's still not hard. Maybe you should consider that some countries just don't have the same culture as yours, including the culture around guns.
@@lars7935 Are you kidding me right now? You can get arrested for having a butter knife in London right now. If it was easy to get woman and children wouldnt be getting s-assaulted around Europe in the thousands. This honestly has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
@@martins.4240 Okay well as for nationalism and facism, they're the only hope for Europe right now. That's why I would rather Nationalism over facism. Nationalists don't become facists until their people push for it or the government is corrupt. At that point of corruption they're only Nationalist by name and not by ethics. If you really wanna learn about Nationalistic facism search up, Europa: The Last Battle watch it with an open mind and a little bit of salt.
So you said near the beginning of the video that while Grease Guns are iconic, they're far less common/available for shooters today. What would be some of the more common old-school subguns then?
Thompson (as he said), Reising, Sten, MP40 are all pretty common (as in, there are a few thousand of each on the NFA registry). Some of the Stens and MP40s are reproductions made before 1986, and some are originals. There are also quite a few Stirlings which were made from registered Sten gun tubes.
I bet a Gearhead Worx Tailhook brace would look really slick on one of the pistols. Add a section of rail on top for an optic and I'd bet you'd have a pretty nice little shooter
See, you know what would be interesting with this gun? Imagine having the bolt modified to basically trip the FRT-15 Hammer Lock, rewelding the loading tool, then putting on a tail hook pistol brace, putting a spring on the ejection port cover, and then simply adding a reinforced external charging handle.
IAN: Please look at the 51/52 High Standard Supermatic & Field King 52/53 22lr Semi-Auto pistols. They have a unique delayed blow back designed into the breach and bolt head - No other 22 Semi Automatic blow back pistol has this feature that I know of. Hi-STD designed the Supermatic for the Marines to compete in the 52 Olympics, which they won. The original Supermatic is somewhat rare with approx 2000 made - Barrels between the Supermatic and Field King (Not to be confused with the Sport King) can be interchanged. The 51/52 High Standard Supermatic using the priority 6.5" variable weight barrel is deadly accurate using STD Velocity 22lr eg: CCI Target Match or Blazer ammo. The High Standard "Supermatic Citation" and Sport King were superlative US advertising gimmick and did NOT have the expensive delayed blow back feature of either the Supermatic or the Field King..
If this were changed into being an Uzi-style mag-in-grip gun the 16 barrel could be fit into the same footprint as the original M3, although Im certain that is no small task.
Replica of an M3 grease gun. Except with a longer barrel. And closed bolt. And semi-auto. And made differently. And with an AR trigger group. So basically it has nothing in common with an M3 at all. It just sort of looks vaguely like one. Why would anyone want one?
I like that the reason this thing exists, is because one can't reasonably get their hands on a gun that was literally designed from the ground up for MASS production by the droves at a dirt cheap cost, to the point that the redesign has you just stick your finger in the bolt to charge it. I bet some G.I.s back in the day would have been hoarding those things if they knew they'd be worth $30,000 a pop one day. Still just seems like such a bizarre situation that grease guns, real ones anyway, are so hard to come by these days.
I don't want to be 'that guy' but aren't these these tabs to hold the lower and also the bolt when the barrel is removed under compression force rather than tension?
Yeah, maybe melt a couple a barrels worth of mag dumping and maybe that massive chuck of metal theyre passing off as a bolt will receive enough heat to be mildly uncomfortable but have fun spending a few grand in ammo and barrels to get to that point.
I love the fact that if you were to remove the stock, the original barrel length would be perfectly legal if you'd simply refer to the firearm as a "pistol"
It has to be registered as a pistol to do that legally. You can make a pistol into a rifle but not the other way around. I register my AR lowers as pistols rather than rifles for this reason.
I've got the carbine, my stock is functional. I bought it used for $701 back in 2008. I've probably only shot 1000 rounds through it. It's never malfunctioned.
The laws against fully automatic weapons just inflate their prices and value exponentially. How many crimes were ever committed by fully auto weapons in the total "universe" of crime? I am betting a very, very small amount.
The crime committed with full autos that brought about the NFA was perpetrated by policeman working for the mob most likely, but the record stated that some of al Capone's men stole some thompsons and uniforms from a police station and gunned down a group of another gang. Look up the st valentines day massacre
@@db2177 I am familiar with that but the question is how many actual crimes were carried out using automatic weapons out of the TOTAL CRIMES committed in the US. I would venture to say if anyone were to dig deep into actually researching it, the actual number of crimes committed by fully automatic weapons are small like the supposed "crime sprees" of "Assault Rifles".
Don't worry everybody, we found him. He's safe, sound, and happily disassembling French guns in a quiet room.
Whoever you are, Rock Island clearly isn't paying you enough.
@ GODAMMIT!!! He does this every time.
"Dont tap the glass you will frighten him"
Oh thank the heavens, I was worried his absence would lead to a significant decrease of gun previews from your stock.
So when can we expect the complete disassembly of the bigger items?
Devin Stromgren
It’s the official channel
I'm surprised they didn't sell this with a dotted line printed on the barrel to show you where to hacksaw it off to make it look more authentic.
@@Yeroc357 You fool! You fell for the oldest trick in the book! My dog died years ago, your agents are about to shoot my tannerite filled stuffing!
@@TheSquidPro lol
There'll figure it out as soon as shtf
or like the Uzi carbines that came with a second "barrel" for show.
This is a prime example of "it's only illegal if you get caught"
Don't get caught.
One reason grease guns were hard to get is many of them were kept in military stocks and issued to tank crews up until the first gulf war. (i.e., post-1986)
And then probably melted down for scrap á la the Liberator pistols...
Is that right?
They kept getting left near the mechanics and re-purposed as actual grease guns
It was about 1991 or 92 in Hohenfels, Germany and while walking around with a buddy or two, I saw a couple of tankers pass in front of us with Grease Guns slung on their shoulders. The finish was almost completely worn off, but the shocking thing for me was to see them at all.
@@Neutercane Not bad for a gun that was made in the 1940's for about $11.00 that was designed to be desposable!!! ;^)
M3A1 "sniper variant"
No, it's the "Ineffective at Close but Barely Able to Function at Mid to Long Range" variant that costed about 6.5 million dollars to research and 7 million to develop.
r/wooooosh
kabob 007 that was supposed to be a joke?
@@iateuranium-235forbreakfas7 Yes.
@@iateuranium-235forbreakfas7 Yes, hence the quotation marks. And a pistol caliber carbine is indeed effective at close range. Especially if you're indoors and you want a lower chance of going deaf.
This gun is like when Hollywood remakes an old B movie. It looks more or less the same, but with none of the charm.
Harsh... but true.
god i love when a compact, simple open bolt tubegun gets repro'd into a closed bolt rifle abomination in the name of ridiculous legislature.
But as a closed-bolt gun, it should be nicer to shoot than the original open-bolt greasegun, so there's that.
And with the longer barrel, it should have slightly better ballistics.
Scrolled down to make the same comment and see I'm not the only one thinking this. The point of the grease gun was simple and cheap. To buy a closed bolt one that is likely well north of a grand is just wrong.
@@r5cpt Not really. Most modern auto pistol cartridges have gone through a full burn in about 8-12 inches of barrel. After that you actually start to lose velocity. Magnum revolver cartridges on the other hand..., those start behaving like pint sized rifle cartridges and are still accelerating as far out as 24-26 inches of barrel. It has a lot to do with the powder burn rate and what you're expected to be firing the cartridge out of.
One thing we can get here in New Zealand are lever action 44 Magnum rifles with 12 inch barrels.
@@freman007 ...from what I have read...suppressors as well
Wow, this is one of the more competent open-bolt conversions I've seen. Looks like it was actually fairly well done.
Used one of these to try and fix a squeaky door hinge.....it stopped squeaking.
They gotta make an m3a4 version that also dispenses grease
In 1984, Ft. Knox was still training tankers with grease guns.
Still had them for armored vehicle crews into the 90s. I can’t say much because I only had training on the M16 and M60. My best friend went on to serve in both Mech Infantry and Armored roles . He said it was hard to anything with them.
"Valkyrie Arms M3A1, are you a faithful recreation of the Grease Gun?"
"Yes, I am!"
*slide whistle noise*
"Everyone can see when you lie, you know!"
they are fantastic and she worked well with what the state of washington allowed her to do! I have one, and not one bit of trouble out of it. With the exception of the long barrel, I'd say yeah, a faithful recreation.
@@bad74maverick1 sure, but that rather derails my Pinocchio joke...
@@Flamekebab Well you're welcome.
Sorry, lol, Val's a friend of mine.
DOES SHE STILL MAKE THESE CAUSE I WOULD LIKE TO BUY ONE@@bad74maverick1
Is that a barrel, or is it just happy to see you?
@Disobedient One *notices bulge*
@@calebhu6383 *sweats nervously in German*
It's the ATF and they've just shot your dog
In my father's Viet nam picture albums is a group of lots of guys posing in a bunker. One of the pics is dad and 2 of his squad mates all 3 with 303 belts cris crossed their shoulders, dad with an m16 in each hand at high ready, the guy to his right has a shotgun and the guy to his left has an m3 at low ready. All smiles none of the gravity of their situation at all in any of their faces. It's my favorite picture of him. I'll try to scan them to online, when I inherit them, that is.
My grandfather carried a M3 in Vietnam and carried a burlap sack on his lap with the subgun across it so that when he was driving he could spray without burning his leg. He drove his own jeep in nam after the first time ambushed and his driver panicked. He was a high ranking officer by that time. He also carried a Reising smg in WW2 which is known as a Marine gun but he was in the army. He was a target shooter in the civilian world and liked boltactions, yet carried smgs in combat
Have photo of my uncle who was an Vietnam advisor carrying an Mp40
Scan those photos before they deteriorate beyond recovery.
They're in photo albums in a dark place with no humidity. I saw them 8 years ago and they looked just like they always have. My father turned 71 this year I'll have them before too long.
That's an awesome picture
I bought one of these way back for around $700 from Valkyrie. Still have it, still love it.
Wish they were still $700 lol
@Krill Bill Phil I know Val personally. They did. She moved to Utah and wants to start her business up again.
How much do these go for now? I got a chance to get one for $500
@@ernesto4093 $1200.00 new
'looks a little bit goofy'
There it is, understatement of the century
The barrel is just as long as the entire gun + stock. Let that sink in.
Godsdamnit what does it want now? I've already washed my hands.
That's what makes it criminal proof.
@@robotbjorn4952 yup everyone knows bullets are non lethal past 16 inches.
*hacksaws with libertarian intent*
@@RichieRichOverdrive RIP this guy's dog.
My Grandfather was a tank commander in Vietnam and was issued a Grease Gun. He has some great stories about them; my favorite is one involving a requisition of ammo (apparently they had to re-qualify with their issued small arms once in country ? and they all trained with the M14 in the states) Well there was a typo in the form, an extra 0 or something... And instead of getting 2,000 rounds they got 20,000 rounds of 45acp. Typical Army bureaucracy meant it wouldve taken more effort to return than it would to just shoot it all up. So thats what they did. He and his crew spent all day at the base range shooting their Grease Guns. Theyd shoot one till it was hot and immediately switch to another. He said they all got so good with the Greasegun they could shoot it from the hip walking the rounds in at full-auto and make hits at 100 yards. Instinct snap shooting but with a submachine gun basically lol.
There must be a fascinating story behind Valerie Johnson and her entry into the world of firearms manufacturing.
Thank you, Ian, for another thoroughly interesting dive into the weirder side of firearms.
I was like YES and then I cried when I saw it.
I guess the coolest thing about the grease gun was just how efficiently they were made anyways.
It's ugly and sad.
It's so off that any respectable reenactment wouldn't let you reenact with it.
Gotta make it comply with the government? Fine.
But if it doesn't look right, it won't sell
Just when I’m thinking “doesn’t that bolt get too hot to touch?” Ian senses what I’m thinking and answers my question
Well, for anyone who wanted/demanded a semi auto grease gun, here you go.
Hope you both enjoy shooting it.
as a us tanker in the late 80's got to play with a1 and a3 love them.
It looks like a badly rendered video game version from about 2002.
Hnnngh, Colonel...
Ehh i wouldn't say that more like 2012 it's not bad but could be improved
Back in '86/87, in Fort Lewis, I saw some M3A1s still in US inventory and being used by an armor unit, although only for parade duty.
Why would they parade with the Grease Gun, of all things? I have always regarded the thing as quite ugly.
@@MrDgwphotos - beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In this story it mentions that they were in active inventory until 1992, www.wearethemighty.com/gear-tech/what-happened-m3-grease-gun?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1.
It was stated during the video that no else made stamping dies to reproduce the original grease gun - that's not correct as Medea Corporation in Florida produced the M3A1 full-auto shells (and sold to others to complete the assembly (they did complete a few for sale on their own) - I had one)-less than 75 were made for "public" consumption (transferable) - were made from/patterned after an original (with a proprietary process as I understand) - the die sets were progressive and VERY expensive - most produced around 1983 though a few produced after 1986 cut-off date - can still find occasionally but they're pricey - Frank Iannamico wrote a good article on them based on info he gathered from the principals.
The fact that theoretically a criminal can just buy this and cut down the barrel but a normal buyer can't does make the law seem rather pointless...
Almost as if it doesn't actually stop anything and instead only penalizes normal people. >__>
Short barrel rifle laws in particular are utterly nonsensical.
The problem arose when the criminal bought a gun
And when can't buy just steal, no law abiding.
We should really make crime illegal.
Slaughter Round you do realize gun control literally does nothing right
Yes because if they can't outright ban them then making laws relegating them into ridiculous contraptions not worth owning is the next best thing.
You are definitely my favorite nerd, a gun nerd no less. Should I ever see you in person I would be honored to shake your hand.
The M3 has such a slow rate of fire that it is easy to fire it single shot! Totally fun to shoot!
Now do a video converting it to full auto, sawing off the barrel and replacing the stock
Late era WW2 guns (from all sides) are fascinating. They were forced to concede all comforts and go strictly with pure physics.
I love the sound of dry parkerization in the morning.
I love it; an AR15 that identifies as a grease gun.
Until watching your videos I never realized how much of a firearms industry we have here in Washington.
I live in Seattle, and my father is a farmer who lives in Olympia. We all have guns, and firearms in general are quite common here to the extent that people often open carry without really attracting much extra attention. I think the stereotype most people have of Seattle is of a place so limp wristed and liberal that there's nothing we're good for but modern art and programming. Of course reality is always more complicated, and having lived here for 25 years it's clear to me we're a place of hard workers that value stoicism and poise.
Sometimes the stuff you read on the internet is enough to make you doubt your own lived experience. Even cable news wants you to think we're just a mini San Francisco. But the longer I live here, the more people I meet, and the more I learn about our culture and history, the more proud I become to be a part of this unique place. I feel both free and taken care of. A difficult balance to strike for any government, big or small.
There is one gun law I don't like, that being we're not supposed to fire within like 200ft of any privately owned building. There's exceptions for self defense and gun ranges of course. I get it, you don't want people carelessly shooting their neighbor, but I'd still rather shoot in my backyard than in my friends basement range. Idk if this is a common law in other places.
I'm happy to see you doing these semi conversions which is what most viewers own or can own. Next do one on the TNW Suomi M31 in semi and the Wiselite M53 in semi. which would be cool to see how they converted them.
That tnw semi-automatic ppsh41 runs about 3500 on gunbroker. Looks cool. But way too much for semi-automatic
Grease gun Boys! One of my favourite little old school subbies due to how simple they are
A reliable, simple gun with only as many features as it needs are rather interesting, and the grease gun is the prime example
@@Inexpressable Jeep killers too. I met an Air force vet who despised these after one went postal, all by itself, in a jeep, ruining a perfectly good jeep.
Kelsey Devereux “All by itself.” I’m sure it took itself off safety and everything!
@@jeffreyroot6300 I was telling it as it was told to me. What I assume happened is either the bolt was locked back and it was jarred or it fell with enough force to chamber a round and ran away due to some damage to the trigger assembly. The safety cover did have a tendency to jar loose.
Kelsey Devereux I believe you, and the most likely explanation is generally human error. Given the construction of the M3A1, and he would have had a twenty plus year old semi disposable weapon by then, it’s certainly possible the dust cover safety did jar loose and produce a run away slam fire. I just hear “ the gun did it!” Too often.
They still make this. It's a made to order weapon. I was just on the valkrie arms website. They also make a semi auto Sten
Thank you , Ian .
It would be cool if brownells would make a proper looking semi auto version of this
Hey, I could put a binary trigger in this! Then register as an SBR, and BOOM, awesome gun.
Thing is, the original’s rate of fire is so slow, you may even be able to pull the trigger faster in semi auto.
Look up Jerry Mickulak shooting M3 Grease Gun
I now have enough information to build my own pistol version. What fun!
Its all fun and games until someone pokes an eye out
As long as you live in an Eye Poking Free School Zone, you'll have nothing to fear.
Next stop, semi-auto Sten/ppsh
Seems an answer to a question nobody asked.
Sim Crawford if they made the pistol version with a telescoping bolt like an uzi or the beretta m12 it would be much shorter and compact
Sim Crawford I recall I think a recent InRange Q&A where they said that there was a time in the early 90s IIRC where the first AR-based PCCs were being developed, all in 45 using Grease Gun mags. They were super common on the surplus market, if only briefly.
The real trouble comes when trying to convert an open bolt gun with a fixed firing pin into a closed bolt gun.
It's basically a big GFY to the Washington State legislature.
I know Ian said that they were used in WW2 and Korea. They were actually in the inventory far longer than that. We had 2 of them in the arms room at A Btry 5/44 ADA Bn, Spangdahlem in 1989. Makes me wonder what happened to them.
By the time they would have been sold to the civilian market the 1986 act concerning new MGs had come into effect. Therefore not sellable.
Ian stated that most were destroyed.
Since the time they were made and when they were retired.
The US military had also changed from .45 to 9mm. Keeping this in the supply chain adds to logistics problems.
There had been better SMGs manufactured.
A new customer would want something more modern that came with a standardized round, and easy to get replacement parts.
Limited number of parts if the manufacturer had quit making them.
@@shawnr771 I know that they couldn't have been sold to civilians because of the Hughes Amendment, but they could have gone to a military museum. The ammo issue you think is an issue, isn't, or wasn't then. We still had WW2 issue 1911's well past the issue date of the M9. The Army is a huge organization, and re issuing anything within that takes quite a bit of time. Tank units still had the grease gun at that time too.
Clinton peace dividend
@@towtruckmafia Yes but by Desert Storm with the exception of Special Ops most M1911s had been removed from service.
The government was no longer manufacturing .45 ammo at Lake City.
Due to the Graham Ruddnan base closure and realignment two of the three military ammunition production facilities were closed or were in the process of closing.
Any time you can simplify logistics you should do so.
@@shawnr771 I was stationed on both the USS Abe Lincoln and USS Mobile Bay from 1990-1994 respectively. While TAD to MAA on the Lincoln, I used the Mossberg 12 guage shotgun and the M1911 . While onboard the MOB, the Security force was issued either a select fire M-14 or an M1911. The M-14 was also used to shoot a shot line to another ship. Why they were the rare select fire version is beyond me. Didn't realize how rare they were until I left the service-John in Texas
I love the cropping on the thumbnail pic. Really draws u in
I bought one of these in 1995 at a gun show. The guy that had it was keen on getting rid of it and sold it to me for $200. I guess he was tired of dragging it around from show to show. He threw in 4 mags. and it is a blast to shot. I've picked up 6 other magazines and it get a lot of attention at the range. I got one bad mag. but all the rest run flawlessly. It is a pretty faithful copy of the original except the barrel but, it's a lot more accurate than the 8" version.
I really can't tell if Valkyrie Arms is still around or not. I'd kill for one of their De Lisle repros.
Their website has still been up for years but they never bother to get back to anyone like Ian said in the video they treated good people like dogshit ! There are new De lisle's being built in the UK but they are banned from import to the USA. :(
@@RJM1011 No they didn't treat people like dogshit. I personally know Val and know what happened. After the M3's came out Wa. started coming down on her hard, especially with the fake silencers. Every other week they shut her down for an "inspection". Orders taken were delayed and others couldn't be taken while being "inspected". Val and her partner sold their business to another gun shop, they had NOTHING to do with Valkyrie Arms shortly after the M3's came out. Hence why the website said "Under new management". It wasn't Val and her partner. Not long ago I talked to Val and she and her now wife have left Wa. state and are planning to start a new business. I have one of her early M3A1's and she said when she gets set up she wants me to send her mine for upgrades. Mine has no set screw for the barrel, she has made a set screw and correct looking spring. She also is going to make my stock collapsible since it's legal to do so in Idaho like it wasn't in Wa. Last I heard she was working on a lever conversion charging handle for her original design. She's a great person who loves history and was a member as I was of the Confederate Airforce.
The gun it this video is very late made and may not have been built under her management or ownership. Mine is a 1000 times more realistic and has more original parts than this one. Those grip panels are horrendous.
" Simon-
we are currently setting up a new location- we have moved out of Communist WaSnake.
I hope to have a new FFL sometime this year.
Converting to a collapsible stock is easy, just lots of labor. I think I've done most of the old fixed stocks over the years.
Thank you,
Val "
@@bad74maverick1 glad to hear.
@@bad74maverick1 What? “Now wife”? LOL
@@digbick1241 I'm not sure if they married or not. She was in a bad relationship right before I met her. Since I met her and we talked she would talk about her new relationship she always referred to her as her partner. They could have since married I suppose I haven't spoken to her in a while actually.
that’s amazing that someone can reverse engineer a product and redesign it to work completely differently than it was designed for.
A friend of mine had one of these years ago, where she discovered that steel cased (Wolf brand) 45 auto ammo was a "no-no" to feed this firearm; as after several rounds, it bent the extractor. She sent the unit back to Valkyrie for a fix; where it was returned to the owner weeks later, repaired, with an attached note to inform the owner not to use steel cased ammo.
I actually talked to Val about ammo in her guns. She told me it will run anything. Mine has run everything I have put through it for the past 17 years steel or otherwise. Remember that someone else took over her shop when she left Washington for Utah and the quality went down when the business folded. She wasn't there when it did. her guns never had a problem far as I know. I still keep in touch with her and she last said that she'd like to start up again in Utah.
@@bad74maverick1 Cmon, get her to do a crowd funded project if that's what needed to get it done. She obviously has the history to show that she can do it to raise the money. She could probably do it without using any of her money for startup.
@@jamestate9180 I agree. She's an awesome person to talk to. The state of Washington is really the driving force that put her out of business and why she went to Utah.
Somehow looks much worse and far cheaper than the original, it's got to be the lack of character.
”Easily converted to full auto.” Muh land of the free 😢
in france (shit hole coutrie) they have even regulated... air rifles.
@@stg45 oh my gosh that's actually terrible. Europe is such a dump right now. I'm waiting for the nationalist elections or coups to start in the next 20 years
@@flamegator3251 They are regulated not banned. And guns are not all that hard to get in pretty much all european countries. Sure you have to do more than a surface level background check and a few days of waiting but it's still not hard.
Maybe you should consider that some countries just don't have the same culture as yours, including the culture around guns.
@@lars7935 Are you kidding me right now? You can get arrested for having a butter knife in London right now. If it was easy to get woman and children wouldnt be getting s-assaulted around Europe in the thousands. This honestly has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
@@martins.4240 Okay well as for nationalism and facism, they're the only hope for Europe right now. That's why I would rather Nationalism over facism. Nationalists don't become facists until their people push for it or the government is corrupt. At that point of corruption they're only Nationalist by name and not by ethics. If you really wanna learn about Nationalistic facism search up,
Europa: The Last Battle
watch it with an open mind and a little bit of salt.
I think this is the first time I've seen something on here I actually own or know someone who owns. Kind of cool
I turned in my Grease gun to the Arms room for the last time in 1989..lol
So you said near the beginning of the video that while Grease Guns are iconic, they're far less common/available for shooters today. What would be some of the more common old-school subguns then?
Thompson (as he said), Reising, Sten, MP40 are all pretty common (as in, there are a few thousand of each on the NFA registry). Some of the Stens and MP40s are reproductions made before 1986, and some are originals. There are also quite a few Stirlings which were made from registered Sten gun tubes.
My grandfather carried a m3a1 grease gun in Korea as a pdw when he was a supply truck driver
I dont know why but I love the grease gun more than the Thompson.
I bet a Gearhead Worx Tailhook brace would look really slick on one of the pistols. Add a section of rail on top for an optic and I'd bet you'd have a pretty nice little shooter
I carried one of these years ago whilst with the 3rd Armored Cav, this looks like a grease gun with a hard on.
Wew that thing sounds DRY
Needs at least 75 years of cosmoline.
Pretty ironic for something known as "Grease Gun".
@@_Jebb_
Seems appropriate given the barrel length.
It just needs a new tube of grease installed.
Well now I want one. Hey SB-Tactical, got a project to suggest for you.
I think that people don't give stamped weapons the respect they deserve.
See, you know what would be interesting with this gun? Imagine having the bolt modified to basically trip the FRT-15 Hammer Lock, rewelding the loading tool, then putting on a tail hook pistol brace, putting a spring on the ejection port cover, and then simply adding a reinforced external charging handle.
I want one, but good lord they're around 1200$ these days
"Cut here..."
Does anyone else really want to see Ian run one of these in a match?
From RIA: Estimated Price: $1,500.00 - $2,500.00
IAN: Please look at the 51/52 High Standard Supermatic & Field King 52/53 22lr Semi-Auto pistols. They have a unique delayed blow back designed into the breach and bolt head - No other 22 Semi Automatic blow back pistol has this feature that I know of. Hi-STD designed the Supermatic for the Marines to compete in the 52 Olympics, which they won. The original Supermatic is somewhat rare with approx 2000 made - Barrels between the Supermatic and Field King (Not to be confused with the Sport King) can be interchanged.
The 51/52 High Standard Supermatic using the priority 6.5" variable weight barrel is deadly accurate using STD Velocity 22lr eg: CCI Target Match or Blazer ammo. The High Standard "Supermatic Citation" and Sport King were superlative US advertising gimmick and did NOT have the expensive delayed blow back feature of either the Supermatic or the Field King..
If this were changed into being an Uzi-style mag-in-grip gun the 16 barrel could be fit into the same footprint as the original M3, although Im certain that is no small task.
l o n g b o y
*L o N g B o I i I i I i I*
I think they're still around, website is still up atleast
The website looks like it came over on the ark, but the copyright is 2015 so i dont know??
So weird, not the weapon, but I was literally watching your M3/M3A1 Grease Gun video you posted earlier.
It's a sign. Time to repack your wheel bearings.
Who else likes these videos before they watch them?
The semi-auto repro platforms of today are a far cry from their predeccessors.
But the semi-autos are more than a shade easier to connect with, over longer distances, I'll wager.
This company also made a version of the DeLisle.
It too was "interesting".
Okay. It's a VM3SO. (Vaguely M-3 Shaped Object)
This deserves more upvotes!
Pinocchio called and wants his grease gun back.
Replica of an M3 grease gun. Except with a longer barrel. And closed bolt. And semi-auto. And made differently. And with an AR trigger group. So basically it has nothing in common with an M3 at all. It just sort of looks vaguely like one. Why would anyone want one?
I like that the reason this thing exists, is because one can't reasonably get their hands on a gun that was literally designed from the ground up for MASS production by the droves at a dirt cheap cost, to the point that the redesign has you just stick your finger in the bolt to charge it. I bet some G.I.s back in the day would have been hoarding those things if they knew they'd be worth $30,000 a pop one day. Still just seems like such a bizarre situation that grease guns, real ones anyway, are so hard to come by these days.
That barrel tho.
Love the channel! Greetings from Norway!
They got a grease gun at local shooters world in Tampa. You can rent it and shoot full auto. Pretty neat.
I don't want to be 'that guy' but aren't these these tabs to hold the lower and also the bolt when the barrel is removed under compression force rather than tension?
It would be nice to have these in "pistol" form.
Dr. MJOLNIR I imagine with ‘arm braces’ being a thing, and PCC being so popular, they’d sell a lot better these days
They did. I think they still sell them
Hello from Ireland. I love your channel.
This really looks like a hyperemic rapid lead injector.
This is semi automatic sub machine gun week lol. First mp5 now this lol.
Yeah, maybe melt a couple a barrels worth of mag dumping and maybe that massive chuck of metal theyre passing off as a bolt will receive enough heat to be mildly uncomfortable but have fun spending a few grand in ammo and barrels to get to that point.
I'm curious if it shoots anything like the real ones
Pistol brace, binary trigger, laser sight, sling. :)
Forgotten weapons Ian in a interview with you and Karl one of these are on the wall. Is it your?
oddly the Valkyrie web site lived longer than the company.
Just when I wanted to know more about the gun
A folding stock with a long barrel is the gun equivalent of eating eggs and bacon for lunch and then drinking an orange juice "to keep healthy"
I heard some suppressed M3s are still in service with the Green Berets
I believe they also made a semi auto Sten and a copy of the DeLisle carbine.
I love the fact that if you were to remove the stock, the original barrel length would be perfectly legal if you'd simply refer to the firearm as a "pistol"
It has to be registered as a pistol to do that legally. You can make a pistol into a rifle but not the other way around. I register my AR lowers as pistols rather than rifles for this reason.
I've got the carbine, my stock is functional. I bought it used for $701 back in 2008. I've probably only shot 1000 rounds through it. It's never malfunctioned.
Oh man, please tell me where I can buy one of these puppies. I have a soft spot for this firearm due to its reliability and industrious design!
Is that a weld or bubble gum holding that front sight post on?
The laws against fully automatic weapons just inflate their prices and value exponentially. How many crimes were ever committed by fully auto weapons in the total "universe" of crime? I am betting a very, very small amount.
The crime committed with full autos that brought about the NFA was perpetrated by policeman working for the mob most likely, but the record stated that some of al Capone's men stole some thompsons and uniforms from a police station and gunned down a group of another gang.
Look up the st valentines day massacre
@@db2177 I am familiar with that but the question is how many actual crimes were carried out using automatic weapons out of the TOTAL CRIMES committed in the US. I would venture to say if anyone were to dig deep into actually researching it, the actual number of crimes committed by fully automatic weapons are small like the supposed "crime sprees" of "Assault Rifles".
It's actually not a bad idea.
Kinda wish the original if made in semi auto closed bolt and certain semi auto pistol with stocks weren't considered short barrel rifles.