Das G43 Wunder-Gewehr ist Scheiße
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- Опубликовано: 30 янв 2024
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The primary German semi-auto battle rifle of WW2 is honestly a terrible design. Due to its relative scarcity, and country of origin, it has acquired a status that is not deserved - it's a very flawed design and this video discusses those issues.
Some errata:
At 6:49 I refer to the folded/weld point as a crack, which it is, but is part of the manufacturing process. That said, that is a definite weak point and that welding point absolutely cracks further under use.
I make a statement that no one copied this design post war, which was ALMOST correct - the Brazilians did with their M954. Briefly. Whoops. Maybe Taurus can release it as a retro rifle series. :p
Some errata:
At 6:49 I refer to the folded/weld point as a crack, which it is, but is part of the manufacturing process. That said, that is a definite weak point and that welding point absolutely cracks further under use.
I make a statement that no one copied this design post war, which was ALMOST correct - the Brazilians did with their M954. Briefly. Whoops.
Maybe Taurus can release it as a retro rifle series. :p
The crack area is easily remedied with a weld. If you install the gas system upgrade kit that is available it will never be a problem and the G43 will run reliably and as long as most other battle rifles.
If anyone wants to make a reproduction G43, then they have their work cut out for them. Simplifying/rectifying the gas system and eliminating any potential issues with continuous fire with only basic maintenance, are all things to consider when making a reproduction, that not only functions better, but looks as close to the original in appearance.
@@M1GarandMan3005 The kit I had installed in mine not only looks like the original it is reliable under continuous fire. The upgrade kits made have solved the gas problem I believe that caused the bolt group to batter the gun.
OF COURSE IT WAS BRAZIL. Brazil for some reason really liked Nazi refugees
Karl doesn't know what he's talking about. Obviously the genius german engineers intended the springloaded assembly to work as a makeshift grenade.
It was unpopular even amongst the soldiers.
I had one for years. Good accurate, reliable. Gas could be adjusted to fire three round bursts. Lol
Hhahahahahahah:):)
The enslaved factory workers might have 🤔
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature
I had a chance to assemble one of these in Izhevsk when i was studying there to become a gunsmith. So here we are, two 18 years olds, table, this rifle (already disassembled) on the table and no instructions what's so ever. I've done some AK-74 field disassebly before, and everything about this rifle was so wrong. The bolt itself, the flappers, this whole thing screamed "NOT FIELD WORTHY" to me. We managed to asseble it, including those wobbly motions to get the flappers where you need them, and, to my surprise, it worked properly.
We also had like Browning M1919 that couldn't be disassembled for some reason and i figured out why - someone managed to JAM it's bolt backwards somehow.
P.S: Izhevsk Industrial College named after E.F. Dragunov was a weird and fun place for me.
ryssä
If this isn’t total bullshit (no offence, its just the internet) it’d be an awesome topic for a discussion or video like @ushankashow does or similar.
It is true, and instead of calling it "gunsmith degree" or something similar it is instead called "Special machinery and tools", they didn't change it since USSR at all.
Aside from those two anecdotes i have no real stories to share about my time there - after half a year i dropped off.
@ignatusrailslayer are you still in russia?
"Just because something is rare, that doesn't mean it's good, but there weren't many made for a reason" thats such a good quote
As someone with ADHD, during cleaning I would instantly lose a critical part of this gun. We are truly spoiled by modern firearms design.
You have to wonder how many German units on the Eastern Front that were listed as being armed with G-43s were actually using captured Mosin-Nagants most of the time.
@@MisdirectedSasha It's a macabre thought but there's something to be said for internal regulations becoming meaningless when the offenders just naturally don't survive long enough for the higher ups to become mad at them, lol
Proper German over-engineering. We take for granted how simple most firearms in the post-war period are. The G-43 doesn't seem very "grunt-proofed."
Actually in that case the opposite. The G43 was designed with as little effort to make it somehow work. One of its biggest flaws is that it is simple.
I feel you. Where's your rotating bolts guys?!🤦♂️
@@lifepolicy I see what your saying. It's some crazy complicated simplicity though.
Well most guns back in the day is to complicated for grunts today. Before the world wars you keep up the same line of work that your father/mother did and that died out with WW1 and the spirit was dead after WW2. My last name is Storm because some guy in my family needed money and joined a army during the 1340s and every man since him has been in the army "both conscripts and free will".
What im coming at is that before, you lived to be that line of work your dad did so you would start to learn young and how maintain the rifle you are given is one of the key lessons.
Today basic training doesn't even compare to how it was done before.
@@sestorm2159 thats silly as shit. These militaries mobilized virtually every male of military age. Unless you are saying every single soldier who was drafted into the Army was a inherited a vast amount of knowledge from soldiering you are wrong.
Obviously nations who require all their male citizens to serve in the military are going to tend to know how to handle firearms claiming that they would understand complex mechanisms is nonsense. Rifle technology got a lot more complicated from 1850 with radical changes for the next hundred years every few decades.
The G43 design did see post war continuation in Brazil, chambered in .30-06 as the M954.
There's always some exception to these statements in gun nerd land. Perhaps Taurus can bring it back as a retro rifle. 😂
Hmm I wonder why my grandfather Adolfo was very proficient with it in his time in the Brazilian army
@BACHUS777 And in 1957. was already started being replaced by FN49... So obviously not very good service record.
Copy was also attempted in Yugoslavia in the early 1950s, based on partial technical documentation, but results were pretty poor.
Not a lot of them were made and it was never fully accepted. Like the Panthers that saw some post-war use, in particular by France, they were only used until something better came along.
Only ~300 made with them not working all too well. They weren't really accepted.
The Mauser Bolt-Actions stayed dominant until the 60s (many images of the Military Coup d'etat prove this) and the FN 1949 semi-auto rifle took over in the Brazilian Marines up to the 60s. Far as we know only some FN49s really made it to army service, but they were retired with the Mausers preferring the FAL to take over around the 60s-70s. The MosqueFal continues being a training / ceremonial rifle while the FAL has taken over .. until the introduction of the IA2, which is replacing many of those.
Karl: [Criticises bolt for being a "spring loaded grenade" just waiting to fling parts off.]
Me, knowing that the modern day SA80 has a very similar tendency as it's a non captive pin that holds the main spring from firing into into the bushes during a field strip.
That rifle really makes it hard for me to defend it...
Germany 🤝 Britain
^
Guns with a built-in self destruct sequence
Into the bushes is bad. Off the side of an aircraft carrier in the Gulf is also bad.
You can literally feel the pressure in time, at wich this rifle had to be developed. Resources were rare and time was short. And errors couldnt be solved or even discovered.
I mean far right governments have a habit of running off talent and murdering intellectuals. The German procument program was a joke the entire war, horses did most the logistics from the beginning even within Germany proper.
Another corner of culture the G43 gained prominence was video games.
Come to think of it, that was often the best gun on the ground in one of those old COD campaigns.
In video games it is just as good as the m1, but it’s fantasy!!!!
in video games they work.
@@Broken_Yugo In World at War it felt like a staple gun
the SVT-40 and G43 allowed the Soviets and Germans to have self loading guns in ww2 games like the US did. even if those rifles were not produced in similar numbers.
Balancing in World War 2 games is interesting as weapons like the STG-44 were classed alongside the BAR even though they are not remotely similar in their role.
I do have nostalgia of clearing out Germans from Stalingrad with either my SVT-40 or my G43.
Not an AK fanboy at all but you can really understand Kalashnikov's design philosophy of making a gun simple to field strip and clean in light of how over-engineered the WW2 German semiautomatics are.
As a finn who has been a conscript in the defence forces I'd say the AK system is admirably well designed. It can be used even by the stupidest 200 pound gorillas who can break a ball bearing in a padded room.
and notably took that failure area of the G43 and other guns, the rear of the reciever, and made it into a far-less shock sensitive area, using soft rivets that can flex slightly to absorb the energy instead of directing it into thin, hard parts that will fatigue and crack
Ironically, Kalashnikov didn't base his philosophy of design simplicity on German equipment, but, according to what I've read, on some of the more "brilliant" inventions of some of his fraternal socialist contemporaries who had been visited by the Good Idea fairy...and whose brainchildren Mikhail Timofeyevich was then expected to keep running in the mud and crud of the front line while he was a tanker.
@@christopherreed4723 Both Mihail Timofêêvič and Vasilij Alêksêêvič had been designing what they could.
Frankly, reliability of AKM is obligated, yes, *obligated* to the M-43 round.
To its shape: the steep angle of the walls make its case extraction easy, since one of the problems - fricion resistance during unlocking and extracting - is solved by the distinctive conical shape. Right as the case starts to move, the resistence is broken beacause remnant pressure cannot expand the case enough to make it being a problem. With cylinder shape of case, it can-can-can be a problem, especially when there's a talk about high pressure ammo.
Energy of the round is significantly higher than a pistol round, making it able to pass the «fighting the foreign debree in gun's internals» energy barrier, so the carrier of breechblock can make it to the rear.
@@christopherreed4723The actual operating system is more based on the M1 Garand and the layout is based on rifles already know tho Kalashnikov like the Feder9v Avtomat and AS-44
The best autoloading rifle of Germany in WW2 was the STG, by far. Not because it's the first "assault rifle", but because the G41 and G43 and the VG 1-5 are just garbage.
Don't forget to put the FG-42 together with the bad ones, interesting design but it just breaks.
@@zepetv589 FG42 is an engineering feat and disaster everywhere else. Ergos suck, parts life suck, and the rifle should have been in 7.92x33 if not for Goering's insistence on having fullpower rounds because muh machinegun capabilities. Deja vu eh?
@@zepetv589 How dare you?
To be fair to the VGs, they work pretty well for being made out of scrap wood and drain pipes
@@zepetv589 the 2nd pattern doesn't tend to, but they weren't available till very late, so it hardly matters. It was copied/improved on extensively post war.
The G41 gas system is baffling. Having the piston and op rod being in contact with the barrel had to introduce so much friction.
And carbon buildup.
My uncle brought back a nice G43 from Europe in WW2, and he used it for 40 years as his WI deer rifle, with zero issues. Then it came to me, and I have used it as a range toy collectable for another 20 years, with zero issues. It’s accurate and reliable as long as I keep it clean and use proper ammo. However, this video is still excellent and full of good info. I took my G43 in to a gunsmith for inspection a couple years ago, and it passed a safety check.
You have to return the rifle back to Germany. Your uncle stole it.😂
I'm german an I know the law ;)
@@hessejames6250 You Germans first return our bikes back to The Netherlands 🤣
@@addylandzaat8080 🤣🤣🤣
I was just in Select Fire Weaponry in Waukesha last weekend. They had a RC G43 behind the counter. Just walked in one day they said. It’s actually marked K43 and I guess ended its life in the East German Police force.
What part of Wisconsin did your uncle hunt with the G-43? (I'm in NW Wis).
I have an SVT-40 dated 1940 (serial number puts it around December of that year as far as I can determine). It's amazingly fun to shoot when it runs right (it's very ammo-picky and needs to be well-lubed). It's technologically an amazing piece of equipment. Lightweight, pleasant to shoot, and well over 10 years ahead of its time. To put it in perspective on how light it is, at 8 pounds it's actually a half-pound lighter than the Mosin Nagant bolt action, yet with the integral muzzle brake it's a lot nicer to shoot. It's basically an M14, in 1940, and over a pound lighter. Note: I'm in Arizona if you ever want to use it for an episode.
What's your experience with the magazine issues Karl (and others) alluded to?
I had heard that the Soviets stoped producing them because they felt the rifles were too complex for their conscript soldiers to maintain. How hard are those rifles to keep running ?
@@MICHAEL-tz9ni it's more like the rifles were not cost-efficient to keep producing. They choose to produce more mosins and sub-machine guns instead. Tanks and armored airplanes did much more work than infantry
Ha! Well lubed
@@MICHAEL-tz9ni They stopped producing them because the Germans invaded in the in 1941, when they were gradually toning down Mosin and increasing SVT production. It has barely entered mass production. Since a ton of both Mosin and SVT stockpiles got captured in the initial blitz, the Soviets reverted back to Mosin production since it was cheaper, more cost effective and the tooling was already there, so wartime production was easy to start.
Karl disassembling complicated things on that table always gets my heart pumping
How dare you speak the truth, Karl?!
😮😢😂😅
Lol???
Yeah, how are those collectors ask ever more absurd prices for their kraut space magic? 😉😉
Na, it isnt that bad in comparison to the designs of the time.
@@juanzulu1318It's especially bad compared to the M1 Garand and SVT-40 actually
I felt a great disturbance in the Force … as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
The "crack" at the bottom of the sheet metal guide rail is actually a residual aspect from the stamping/rolling process. It's never supposed to be connected or welded. Even though it is definitely a weak point...
love yout video, greetings from France
This is true, the author of “Rough Forged” ,which is the definitive guide to g-41/43 rifles, discusses it in volume 2 and points out that it can be a wide as 3mm. With all of the stories about cracked k-43 receivers it’s a common misconception that the gap is a crack, so much so that I have seen “services” advertised to weld it.
Yes, it is, and that point tends to be where the cracks get worse - and they get worse over firing. I should have said weak point, rather than, crack, and I'm sure I'll be getting a lot of comments over this. LOL
You're french and a defeated force in WW2 and now by mass immigration from wakanda. You have zero credibility
That crack is made for smoking pervitin like a crack pipe
I hope you didn't took it in a wrong way, i didn't meant it as a reproche, just pointing it out. I'm not defending that piece of history, definitely not the best of design. I like your content, i have learn a lot thanks to it @@InrangeTv
One of the silly requirements was that it had to seamlessly convert to bolt action operation. Mauser said OK and Walther said f that BS.
I fell in love with this gun when I first experienced it playing 'Day of Defeat', a classic WW2 mod for half-life. I loved the concept of semi-auto 8mm and it was just such an amazing and fun gun... in the game. I think a lot of the mysticism and hype and emotional attachment people get is from experiencing the idea of a thing (rifle, tank, ship, airplane) via movies or gaming or other media, without ever learning the true history of the thing. Then, by the time they are excited enough to actual do the research and dig up the facts they are doing so with bias because they are trying to learn about 'their favorite X'. It takes a lot of effort to separate your emotional attachment to a thing from your factual knowledge of a thing and be able to admit that the thing you love is a piece of crap and the 'boring, common, lame, mass produced' competitor is actually demonstrably better. G43 vs Garand/SVT, Tiger/Panther vs Sherman, etc. Cool video though! Learned a lot! And for my semi-auto 8mm itch I scratch it with my Hakim.
Hakims are even more of a contraption in my experience lol. Why fork out the money for a g43 when you can get the same experience.
I love how nuts of a contraption the Hakim is. It's so fun to show people! Once you've done i a few times though the take-down is actually fairly easy and hassle free. You just need to be VERY mindful of the power behind that spring when its cocked. @@paulisfat8077
Bingo, you nailed it
This thing may indeed be, and is, a flawed design with poor qc and materials, but still, compared to a five-shot bolt-action Mauser, it's a big increase in capability, at least until you, and the rifle, get crushed by a T34 or blown to bits by Katyusha.
considering the GPMG is the main weapon of the german infantry, the men with rifles were there for security. it didn't make a huge difference.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 in theory, I'd agree with you. But when theory meets reality, reality allways wins. If I was a lander in 1944, it'd make me feel a whole lot better having one of these instead of my dad's rifle from the previous war.
I’m starting to understand why Germans picked up every PPSH-1 they found.
If any forced labor was involved in its manufacturing that didn't help either. Another example of deliberately avoiding the KISS Principle. The US 105 had 7 parts to the breach block. The equivilant German field piece had around 30.
The U.S 105 is a French gun.😅
@@TacticalEdPart of US simplicity is buying someone else's shit if it works.
@@CptJistuce Couldn't agree more!
If "scorched earth" was a rifle:
It's shooting itself to pieces, so zhere's nothing left for zhe enemy to capture.
Zhey/zhem? Why are you writing like this
@@GaiusCaligula234 because it's ZE GERMANS
@@redstar96gr57 I thought it's the feature of Russian speakers trying to voice English words...
Great video! Please do a comparison of various bolt-action rifles of WW2, and which one you would choose.
That loaded bolt carrier reminds me of the Swedish AG42b. Another gun that's very interesting to break down. Love your work.
Didn't the AG42 inspire the Egyptian semi-auto
@@mpetersen6 Egypt got the tooling and rights for the AG42,modified it to 8mm .
In a marginally more ideal world, the MAS 40 would've been issued in time to serve in the war, and the obvious superiority of this rifle would've led to some 'interesting' discourse in the community.
I’ve really enjoyed the recent trend from you and others of challenging the “mystique” of German WW2 designs vs their Allied counterparts. TheChieftan in particular has done wonders to clear the name of the Sherman which “historians” have traditionally dragged through the mud.
Except this trend created just as many bad new myths and stupid claims as they debunked.
Chieftains incomplete presentation of documents and quite frankly cherrypicking is pretty bad.
@@DD-qw4fzok sparkatron. Where is the link to your glorious RUclips channel where you present every document in a precise and interesting manner????
@@DD-qw4fz Compared to chieftain's well documented sources he's cited, a youtube comment is really less convincing than dirt.
@@LokiOdinson-fz8ps i dont compete, nor do i have to , chieftain repeated certain claims as hard facts only to be debunked with those same documents he used to make the claim in the first place. I am talking about the notorious claim of only 1400 sherman crewmen dying as some sort of proof of Sherman superiority. The same document clearly says it takes into consideration numbers of men only inside armored divisions, the issue is that means no officers or replacements (that werent part of armor) arent counted , this number also ignores the casualties of tank men inside infantry divisions that were in fact the majority of tanks deployed in the ETO by the US army.
@@alexisborden3191continue to be his wannabe groupie i dont care
Wehrmaboos are seething rn
Great video, Karl. Any chance we could get a" tour of Karls' guns "video? You seem to have a great collection. Just a thought.
My interest is in armored warfare in WW2, but I really enjoy your videos, particularly the armor plates you've shot. I can't find the test you had done with two plates spaced apart which shows how the rounds tumbled after going through the first plate. It was in fact a great scale modeling of the spaced armor used on many German tanks in WW2, I'd love to see it again if you could put it back up. Thanks very much!
11:45 Fair, but I feel we're not comparing apple to apple here. The en-bloc clip works wonderfully, *but* that is assuming the country issuing the Garand has the industrial capacity to ship its ammunition already in the clips (or at the very least, shipping lots of spare clips). It's dubious Germany in the later stage of the war would have wasted the resources in that endeavor, just like they stopped bothering to make spare mags.
With that particular view on things, the Garand becomes by far one of the *worst* rifle to be used. Without a clip, it is impossible to load a Garand (unless you turn it into a cumbersome single-shot). After firing your eighth round you'd have to find your one and only clip somewhere in the mud, reload it (which is a bit of a pain with gloves - can't imagine what it'd be under fire), then put it back in the rifle. EDIT: or stop firing after 7 rounds, then load clip while still in the gun. That would be by far the fastest way, if hilariously impractical.
Meanwhile any stripper-clip based rifle can be single loaded, no issue.
It might sound like a situational problem, however the Germans were *really* strapped for resources... and the US had the production to spare for millions and millions of en-block clips.
EDIT: to clarify, I'm not saying the G43 is better than the Garand. Not even *close*. I'm saying that the Garand has a crippling flaw that manifest if its issuing country can't provide enough en-bloc clips, which would have likely been the case for '43-'45 Germany.
I like to think that all of us interested in firearms once thought similar to how you describe at 0:19, Karl. I know that I once did when I was younger!
The irony of thinking some rare or esoteric firearm is somehow some Wunderwaffe several orders of magnitude better than more commonly available firearms is that most of the time, it's actually the polar opposite. If that particular rare or esoteric firearm were _really_ so great, then it would not be so rare and esoteric since people would have made tons of them--and this includes both licensed production and unlicensed knockoffs.
If a particular historic firearm is unusually rare, that usually means one or more of the following:
1. The country producing them collapsed, lost a war, or otherwise faced some major issue that interrupted production of those weapons. As we all know, this was a major issue for countries like Germany, Japan, Italy, Poland, and France during WWII--all of these nation were either knocked out of the conflict early and subjected to Axis occupation (the Nazis really didn't like anyone having guns but themselves, as it's a lot harder to perpetrate a genocide against a people who can shoot back at you), suffered heavy air attacks, or in the case of nations like Poland and the Netherlands, both. Hence any interesting firearms which Polish or Dutch inventors were working on shortly before WWII are likely to be rare, since any legal firearms production in those two nations during the German occupation would have been only producing weapons for the occupying forces, and they certainly weren't interested in oddball designs.
2. The weapon itself had some innovative technological features, but the overall platform was inferior in performance to existing contemporary weapons, or didn't offer enough of an improvement in performance (and likely came with several other drawbacks) to justify the extra expense and logistical headache of rearming and retraining the entirety of the armed forces... especially during wartime. This is why cool 'video game' service rifles like the AN-94, XM8, G11, and even the OICW were never adopted into service by any major military force or paramilitary organization--they simply didn't provide enough of an improvement over existing weapons systems to justify all their added drawbacks, which include cost.
3. The weapon itself was a complete turd that was seen as nigh-useless by people in that era, and the only reason why people nowadays are interested in it is because they saw that weapon featured in a video game where it clearly _didn't_ suck, since some of the reasons why a firearm may be mediocre in real life (poor ergonomics, weight, gritty, heavy triggers with lots of creep and poor reset) generally don't tend to be issues in video games, where your main concerns when selecting a firearm are usually its magazine capacity, damage output, and, of course, how cool it looks. Although that last factor also applies equally, if not more, in real life.
Nicely done, Karl. I never gave these much thought, but always liked the look of them. Yours is a very good looking gun, btw.
And - thank you! I've got a box of spare gun parts that I can't id, and it turns out one of them looks like the guide rod for that spring inside the recoil spring.
Wow, aside from length, SVT is much better. Easily Adjustable gas. Simple field strip. Though, the SVT break… it is so damn loud it flexes your chest.
But you see SVT is Soviet so it has to be worse than the German G43, or so the internet would have you believe.
Germans rated SVT higher than soviets did for some reason.
@@CKshouta The SVT did have significant flaws, those flaws are easier to overlook when the alternative (G43 or even worse G41) has even more flaws. There's also the good old "grass is greener on the other side".
@@zepetv589 A lot is probably consciously or subconsciously hyping up your enemy to make yourself look better for defeating them, see: pretty much any German aircraft that isn't the BF109E or maybe FW190A having underpowered engines compared to allied contemporaries, and the ME262 being better than allied fighters but not monumentally so. Or German tanks, there's so much of that with German tanks of WWII.
They did partially fix the muzzle brake by fielding a simpler, two chamber brake on later production SVT-40’s/AVT-40’s. The recoil was about 30% more than with the older brake, but at least now it wasn’t going to give the rest of your squad next to you tinnitus as quickly.
I read the title and started laughing out loud... So glad I'm in Home Office at the Moment :-p Greetings from Bavaria!
I love this deep dive videos. Keep up good work and making amazing videos.
While watching the video of Karl disassembling this crap-tastic priceless part of history on the bench in the middle of nowhere I'm constantly thinking to myself:
-"Dont loose that in the field !!!"
I've seen people use the detachable box magazine as an advantage over the M1 and its en bloc clips and I wonder if, in the situation that was WW2 at least, not really true. As Karl mentioned the G43 was issued with 3 mags in total and then you were down to stripper clips and the SVT didn't issue enough mags for its rifle either so at some point you were topping off with stripper clips. I don't think the M1 had that problem. The GI's always seemed to have bandoliers of clips and reloading the M1 didn't seem to be any slower than a box mag fed rifle either.
Yep detachable box magazines really only start to shine once you get higher round counts, otherwise it’s a wash between en bloc and boxes. Plus, 2 stripper clips vs. 1 8 round clip, which is better?
Add the fact that 8mm mauser is a spicy round and the benefits of semi-auto aren’t as pronounced over a good bolt gun like a Lee-Enfield. I mean it’s still better in theory because of the semi-auto but at least the Lee actually works. Should’ve gone the Soviet route and just given everyone and their mother a PPSh or PPS when the SVT didn’t pan out and just used Mosins and MGs for longer range engagements.
@@kraniumguythe German WWII disease was refusing to recognize the nature of the war until it was too late. They kept doing these weird little runs of different rifles, aircraft, tanks, etc when they should've been standardizing for mass production. The manufacturers and designers had too much influence
@@LOLHAMMER45678 actually the manufacturers and designers wanted standardization. it was the army, specifically the high command, that wanted a thousand different weapon niches.
The crack you are worried about is there from the factory… so much for that kokolores.
Yeah, I misspoke there, but I have had other ones crack in other locations. And there's a crack in this one you can't really see in the camera.
Thanks for the deep dive on the G43. Question: can't you have a forged and milled bolt carrier slide/receiver made for your G43?
I've been waiting for this video. Finally the information I needed. Because so far it was "it's overgassed and production standards were horrible", both were not really arguments agajnst the design itself, but against the execution of the design.
This video luckily goes into some interesting detail - problems with field stripping and the unreliable locking mechanism.
I would love to hear more about flapper lock failure potential. Is it an inherent design flaw of the lock itself, or simply the design of this specific one? What excatly made it possible to only half-lock? How could this be avoided other than going with better types of locking system? :P
Anyway, nobody was going to manufacture G43 also because most machines were gone, German industry was mostly gone, and there was an absolute abundance of already manufactured weapons. I think nobody mass-produced STG-44 post war. Nobody probably mass-produced MP-40 post war. Both were good weapons. But being a good weapon is one thing, and getting machines and manufacturing a gun in a dying-out caliber in the era of SKS, AK and more modern battle rifles? Well. not gonna happen.
also the locking lugs not being captive, not as easy as the m1 to reload from stripper clips, poor sights, and op-rod complexity leading to both being able to loose parts in the field and poor metallurgy that could mean the gun not working yeah "great design". Seriously the excuses for german engineering designs are laughable, yeah they also had substandard manufacturing and sabotage but overall designs were too complex to be quickly manufactured and work reliably in the field. Meanwhile Russian and American designs ultimately won the war. Proof is in who actually wins.
Surprisingly there is still a plant in Kyiv Ukraine manufacturing mp38s. Although the majority are made with built in BFAs
At least for the case of simpler weapons like bolt action rifles and submachine guns; most countries didn’t produce WWII-era SMG’s after WWII because they could effectively ask for them for pennies on the dollar from WWII-participating countries. The Soviet Union offloaded their PPsH-41 and PPsH-43’s to Eastern Bloc countries and Communist-sympathizing nations in the late 40’s and throughout the 50’s after standardizing on 7.62x39mm rifles, the US sold or donated Thompson’s, Grease Gun’s, and M1 carbines to Central American, South American, South Korean and Vietnamese governments up into the 60’s, and Czechoslovakia made profits by selling former Nazi German arms to anyone interested, most notably Israel.
"I think nobody mass-produced STG-44 post war. Nobody probably mass-produced MP-40 post war. Both were good weapons. But being a good weapon is one thing, and getting machines and manufacturing a gun in a dying-out caliber in the era of SKS, AK and more modern battle rifles? Well. not gonna happen."
I mean, with respect to the MP40, 9mmx19 isn't a cartridge that anyone could possible consider rare by even the wildest imagination. And both weapons weren't exactly the sort that was considered difficult to manufacture even by 1940s standards so that point I do not think is too valid.
One thing that should be kept in mind is how completely destroyed WW2 left many nations, and even those who weren't destroyed were faced with incredible burdens on their economy. It's quite hard to imagine anyone after seeing *those two bombs dropped* thinking of how to gear up their grunts for a potential future conflict. And by the time the Iron Curtain came about as more than just a politian's phrase, most weapons manufacturers had their eyes set on weapons for the standard issue NATO/Pact cartridges, at which point a rebirth of the StG44 in any noticeable capacity was off the board(though not for the MP40; but the Uzi quickly became a budget choice for a lot of nations and a decade later theMP5 would become more or less the gold standard for SMGs).
One more thing I've thought alot about is that some credibility could be lend to the idea that most nations considered themselves victors after WW2, hence why go ahead and copy weapon designs off of the enemy?* The US thought that their infantry small arms were, in the grand scheme of things, superior to the Axis and only sought to reproduce/learn from the MG42 and FG42. The French/Brits are and were still both to prideful to admit that we Germans had something over them; and it took them decades after the war to come to terms with that but only because their dying empires(+NATO integration) left them with little choice in the matter. It's actually the Soviets, who, inspite of their lying and best-sweep-everything-mildly-inconvenient-under-the-rug, learned the most from WW2. They had many more run-ins with the StG44 and thus quickly realized just what kind of new tool they were dealing with, leading to them, in my humble opinion, correctly assessing that kind of rifle to be the best possible blueprint for the average infantryman of the future. Of course they didn't want to copy the weapon 1 for 1 still, so in the end Kalashnikov's design became their new service rifle, killing the SKS in the process.
@@theduckfu Not as easy to reload from stripper clips is a moot point since the rifle was designed to be mainly reloaded via changing the magazine.
Magazines not being available is not a problem of the design. It's the problem of German WW 2 logistics and small arms production being in absolute deep manure for a large part of the war.
Being able to top off via stripper clips is a nice way to keep the magazine full when not under a direct threat, but we shouldn't be judging the reload speed based off it. Yes, it's discussed in the video, but video kinda talks about all the flaws. Both design and execution.
And "losing flaps" - they are fairly big parts not going anywhere. I would consider that a minor problem compared to spring loaded grenade and the risk of half-locking.
But russian designs were pretty bad. Mosin, hearing loss Mosin, DP-28? Ppshz was a decent gun, design partially stolen from Finland. SVT was not manufactured because it was more.economically viable to just lose way more soldiers than to equip the meat waves with better guns.
USSR had decent tank designs, however, they were flawed as hell, and v. good artillery - but again, Germany couldn't really upgrade their artillery due to lack of production capability. Soviet aircraft were mediocre for most of the war.
Production won the war. Even if US manufactured horrible weapons (they mostly didn't) they would have won anyway. Switch places, give Germany P-51 and P-47 and Sherman and they are losing by a landslide, with plane production absolutely plummeting due to complexity (ever wondered why US could just manufacture gigantic P-47 like it's nothing and German frontline fighter planes were basically half its weight, ever thought about the level of precision that P-51 wings and radiator required?), and damn, Germany couldn't even manufacture good enough oil and fuel to get enough power from their aircraft engines. US installed stabilizers on every medium tank even though many crews did not even know how to use it. They had gyro gunsights in abundance, while Germany could field maybe a few hundred. Etc. Etc.
The spring-loaded bolt assembly was by design. When you ran out of stripper clips and mags you had one shot left
Good heads-up for shooters looking for collectible rifles so they know what they might be getting into. Thanks, Karl.
The most interesting thing about both the SVT-40 and the Gewehr 43 is that even though their design is more reminiscent of more modern rifles (gas system on top, detachable magazine, flapper locks or tilting bolt), the M1 Garand was superior in execution. Primarily, due to its sights and the lack of need for manufacturing magazines, which at the time was more expensive and time consuming than simple en bloc clips.
Comparatively, the M1s derivatives are really just broadly the same design but scaled down and revised in the gas system (M1 Carbine, M14, Mini 14), and of course, the AK.
Where as, the SVT-40 and the FAL are mechanically basically the same principles, same locking system and same type and style of gas piston. The flapper system of the Gewehr 43 is far less common, but it shares this system (sort of) with degtyarev machine guns and a few other systems, but more improtantly influencing or being influenced by roller systems, and the gas system, of course, is derived from the Tokarev rifle.
That maybe due to the fact that M1 Garand was about 10 years older and thus a more developed rifle than the SVT-40 and G-43 in terms of polish. So it being superior execution is the least that would be expected there. However, M1 garand and its M-14 successor was a rifle that was based on an outdated “howitzer-style” 19th century concept of infantry level combat.
Wonderful critique!
Still on my bucket list.
But what isn't?🤣
Keep up the great work!
Excellent video sir and great info. I can only imagine the price of these probably north of 5000.00 I can imagine most are being dusted on a wall lol
god the fieldstripping is atrocious! how did that ever get adopted?!
Because it was 1943 and the Germans were desperate. We have to judge the rifle's reliability and features with its peers and not compare them to modern rifles. For its time and compared to its peers like the Zh-29, SVT, Garand, G-41 it was the middle of the pack.
@@samzeng159 even compared to other german weapons of the time it was atrocious...
Yeah agreed. complicated and poorly executed. The SVT family are not all that reliable or accurate compared to the M1 but at the very least very simple to maintain
@@samzeng159 SVT was likely easier to make too, considering there are 400,000 of these things and around 1,600,000 of the SVT-38 and 40 in total.
This is impossible! German weapons were millions of years ahead of their time! The Tiger tank was entirely invulnerable to anything short of the wrath of God! The MG42 could shoot 11 million target-seeking explosive bullets every half-second!
No no. Only 5.5 million seekers, the 11 million is for the unguided tac-nukes!
I’d love to see you review a SAFN49 and run it at matches.
How does it compare with the Garand? (I prefer it aesthetically)
Mud test?
All the good stuff to you InRangeTV
Flawed design and sabotage from forced labor, what could go wrong?
Funny enough they thought about making the G43 with roller lock, not delay blowback, same Tokarev gas system with roller lock instead of the flapper, but they found out that the bolt bounces back and discovered the delay blowback possibility, which went to the Stg-45, which should solve both Stg-43 and G43 flaws, but it was too late, even tho that design went further.
Also, you should do one about the Stg-43, which was also a deeply flawed gun made from another design that wasn't as well developed like the G41 and G43, the Mkzb-42 was partially made to be open bolt, so that exposed mechanism wouldn't be a problem since it was hidden in the gun, the close bolt was a proof of concept that works better but still had the same bolt and charging handle, that weren't made to be that exposed in the opening, the sights were over the stamped metal, that doesn't hold zero as well, even for a gun with a 300m effective range, still not good enough, it has two selectors, one for safety and the other for semi and full, the mags were too bulky and wasn't optimized to be used in extreme temperatures since the entire gun besides the buttstock was made in stamped metal.
Underrated.
"If it's rare, it's probably junk." Yes, that's why they're fun to own.
Brazil made a nearly exact copy after the war, in 30-06, the M954
You might have touched on that the action has no cover to keep mud and dust from the bolt, which simply rode over the dirt, to action stopping effect, that had gotten on the outside of the action.
Feel more home than ever here now, vid title in German!
Danke, Karl!
Before watching the video, I wonder if I remember it correctly that the chief issue with it is that it essentially shoots itself to pieces after prolonged use? Much less refined that its direct US rival, even though it does have some features in favour of the Garand, mainly detachable box magazine and +2 capacity.
What was the average service use expected before being lost or captured?
@@mpetersen6 Don't know the exact number, but generally considered short enough for the mechanical fragility to not be an important factor for that time being.
@@CrazyChemistPL
If so it's not really poor manufactuing. Lousy design though.
I wonder just how many rounds were put through the average rifle during WWll
Great video, Karl. Really makes you appreciate a well designed rifle when you see a poorly designed one like this taken apart. I'd rather have a nice bolt gun than a fragile tin junker like this.
I always thought those guns where decent, now it looks more like an attempt to get a semi auto as fast as possible to the frontline even if it's a flawed design. I wonder if there where plans to replace it with a excellent semiauto rifle in late war or if they would just go full semi automatic with the StG44 as standard instead.
This video really highlights how “right” the final design of the m1 Garand was. Nothing really rivaled it until the mid 50’s. Could maybe make a case for the FN49 but 🤷🏻♂️
It's unfortunate too because they had the opportunity to make the M1 design even better by using the T65 cartr8dge and box magazines essentially making an equivalent to the M14 in WW2
AR-10?
AR-10 rivaled it I mean?
Actually there was not A G41, there were two. The G41M(auser) and G41W(alther). The Mauser version complied with all the ridiculous requirements, the Walther did not. And the Walther was adopted at the end.
The problem with this design is, it was made in a short time period and there was no time getting the flaws rectified. The Garand design started in the 1920s, had several changes over time until its final version was adopted. The Garand from 1936 was also a gas trap system. Was changed directly before adopting it. The first Garand design of 1924 that was sent in for trials was primer activated.
Truly the ancestor of the L85A1
Huh?
@@kiwigrunt330 The SVT40 action copied to the G43 was also copied into the AR18, which was bullpuppified to make the SA80 family, which had issues, lots of issues.
SA80 included the L85 "individual weapon," L86 "light support weapon" and various attempts at an L22 carbine, plus the "rifle, 5.56 mm, cadet general purpose L98A1" that didn't have this gas mechanism, had a different charging handle to facilitate manual cycling and, hilariously, was a more reliable weapon than the military rifle as a result!
Parts getting lost, springs yeeting themselves, stamped sheet metal bodywork deforming in use, bits falling off and so on plagued the early L85.
@@SableagleJesus can we ban Britain from maming military hardware already ? Seriously from armored vehicles to rifles, they just can't make it
@@lapantony look man, they had their bright ideas, it's just that they got too busy being nationalists when it comes to producing stuff.
The last time any British nationalist idea turning into a successful design was a civilian supermini. And even that sort of was short-lived.
(yes british fanboys i do not count your fancy mg rovers after the metro, that stuff was all bmw-funded)
Dear Santa. Please do not bring me a G43 next christmas.
Any more "Wild West" historical stories coming up? I really enjoy them. Greetings from South Africa!
I've always had an idea of a fantasy bolt action rifle that takes the mannlicher 1888 wedge locking action, rotate it 90°, and have one on the other side giving it symmetrical locking. The system in this gewehr 43 looks eerily similar to my idea, however I am still convinced that my locking system would be vastly superior to this in reliability at the cost of a heavy and bulky receiver.
Great video. I had no idea how cheap the bolt and receiver are.
The ending is like a review of myself. Very inspirational 😂.
I'll be honest I don't shoot mine as much because I hate taking the bolt apart and putting it back lol
The charging handle is on the left though!!👏💪
G43 was a stop gap solution. The no drilling of gas port persisted as a criteria for a semi auto main battle full powered rifle. However Mauser didnt figure out the solution to this problem until very late in the war. The rifle that was meant to really be an official wehrmacht semi auto was Gerät 08 which was a further development of Gerät 07 which was a further development of gerät 03. So what did the Gerät 08 looked like you might ask? Well there are no known pictures I could find but it was a Copy of STG 45 in 8mm mauser and with a select fire option the rifle used the famous delayed blowback system and 20 round mags that can be seen on Gerät 03. The Mauser company came to a conclusion that delayed blowback was the most reliable and economically sound systems for the wehrmacht as the whole army tried to standardize as much as possible. Basically this is why stg 45, G45, mg 45 and Fg 45 used the same system. You can see a similar effort for the german Armor under the Entwicklung program.
why was it not allowed to drill a gas port?
@@sliceofbread2611 Drilling of gas ports in the barrel is a more precise and industrially tedious thing to do and if you tap a gas port u need A gas piston tube or a direct impingement tube next to the rifle. This just requires more man hours to do, more machining time etc.plus the maintenance takes longer in the field as u have 2 separate tubes that are prone to fouling especially when cheap corrosive ammo is used and of course cas tubes also wear out and need replacement in time. This issue is not existent with blowback operated firearms, you just aim your WD40 into the barrel and spray out the gunk lol. And yeah last thing rollerdelayed blowback is better when ammo quality is low and you use steel case.
Would to see a zf4 video man. Have one laying on my desk I'd love to see mounted on something!
Norwegian Kar98K-F2 Zf41
ruclips.net/video/L-iNasbalZ4/видео.html
Das ist gut, Karl.
Back when they held SOS in July during Covid my dream came true. Went there intent on buying an SVT came home with an AC44 G43 made in November. Bought it off an 85 year old man who’s owned it since the 60’s.
I remember in the first Q&A posted on this channel that you actually said the G43 was better than the SVT40. What changed your opinion?
Use. The G43 does handle better. Both are crap, honestly.
I can’t wait to watch this. I want to learn more about the Gewer and why it’s not a heralded piece. The one in this thumbnail
Is gorgeous
Only 30 rounds with 3 magazines? I suspect that G-43 riflemen worked hard at scrounging every spare mag they could find.
This is quite a difficult concept for people to grasp, rare does not mean good. In fact, rarity is usually synonymous with crap.
It depends on why something is rare. Diamonds are because nature did not produce many. Some high end cars are because production numbers are kept deliberatly low. Some high end cameras are because the company has a limited capacity and makes more money with the mid-level systems (Example of old where Canon 1Dx vs 5Dx series - the 1s are better but the customer base for the 5s was much larger)
Yeah. Those Mauser sniper rifles like my BNZ single claw. So rare...so crappy.
@@mbr5742 there are a lot of diamonds. Diamonds are rare because De Beers restricts the supply.
TY-Karl , ; I saw that rear receiver piece with 3 holes in close triangular , too thin, too cheap, yeah I see how cracks, and self destruct would occur . I bet they had to set up a Zelt bahn , with floor to do dis-assembly/cleaning, or any thing more that a wipe down..Shitzen gewhere 'd that piece go!
My dad got one of these as payment for mowing an old guy's lawn in the early 1980's as a teenager. Instead of using cash, the old timer paid with a qve45 K43 with a refinished stock and a 1960 Marlin 336 Texan. I've shot the K43 once as a kid and the handguard flew off because there was no front barrel band or barrel band spring. Cool gun though. I oughtta get a new stock one of these days to make it look all period-correct.
It is a fascinating little niche, both the G41/G43 and the US M1 both started life with another operating system, and you can still see the remnants in the M1 with how far forward it's gas port was, and both rifles had weird restrictions on them, like not being able to have moving parts on top of the barrel requiring weird dog-leg operating rods which could cause problems (Resolved on the G43). The two rifles have very similar design stories written in them, yet the M1 ended up being so good, and the G43 ended up being so... mediocre? I'd still rather have it than a Kar98, but it's a pretty close thing...
The M1 Garand is the best self-loading rifle of World War 2. The Soviet SVT-40 is second best, but it's a distant second. The German Gewehr 43 is third best, but it's a really distant third.
The only problem I have with the Garand is the magazine. Just 8 rounds (2 less then the SVT and G43 but still 3 more then the K98K or Arisaka) and not detachable.
@@herodes8770 Agreed, that's the main issue. But every Garand was issued with sufficient en-bloc clips, whereas if you had one on the other two, you'd be lucky to get a few magazines, and the rest of your ammunition would be in stripper clips.
Karl, I know you're not a fan of the M1 Carbine, but in this case, do you think you'd prefer that over the Gewehr 43? (I know the M1 Garand is far more reliable/durable than either).
She may be flawed, but darn does she look good.
Source for the after market gas system?
I wonder how hard it would be to use a CNC machine to make a receiver cover. Probably expensive.
Despite all the issues...god its an attractive looking rifle design. Despite the built in hand grenade
I see a video filled to the brim with buyer’s remorse
Is it known how much its cost was in relative terms compared to other weapons in service at the time? Because since it was not expected to last for a long time its shortcomings at that particular moment in history I believe are of little relevance.
Keep putting our videos on firearms deep diving/targeting sacred cows. This vid reminds me of the one you did a good while back targeting the sacred cow about how Last Ditch Arisaka’s were garbage, when they were perfectly functional rifles for a country that had to continue making weapons while getting regularly combed.
I find it kinda unfair to compare this with the m1 garand. Yes this is not a good rifle but this was made by a country that was first heavily redtricted by the versailles treaty and then went straight into war. The m1 garand is a peace time design with all the time and Ressources needed to get to a good design.
When my parents' neighbor was young his uncle was a captain in the US Army in Europe during WWII and sent a K43 home to him. Not being interested in firearms he just hung it on the wall and never fired it. In the mid 90's he gave it to me and I can absolutely agree with everything Karl said in this video. The machining was crude at best and while it did function it was so over gassed it would throw the brass 20 or 30 feet away and felt like it was beating itself to death. I only fired it that one time and it became just a war trophy after that.
I love bs stories.
In my opinion, based on my extremely limited experience, the only advantage thing that U/V notch sights have over Aperture sights is that it is much easier to clear snow out of them.
Another exemption of the rule - besides the FG42 - is the WA2000 bullpup sniperrifle. Its only issues were cost and limited field strip ability.😅
That’s too bad, I really want one of these rifles. They don’t come up very often around here and I’ve only ever seen 2 in person. I guess if I ever do buy one, it’ll be a wall piece and not a shooter. However, thank you for showing the areas to look out for, let’s me know what to look for if I ever do find another one for sale.
6:25 to 9:48. Just imagine if your hands are oily, covered in gun solvent or something. I bet it's gonna be a pain in the ass just to get that "bolt hand grenade" piece back together.
If I understand correctly adding the mechanical bits that allow semi or bolt action mode increased the complexity of manufacturing in such a way that it's got more failure points
how many rounds is not a very long tine?
10:34 The safety flying off isnt a flaw its a feature. It's the gun's way of telling you its no longer "safe"
Could you put a piece of rubber in the back of dust cover to help reduce the impact of the bolt carrier?