Your first time...!

[S.A. Boggs]

All this talk on auto's reminded me of the first full auto I shot, my buddies Mac-10. Held onto the front strap and pulled the trigger, what a let down. I could have done better at hitting the target with a slingshot! Blew my brass into a bunch of scrap, the Uzi on full auto will do the same to the brass. Now the MP-40 was fun to shoot, not too accurate compared to a 1928. I have found that just about any open bolt will play havoc with the brass. I see that an MP-40 9MM pistol is in country, IMHO unless a person can SBR just a heavy waster of ammo.
Sam

[bruce]

First (and so far only) time I shot some full-auto guns ... it was a blast! I was firing a nice .308 heavy barrel rifle ... shooting 10 shot strings w/ various handloads seeing what was the smallest average group I could produce. Wonderful rifle.

About that time a many pulls up, drives his car out of the parking lot and up behind the benches (not supposed to do that sort of thing) and parks. Opens the trunk and out comes a Browning .30 aircooled w/ WWII era tripod, a AK-47 and a M-16. Since the range was at that point clear, we went down and set up some targets. I put up paper. He set out milk jugs of ice. Put some on out beyond the 100 yd. line. When the range went hot, he started blasting and I went back to shooting till I was out of ammo.

About the time I was loading my stuff up, that gentleman held the AK-47 out and asked if I'd like to shoot it. All of a sudden I didn't need to load the car. Enjoyed getting to shoot the Ak ... which was not so impressive as I'd expected. Out to 50 yds., it'd do real well. Not hard to get hits on FA, in spite of the face that at that point that was the first rifle I'd ever fired on FA. At 100 yds. the jugs were hittable of FA ... but it took some fiddling. Beyond that ... it was hit or miss. The M-16 was just easy to use. Hits were not hard on FA at any distance even on a bit beyond 100 yds. Very easy to control. Easy to shoot good bursts. The Browning .30 was outstanding. He had a belt of M-2 that he had not fired. He showed me how to load the gun. Then all I can say is J.M.B. really knew how to come up with a very good .30 machine gun! It was very easy to get it to run well. It was easy to get good down range results on the metal plates, etc. Fellow would not let me pay him for the ammunition. Even decent M-2 was affordable back then. I bought 400 rd. cans of Korean PS-75 stamped M-2 for $80/delivered. Still, that man let me shoot probably $40-50 of ammunition in his guns. It was a real hoot! Sincerely. bruce.

[Allen]

I had the same experience with the Mac-10. I don't think it had a selector-it was either full auto or nothing. The climb was bad. I shot several M-16's with the 3 round burst-some fired 3, some 2, some just 1. They were all Bushmasters. I shot a Thompson 1928. They are heavy little guns so I was amazed at how badly it climbed considering the 45acp isn't very potent. The most controllable F/A I have shot has been an M2 carbine. I believe I could write my name with it if I had a 200 round magazine or one of those "never ending" Hollywood magazines.

[ray55classic]

My first was a 1928A1 Thompson . If you want controllable full auto try an Hk MP5 you can write your name with one of them

[DarylBruce]

1964 Ft Knox M3 "Grease Gun"

[S.A. Boggs]

1964 Ft Knox M3 "Grease Gun"
Lucky Dog!
Sam

[Marty T.]

Place where I worked in my late teens and early twenties (1980ish) made parts for the military. One was a "blank firing attachment" for the M60 machine gun that restricted the gas in the barrel to make it function as if firing live rounds. Had to have a government inspector come and pull so many boxes and then so many parts out of the boxes for testing. I got to fire an entire box of belted blank rounds holding an M60 to my shoulder. Boss told me to pull the trigger and not let off till it stopped. WHAT A BLAST!! We were on top of a three story building.You could hear that thing all over town.

[aintright]

Shot a Uzi on a walk through course , no targets were more than 15-20 yds , most closer . It was very manageable and accurate . Shot a Lowell , not sure I spelled that right , Ruger 10/22 supressed , that was a very fun toy . M-60 was good , S&W 76 with a red dot was very nice to shoot and manageable . American 180 was one bad ass 22 , wish I had had the money to spring on that one . Ma Duece was a sweet piece . M-16 I thought was great to handle in full auto and a very accurate shooter . Sten is a fun gun and used to be very affordable , not worth what they bring now . Also fired a AK variant that was belt fed , can't remember the name of it right now , it was very manageable from a prone position .
And one magazine of a full auto Shotgun , that was a hoot , videoed a friend firing it , he dumped the mag and it was funny as hell watching his hair vibrate with the gun .
Kenneth

[blackhawknj]

M-60 machine gun. In Combat. Not that fond of full auto myself, like setting off a string of firecrackers, makes a satisfying noise, not much else. The effectiveness of full auto fire is, as Mark Twain might say "greatly exaggerated".

[RED]

I bought a registered M-16A1 in 1988 and paid $1,050 + the $200 tax. for a total of $1,250. I actually had to finance the purchase through the credit union because I couldn't come up with that much in cash. At the time I was the President of the local county gun club and many of the older members hee-hawed at my stupidity.

Some time in 2001(???), I read the Small Arms review article about the Vector Arms Uzi's


http://www.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=2867

I showed the article to my son and urged him to invest the $2,995. At the time I thought it was a slam dunk investment and it was. We went to the Knob Creek shoot the next year and he went for the next 3 years and had a hoot. He paid the $200 tax and I gifted the M-16 to him 2005. When Obama was elected with a majority in Congress I suggested that he sell the NFA guns because I believed they would soon be outlawed. He sold both guns to a NFA dealer in Joplin MO. The check for $29,623 didn't bounce and turned out to be at least a fair investment. $5445 investment and a $29,623 return...

[RED]

M-60 machine gun. In Combat. Not that fond of full auto myself, like setting off a string of firecrackers, makes a satisfying noise, not much else. The effectiveness of full auto fire is, as Mark Twain might say "greatly exaggerated".

Sorry, but the Las Vegas shooter puts the end to that myth. Go back to Waco... The Davidians, were raided because they supposedly had some illegal machine guns... in particular a couple of Browning M1919A6 belt feds. Either they didn't have them or didn't know how to use them effectively when the feds came rolling down that one lane drive. Those two guns firing enfilade could have killed all the 75 FBI agents with ease.

The guy in LV, took a laser range finder and calculated aim points mathematically on paper. Machine guns used correctly have killed untold numbers of soldiers in both WWI and WWII and countless other wars. They weren't used like the MG's in the movies and like they are often used in today's combat. Spray and pray... not effective. Enfilade, defilade, and grazing fire are legitimate and effective tactics.

Just my $.02.

[bonnie]

..1970 at Ft Jackson, SC. We were doing night fire training with the M16A1. The whole long firing line was banging away from foxholes, it was pitch black dark, and I thought no one would know who did it. I pushed the selector all the way over and pulled the trigger. A short burst went off and I was immediately dragged out of my foxhole by Drill Sergeant Custer. He screamed at me for a few moments then pushed me back in. Must have been standing right behind me.

Still brings a smile to my face these many years later.

[p246]

STEN gun MkII, will shoot anything you feed it in 9mm, leave the brass on the ground as it's junk. Could not hit much with it.

Colt Commando, neat little rifle and accurate, drop the 9mm magazine on the ground and get the bullet fountain everytime.

Several M16s in both three round burst and full squirt. Accurate ran for the most part.

AK47 ran very well a hoot to shoot, the only one I shot was not very accurate.

MP5 my favorite full autogun fun to shoot accurate and would run all day.

Reising surprisingly accurate the one I shot ran without a hic cup.

UZI same as above observations, ran fine, destroyed brass, okay accuracy.

M249, ran fine for me with live ammo, but my son who carried both a M249 and M240 on deployments was not fond of the M249

[blackhawknj]

At Mandalay Bay-as at the Pulse Nightclub-it was like shooting fish in a barrel-a dry barrel.
In WWII the Soviets issued large number of PPSh M1941s and PPS M1943s-easy to manufacture, easier to train conscript troops on, and the short range encouraged the close combat the Germans disliked.

[Major Tom]

M14 with selector switch on full auto. Talk about no control! Also M60. Loved that weapon but it was heavy.

[Clark Howard]

The advisor to our high school gun club, (Imagine that, now!) was a police sergeant. He would bring the dept's 1928 Thompson to the range on Saturday. He begged the local National Guard unit for ammo. We had all the 30-06 AP and 45 ACP we could shoot. I fired many thousands of rounds through the Thompson. It was lots of fun, but nothing like the M2HB I fired a few years later. I have served with some highly skilled M-60 shooters, but my fav full auto is the fixed stock MP-5. For anything but a combat assault, I still prefer an Ithaca 37. Regards, Clark

[Liam]

In the Army I shot the M16A1 until in Germany we had to turn them in for the newer M16A2 (w/ 3-rnd burst), M3 Grease Gun which were issued to our track drivers, M60 and the M2 .50 cal. I hate to say how much taxpayer dollars were wasted by me in the field and at the ranges.

[Vern Humphrey]

My experience is that submachine guns are not really very good combat weapons -- you have something as heavy as a rifle, but can only shoot pistol ammo in it. Their primary advantage is that they can be made cheaply with simple manufacturing techniques and used to arm masses of poorly-trained troops.