Browning M1919 30 Caliber Machinegun

[jimseery]

Ran dow the "American Rifleman" article today. Essentially the stinger was an ANM2 tail gun from a SBD divebomber. Initially the Marines on Guadalcanal stripped them because they weren't happy with the 1919a4s portability or rate of fire. The ANM2 only weighed 23 lbs, the same as a BREN and only 5 lbs heavier than the BAR, and had a ROF of 1350 rpm. By the time of Iwo Jima it had evolved into this. www.ww22incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?p=90717. As far as I can tell from the article only six were made to this configuration. One was used by a CPL named Stein to with the Medal of Honor. As I said I want one.

[jimseery]

Apologies. It's www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?p=907117

[Tough Ombre]

That one doesnt work either
-Cary

[jimseery]

I'm gonna try one more time. www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?p98717

[Tough Ombre]

lol nothing
-Cary

[jimseery]

O.K. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I suspect the thread is titled Stinger and the picture was posted by Savoy. I only have so much patience with myself and computors and it's running out. When i run this from the address bar all I get is a heading if anybody has advice I'm listening. Again my apologies!

[Tough Ombre]

lol its alright.
-Cary

[jimseery]

Since I can't make the picture appear I can tell you how I found it. Googled "anm2 stinger machine gun" which gave me, among others, USMC "Stinger" GPMG WW2inColor talk. The picture is half way down the page. This is the picutre that is in the "American Rifleman" article. It is a fully functioning replica made for the movie "Flags of our Fathers". The footage of it and CPL Stein didn't make the final cut.

[red0leader]

i have gotten my tax return in whole and have now purchased a 1919a4 prebuilt for delivery to me. now my only question is: would a p90 v6 gear box mount well in the gun instead of a v2?

[killbucket]

You would have to measure the centerline of the barrel down. Our Browning has the centerline 2 inches from the bottom, like the real steel.

[Tough Ombre]

Here, i found this picture. I saw it alot so its probably the same one jim is talkin about.

i157.photobucket.com/albums/t50/airbornenoncom502/stinger.jpg
-Cary

[2nd Bat]

That's pretty badass looking. I like it alot. The handle is reversed from what you typically see but for operation while firing from the hip would make sense. The ventilated ammo tray looks interesting as well as does the different ventilation pattern on the barrel. I'm assuming in an aircraft the vents wouldn't need to be as large.

[Tough Ombre]

ya. they had two of these mounted on the tail of a sbd dautless ( i believe) and they fired arounf 1300 RPM as stated above. I was watching a show and they had a jap pilot that took a round from one of these guns straight through the head.. and lived to talk about it.. actually he bacame one of japans highest aces.... and was in the IJAF for years after the war.
-Cary

[jimseery]

M14riflemaan - Thanks a lot. For a while I thought I was seeing things. It really is a nasty looking critter isn't it. I have a copy of the article from the April 06 American Rifleman and after reading it the differences between the anm2 and the 1919a4 make sense. It has to be light weight because in a plane weight is critical, it needs a high rate of fire because air engagements happen at high speed and cooling is not an issue when you're a couple of thousand feet up with a 200+ mph breeze blowing by.
I wonder how hard it would be to stuff an M14 in one of Killbuckets toys?

[killbucket]

Just waiting for the AGM MP0008 M14 in black to arrive UPS this week. We will have the answer shortly thereafter. Unless it takes a major hack job, we will add this conversion.

The Stinger is just plain cool. Gigantic is good.

[savoy6]

chuck over at GA airsoft,( a huge WW2 USMC fan) is planning on making one of these as well.the AMN2 had a thinner walled set of side plates and a lighter weight bolt that helped with the rate of fire...

[killbucket]

Got the M14 last nite.

This will make a nice conversion if the guts will fit. The barrel is nice and long, too.
Got it all charged up, this morning I found out that if you wind the mag fully, it can empty itself without more winding. well, except for those in the drive stack anyway. I got the AGM gun
www.airsoft1.com/DE-Airsoft-Electric-Sniper-Rifle-Black-p/mp008b.htm,
Cheap enough to run the dog out of!
A very nice touch is, the mag has one of those 3mm hex-key(a METAL winder key is included) holes that makes a servo easy to set up. This will fit better inside the smaller ammo can shown above as well. You just need to put a 4mm hex-socket screw into the servo output, and use a short length of metric allen key for a driveshaft. Don't forget a blob of lubricant on the shaft ends.

Now looking for drawings of the parts assembly of the M14. Don't want to muck up the parts taking them apart.

[killbucket]

Tearing down an M14 as we write tonite. (Poetry unintentional)


I will do five brand-new, Tiger-striped guns. I will number and sign them, and provide certificate of provenance and other goodies to be determined, it will be a finished package with matching tiger'd tripod as well.

[killbucket]

Got the M14 apart.
The good news is it will make a great base gun for the Browning 1919 and the M2.
The bad news is some point of no return is involved. The AGM M14 is about 1/2" too wide to go smoothly into the housing. The outer top body parts are partially structural, serving to fix the barrel and hop into place. There is a lower casting that is the mag mount and gearbox support. Both are pot-metal, both were easy to cut with a hacksaw. It was compromise the donor or the recipient. Donor-boy lost.
I'll post pics of the carnage later. They are still in the Samsung and need re-sizing.

Is it too much to ask a customer to orphan the stock and a few other bits? I really liked the M14. I say "liked" because it isn't going back together without JB weld and a few prayers.

The fact that this will become a very capable 1919A4, doesn't diminish the fact that I just sawed into a three-day-old M14 Springfield that I really liked. I'll order another, this time with the scope and pod.

I'll custom-paint the stock that I have here so I can just drop in the guts when the new gun comes.
The AGM M14 is really that good. A nice shooter right out of the box.
You can actually aim at stuff with it, rather than having to walk pellets to the target.
Those who are willing to sacrifice a $119 MPEG will have a respectable LMG that can pick off targets, rather than sandblast them.

...er...Bead-Blast?

[killbucket]

Safety lever will be removed, trigger sawn off.
The motor will be barely visible below the finished gun.
For now, it looks like ammo feed has to come in from the bottom
This gun is like the PSG-1; the spring re-compresses after each shot. So it would be pointless to have a single-fire mode so you can "decompress" it at the end of the day.

A little plate will hold the gun in auto-fire mode permanently. The gun will be triggered with a microswitch. This will make the installation MUCH simpler, and of course, I will pass this savings on to the customer.

[killbucket]

This is a done deal, it works fantastic. The Browning is a tack-driver with these parts. It thinks it's a sniper rifle now!
If only it wouldn't look so stupid to have a red dot optic on this. It can use one now!
The barrel is as solid as a rock, and there is no need to play with the hopup install or anything to make things work. All the parts fit like they were meant to be there.
Effective immediately, all guns to be shipped will have this configuration. We will no longer make the parts for installing the MP40 internals. If you have one of these already, drop us a line at the site, and we will arrange for your gun to have retrofit parts.
Hey, the M14 is even $10 cheaper!

[2nd Bat]

Killbucket,

I got my M1919A4 and it looks great. Your kit is terrific. Every bit as cool as I had hoped. The tripod, the materials for the gun itself and the whole kit and kabuttle is awesome. You've done a great job. I'll look forward to getting the retro stuff for the M-14 and the other things we talked about as I knew the M-14 would probably work and would be a much better foundational base weapon. I've added a little bit of weight to the housing since it is obviously way too light but it certainly seems plenty robust enough in terms of being solid enough for skirmishing.

I am going to do a second one as an M1919A6 (Bipod, removable stock and barrel handle) I actually think this is a variant you'd sell alot of. It was popular with airborne units. The muzzle cone apprently wasn't configured on the guns until Korea so that'll save some production costs. I'll post some pictures when it's all done.

[valtteri]

You get one that's got M14 system and an easy way to put up a feed, I'll place an order immediately.

[killbucket]

We will have the ammo feed system ready today.
2ndBat-PM sent.
It will use the M14's 450rnd hicap (available at Airsplat.com for $6.95!) and a servo. It will be sold as a separate accessory (because it will have other applications), consisting of a mount that fits inside any ammo can. It is actually very simple; the M14 has a 3mm mag winder keyhole. This makes it simple to add a servo drive using a short section of 3mm allen key and a 4mm socket-head screw, which is threaded into the servo output shaft.
The mag will be connected to the hopup using a 5/16" steel spring that serves as the tube for feeding bb's.
A simple plate screwed into the magwell replaces the mag at the gun.
Clear instructions on how to modify the servo (very simple to do, taking less than five minutes) for continuous rotation are included.
I will have pics of this ready by Monday.

[CharleyNovember]

So you have went from an MP40 mechbox that totally fits inside the .30 to an M14 mech that "barely" sticks out the bottom? I understand it has a longer barrrel and all but...The part sticking out the bottom takes something away from it visually don't you think?

[killbucket]

#1: The performance of the M14 puts the MP40 to absolute shame.
The MP40 gearbox, hopunit, and barrel all needed mountings that had to be precisely assembled for everything to align properly. The M14 has everything in a nice aligned unit, and mountings are drastically simplified.

Actually, no parts of the M14 will be visible, as the side mount plates at the rear of a 1919 have tabs that just happen to be in the right place!
When I was mocking this up, I didn't take them into account.
They are not on the gun in the pic below. You can see how much of the superstructure is visible.

The MP40 box fits inside a 1919 quite well. It's the barrel and hopup that are the letdown. They would cause most to look for something better to improve performance.
I just couldn't ask my customers to hack into more than one gun to make their 1919A's come alive.

All future tripods will have a transit bar in place. The components for them are in the layouts now being shipped. It will be a 1" diameter bar, as are the legs.

The tripod is not available separately...yet.
I'm wrestling with the fact that so many other craftmen are doing this item such justice.
A real tripod can cost more than a parts kit for a 1919. Nobody wanted tripods for so long, a lot of them never made it to the surplus market. They got..."De-Milled"...(shudder).
So a real tripod that hasn't been welded back together from pieces is, in itself, a desired item. You won't see one in a surplus store covered with dust unless it is WAY overpriced.
And, if somebody's just looking for a tripod, they usually have a REAL gun nearby. While I have confidence in our design, human nature can be another thing. We will establish a load rating for our design.
Many pics to follow later today.


Field-servicability is important, I've worked out a tool-less installation of the M14 parts.

It will be possible to have more than one chassis set up, you could skirmish it with a stock or mild setup, and in two minutes swap in a high-performance, trigger-happy "cartridge" for recreational use.

Damn. Now I have to order TWO more M14's. I better get a Xmas card from airsoft1.com....

[CharleyNovember]

Well there ya go with the explanation and pictures it sure makes sense now.

[killbucket]

details, details:

The lockplate is included.
Important for the white rod it is hooked to, be fully forward first (this is the single/auto fire control, forward holds the gun in "blaze-away" mode.), then push the trigger lever into position and screw the lockplate down using an existing screw/hole (The black countersunk screw went invisible in the photo).
With this installed, the gun fires continuously when power is applied to the stock battery connector and harness (NO wiring to do!).
The M14's original battery hooks to a custom harness and microswitch assembly (supplied) that supplies power when the trigger is pulled. The trigger can now have a realistic up-and-down motion, just like the original!
A tiny toggle switch turns the gun on and off, and is the safety as well.

The rear mount hole will go over a stud on the trigger plate (photos coming) and have a wing nut to secure it in place. Then you just slide this into the body. Two 2" aluminum pins go through the smaller holes seen in the trunnion to hold the barrel in place. Likewise, two more aluminum pins going through the rear receiver are to locate the trigger plate/rear grip assembly (again, pics to come).

Again, a HUGE thank-You to everone, Your support and encouragements made this happen.

[2nd Bat]

I can't wait to get the adapter items to install my M-14 components and get my bad boy functional. It shoots okay in the MP40 configuration but I know in the MG role the M-14 is going to be the better way to go. Especially with a mild upgrade.

[Tough Ombre]

The DE m14 shoots very fast too, infact, my mag doesnt keep up w/ the speed at which it fires. So thats a great thing for the mg role too. It seems the UTG i think it is, has a way slower rate of fire.
-Cary