Comments by "geodkyt" (@geodkyt) on "Q&A 54: Machine Gun Questions w/ Msgt. (Ret) John Keene" video.

I would say one "machinegun" that shouldn't be under the NFA - M2 Carbine marked receivers without the M2 full auto parts kit. After all, the M2 (in a mechanical sense) doesn't really exist - it's just an M1 semiautomatic carbine with a drop in "machinegun conversion kit", and like AR15 RDIAS and HK registered sears, should be considered a Title I firearm that has a Title II "firearm" (the conversion parts) dropped in. And declaring a specific component of the M2 full auto parts to be the "receiver" of a "machinegun conversion kit", while removing the carbine receiver itself from NFA control would be consistent with the Vollmer case over some HK rifles with registered sears. (Vollmer installed the registered sears, then figured since they had "machineguns", they could go ahead and restore the rifle receivers to original selective fire configuration. ATF said, "No, because the receiver is now a 'machinegun receiver', so you now have two 'machineguns' in one gun and only one of them is registered. Note that ATF was absolutely correct , statutory speaking. So Vollmer restored the receivers back to the original ATF-approved Title I configuration, leaving the registered sears in place. ATF then invoked the "once a machinegun, always a machinegun" and said that all of the converted receivers were still unregistered machinegun receivers. The court ruled that ATF was insane - since the receivers had been restored to be identical to legal semiautos, ATF's position on "once a machinegun,.always a machinegun" was absurd and legally unsupportable. Unsurprisingly, and exactly as they did for years with the T/C Contender carbine/pistol kit ruling, ATF refuses to admit this case has any precedential application.)
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@Jezus42 I've literally never met a machinegun collector who didn't want the Registry reopened to new guns (or the NFA scrapped entirely), despite the hit it would cause their "investments". But then, I've never spent any time around around the kind of machinegun "collector" who Peter Kokalis described as, "You could sell them guns without firing pins, and they'd never know the difference, because they don't ever shoot the guns, and bought them as pure investment properties.")
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@mp3545 ATF's position has never been legally supportable - particularly when they've been consistently interpreting "readily restored" to mean, "if an expert can readily convert a legal Title I firearm into a machinegun", which is an utterly contradictory position. If something is mechanically identical to an otherwise legal Title I firearm, there is no statutory or legal authority to declare it will always be a "machinegun". And Congress was explicit enough the NFA that they knew how to differentiate between "things that eternally remain X" versus "things that can be changed from one category to another" when they specified that a short gun made from a shotgun or rifle would remain a shotgun or rifle- merely a "short barreled" one. They could have done that with machinegun receivers if they intended to
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@ReverendMeat51 Yup. "Readily restored" should mean (even if you accept the weak argument that Congress was too stupid to know the difference between "restored" and "converted", even though they have routinely used both words distinctly for at least 100 years) "easier to convert to full auto than making a brand new machinegun reciever would be"... and I can make a functioning machinegun reciever with a vice, handheld electric drill, and a Dremel from common steel tubing in under an hour (not only do it suck at machining and go really slowly, but that's for proper functioning and a completed stripped receiver. To merely make one to a standard where ATF would throw me in prison for being "close enough" would take me about 15 minutes). As Tamara Keel says, "They sell 80% Sten gun recievers on aisle 12 at Lowes."
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The M60 had (IMNSHO) a few shortcomings, compared to some of the other ".30-ish" GPMGs out there. And two of the biggest were pointed out. 1. As stated, there was no reason to design the gas system so it can be assembled backwards (I believe they fixed that in versions after my service). 2. It's definately not as robust as many other MGs... OTOH, it did reduce the weight noticeably. Yes, we can build even lighter today with longer service life, but for the 1950s it was a reasonable tradeoff, given materials science and production engineering of the period. 3. There is NO excuse for having a quick change barrel gun where all the zero sight adjustments are on the rear sight on the reciever. The '60 should be zeroed from the front sight, so that both barrels can be zeroed to the same gun (another thing I believe was at least partially fixed in later iterations). In fact, one could "factory zero" ALL the barrels to a common fixture, and thus they would have a consistent zero to any receiver - whatever zeroing adjustments the gunner would make for one barrel would apply to all barrels. 4. God preserve me from bipod and gas systems hung on the detatchabke barrel. Make the majority of the gas system mass fixed to the receiver, and fix the bipod to the gas system, so a "spare barrel" means only the spare barrel. That saves weight on the crew. And I know everyone who addresses the M60 mentions this, LOL.
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Keep in lind the Sten magazine is a straight copy of the MP28 magazine. But MP28 mags work , and Sten mags are the weak point in the gun (well, aside from the travesty that is the MkIII - We Speak Not Its Name in Polite Company 😄 ). Why? One tiny flaw in the manufacturing process; Germany properly heat treated the mag lips and Britain didn't. That tiny difference (which is absolutely undetectable on an external examination) made all the difference. You can use the exact same alloy, and the exact same dimensions, and still make buggy parts if the heat treating is off. Likewise, you can use the exact same dimensions and heat treating, but use a slightly different (but normally considered "equivalent") alloy and end up with improper hear treating and buggy parts, because the two alloys have slightly different heat treating characteristics. Reverse engineering replacement parts can get VERY expensive, especially for stamped parts, when you're doing small batches. (For example, it basically costs the same to set up a proper stamping die whether you're planning on making 1 part or thousands of that part... which means that if the die is slightly off, all of that tooling cost was wasted... if it costs you $10,000 per tooling set, and you go through 10 iterations before you get it right so it works properly, and you're only making 100 parts, that's $1000 in sunk tooling costs per part , exclusive of labor, materials, or any other cost.) Hand made "one off" replacements for original components are going to be VERY expensive, and rarely work nearly as well (or as long) as the OEM parts. And one tiny mistake can screw things up completely.
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@МихайлоРостов Burden of proof is on you, for making claims that contradict the published record of his actual statements. I did look it up - all I found were Reddit claims of people who claimed to have read something, but they never provided links. Which directly contradicted what Alex had publicly published. That's merely "hearsay" and "rumors" until some actual evidence is produced that he did, in fact, say those things you claim. NOTE - I have no dog in this fight. I barely read his stuff when he was on TFB because I thought it wavered between banal and fanboi. If you have proof, provide it - but whether or not he did say that won't affect my life in the slightest, as Alex simply isn't someone I ever think about unless someone else brings him up.
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@vitoscaletta7151 Well, aside from those of us who had a love/hate relationship with them. LOL I loved the Pig... when I didn't have a clapped out old cow, and wasn't carrying the spare barrel. Of course, at the time, I didn't have a lot of experience with some of the other options out there the Army could have been using... 😎
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@88porpoise The M60 makes more sense anytime you have to carry the gun dismounted farther than a few hundred meters. Which occurs with depressing regularity, even in a world where we have nearly universal use of intermediate caliber assault rifles and squad LMGs, even in mechanized units. And in the light infantry, it doesn't occur "with regularity" - having to hunp the GPMG everywhere the platoon goes is what light fighters call, "Tuesday". And they did end up improving the M60 quite a bit, reducing the total "crew weight" while increasing durability. In fact, most of the problems guys had with the original M60 were solved in the M60E1 (which never went into production, but moved the carrying handle to the barrel so you didn't need an oven mitt or spare t-shirt to change barrels, changed the top.cover so.you could close the feed tray with the bolt in either forward or rear position, and moved the bipod and gas from being part of the barrel assembly to being part of the receiver assembly -cutting down the total "crew weight" because you only had to carry spare barrels, not spare barrels, bipods, and gas systems). Note the M60E1 was developed in the 1960s , and ended up being the baseline for the lightweight M60E3 development 15 years later.) We ended up with the M240 as a ground gun in the US via a back door. The M240 was adopted for the Abrams (having proved in testing the most reliable vehicular gun available, even more than the M60E2 variant in the latest M60 tanks). After a large portion of the 105mm M1 fleet had been replaced with the 120mm M1A1 and the older M1s put into depot storage as "replacement war stocks", the Marine Corps decided they needed to replace their worn out Vietnam vintage M60 GPMGs, but they didn't want to spend the money. So they raided the stored M1 Abrams in the depots for their guns and added the ground gun conversion kit, calling the vehicular guns retrofitted to ground roles the M240G. (Note: the Marines never paid to replace the guns they had swiped from Army stores, because that would have defeated the purpose of, "Let's get some machineguns practically free!") The Ranger Batts (Rangers never being terribly adverse to humping more weight) decided to jump on the M240 wagon, as it was more.reliable than the Vietnam era M60s, sturdier than the 1980s lightened M60E3 the SEALs had adopted, and about the same price as buying new M60s (which, aside from the lightened M60E3s that were already having sustained fire issues, were not on major procurement contracts the Rangers could piggyback off for a volume discount, considering the Rangers were paying with unit "discretionary" funds). When the Army held a 1994-1995 trial for a GPMG as an "upgrade" program, the manufacturer entered the M60E4 (eventually adopted as the Mk43 Model by the SEALs to replace the M60E3), which was, like the M60E3, maximized for lightweight, not durability and reliability. The M240 was therefor adopted as the new standard. Of course, the Pentagon and Administration were also figuring we weren't going to have to fight any "real" wars ever again, as the Cold War was over - the emphasis of military planning and procurement was heavily slanted towards peacekeeping operations, short duration "expeditionary" operations, and other "Operations Other Than War" (OOTW), which meant they didn't anticipate long patrols (this is also when the Army again gutted light infantry and long range dismounted patrolling; this is the point where I hung up my BDUs after eight years as a light infantryman, so I was a witness to the shift of emphasis between the Cold War mindset of Desert Storm and the peacekeeper mindset of Bosnia).
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@МихайлоРостов You mean the Alex C, who repeatedly said he wants 922(o) to go away, or even have the NFA repealed, but he doesn't think it is a realistic hope, because politicians won't risk the wrath of Suzy Soccermom who thinks that even reopening the Registry would mean unregistered machineguns in vending machines in the schoolyard?!? Look, I happen to agree with him, and I think the NFA as a whole is Constitutionally questionable at best . Does that mean I would oppose reopening the Registry, simply because I don't think it is a realistic goal, (short of the super long shot of SCOTUS literally ruling that Congress can either reopening the Registry and accept the taxes, or they can deal with post-May guns being legally uncontrolled by NFA, as Congress lacks the authority to outright ban an entire class of firearm)? Being pessimistic about the political likelihood of a particular policy preference becoming law is not the same as advocating or desiring the opposite policy preference. It sinply means one isn't willing to starve to death waiting for the unicorn ice cream to fall from the sky. There's a lot of stuff the government does that I don't think they should, and would like to see reversed... but I also accept that the odds of getting my way are roughly the same as the odds on that flying unicorn sundae dropping gently into my hands. That doesn't mean I hate ice cream.
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@МихайлоРостов Sorry - have you got a direct link to him saying so (not a link to a Reddit comment where someone alleges he says so)? Because he's on record, published contemporaneously, as consistently saying the opposite of what you claim.
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@vitoscaletta7151 They also balance really well when being carried on patrol, due to the "semi-bullpup" layout with a bunch of the working bits in the rear - sliding the bipod back to the gas cylinder would improve the balance even more. The ROF is, in my opinion, excellent for a GPMG in dismounted infantry use. And shooting an M60 is rather relaxing, like getting a shoulder massage. Unfortunately, the White "self regulating" gas system is a failed concept that "works" about as well as the Blish lock- i.e., it really doesn't work as envisioned and intended at all... by the time the gas piston has moved far enough to "cut off" any excess gas, the gas system has already depressurized close to ambient because the bullet is long gone from the barrel before the bits have moved any appreciable distance. So the M60 is woefully undergassed and belt lift suffers because the mechanism is underpowered. (This also has a lot to do with why it is so pleasant to shoot - the reciprocating parts are moving just fast enough to work under normal conditions. Which is cool, but I'd rather design my MGs for adverse conditions, and trade some harsher felt recoil for more reliability.)
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@wd4scz579 In 1975 the Army actually tested, adopted, and put out a purchase order for the M60E2 as a coaxial gun for the M60 tank series, to replace the M219 (a rebranded M73). It was the cancellation of that purchase order in favor of the MAG58 (M240) before the new order guns could be delivered that Maremont was protesting in 1975-1976 in the infamous white paper that most people reference when comparing M60 and M240 relaibility. I liked the cost analysis that was done to try and make thr M60E2 look better by assessing the higher capability of fire of the MAG58 as a negative by assuming more than twice the ammunition consumption in combat, thus war stocks of 7.62x51mm for coax MGs would have to more than double (even though the MAG58 doesn't quite fire twice as fast as an M60 even when the gas regulator is on max... I guess they were assuming the M60s would be down in firefights more often than the MAG58 - after all, you ain't using any ammo when you're broken or jammed! 😆 ) The M60 certainly is a "limited service life" MG (but that's why it was as light as it was in the 1950s), but it's great (compared to its contemporaries) to carry, has an almost ideal ROF for a dismounted GPMG, and was far superior as an infantry gun to its predecessor (the M1919A6). And, almost all of the serious issues were corrected (some quite early on, even if the Army never adopted those changes and the SEALs only adopted them in the 1980s when they got the 'E3), leaving only the White patent gas system as a serious flaw (good God, Army.Ordnance was all about the White gas system in the 1950s like Furrer and toggle locks, or the eternal German fascination with gas delayed blowback no matter how many times those various obsessions prove themselves inherently inferior).
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