Deactivated mg34

[Koenig]

Looking for early deact mg34 with removable barrel or ability to remove barrel sleeve from receiver. Please pm if you can help. Thanks

[pepperpot]

where are you?

[Koenig]

Sorry, in the UK.

[pepperpot]

Looking for early deac mg34 with removable barrel or ability to remove barrel sleeve from receiver.

assuming you can find one to your requirements it will set you back at least £2500.00 and they are very rare. I have one that does fully strip, but its not for sale. MG 34's and 42's are really scare now that the market from the Russian salt mine has dried up. non strippables are about £1700.00 look on milweb having said that this web page has some for sale which are less that my figures above http://www.amasupply.co.uk/shop.php search mg34 go to page 2
graham

[Koenig]

Thanks for that.

[sniperK98]

As a tip, I wouldn't go for a 'dot' coded example. The earlier war the year you can get, the rarer and much more desirable these ones are, so look for those! Often 'dot' examples can be Israeli or Portugese contract and never used in WW2, even though they're WW2 dated!

[Stefan1944]

Dear SniperK98,

that's an interesting comment you make about wartime dot MG34s' being produced for Israeli and Portuguese contracts.

Would Germany have had capacity and resources mid / late war to produce armaments for other nations when they were under so much pressure and in a state of "Total War" as they were starting to lose?

Also, my understanding is Israel only came into existence after the British partition of Palestine in May 1948.

Have you any evidence for your comment please as I've certainly not heard of that before and am very happy to be further educated....

[Pug42]

There was a Portuguese contract of around 1,000 MG34s with unique transit cases (the ones seen around with Metralhadora M/944 stencilled on the sides) that were supplied early in the war - these all came onto the market in the 1980s onwards. These were manufactured by "dot", but all the Portuguese contract guns had additional stamping on the top cover "Konstruction Rheinmetall Borsig", who were the contract suppliers (the contract included lots of accessories for each gun, ammo cans and drums, and a quantity of lafettes).

Israeli usage was from captured and surplus procured after the war, mainly from Czech sources (where a lot of the factories were after all!). These usually have a six-pointed star stamped on them, and the 'chicken stamps' are often obliterated, but not always. If you see an MG34 with a strange bren-like bipod, it will almost certainly be an Israeli example!

Whilst it is true that collectors value early war examples more, and lesser manufacturers (due to rarity), a normally stamped "dot" example is in no way either Portuguese or Israeli without any supporting evidence!

PS for a removable barrel, you need to find a pre 1988 deact as it wasn't allowed after that.

[Stefan1944]

Hi Dave, thanks for your response and detailed explanation on the dot MG34 queries which is much appreciated....

[sniperK98]

Yes I didn't mean all dot codes were either of the contracts, just that if you don't know what to look for then there's a chance you could end up with one. The Portugese ones you have to be careful with, because I've seen a couple and they've had their top covers changed, and re stamped to match!

As a rule of thumb, get the earliest you can, or one of the other more desirable makers, BUT some dot guns (dated 1941/42) are quite nice and aren't part of either of the aforementioned contracts. Again, not to say all later dot guns are, they made a heck of a lot of them there!