Volkssturmgewehr VG 2
- Thread starter Dosing
- Start date
The fact that it has a cleaning rod is also very interesting. At this point even the K98k wasn't being equipped with one.
Possible! I can't make out a slot on it like the typical k98k cleaning rod and the end appears rounded. Wouldn't that be interesting if you had to push back on that to pop the empty out.Who's to say it's not the extractor, ejector ?
Grizz
Nope. If a bolt action accepts a G43 mag, that is not the same if a G43 happens to take a mag uniquely designed for a bolt action or pistol. The G/K43 guns were designed BEFORE the VG-2 rifle, which came out in 1944.
Our laws suck. Honestly, WW2 stuff should be exempt from the mag rules anyhow, similar to things like the Bren drum mag or the Luger trommelmag.
In other news, if I had a blueprint of that rifle, I bet I could make it. It does not look that complicated. The receiver flats are pretty basic, I think I could machine the stamping dies and bend the parts in a hydraulic arbor press.
Hardest part would be finding a G43 mag for under $500 - lol.
Hardest part would be finding a G43 mag for under $500 - lol.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
When I was a kid I had a pop gun that had disturbingly similar architecture. Desperate times...
Now I'd love to see a build of one of these. I wonder if there are blueprints out there somewhere?
Had a look in W. Darrin Weaver's "Desperate Measures". The rod under the barrel is probably a stacking rod. Not a cleaning rod. These rifles were primarily made at a Spreewerke plant in occupied Czechoslovakia, and possibly in Danzig. The front sight hood isn't a hood. The front sight housing is a metal pressing, with a separate blade, riveted to the barrel. In the course of researching his book, he was able to locate thirty odd specimens. Most disappeared into the meat grinder of the Eastern Front.
From the standpoint of making a VG repro, a VK98 would be the easiest. For a scratch built project, the VG1 would likely be easier than a VG2. Usually the barrels for the 1 and 2 were ex-Luftwaffe machine gun barrels.
None of the purpose built VG weapons really amounted to much. Too little, too late. Mannlicher Carcanos and Panzerfausts were the most common Volkssturm weapons.
From the standpoint of making a VG repro, a VK98 would be the easiest. For a scratch built project, the VG1 would likely be easier than a VG2. Usually the barrels for the 1 and 2 were ex-Luftwaffe machine gun barrels.
None of the purpose built VG weapons really amounted to much. Too little, too late. Mannlicher Carcanos and Panzerfausts were the most common Volkssturm weapons.
A little off tangent, but that reminds me of stumbling across a Volkssturm cemetery in the Arnsberger Wald, Nord-Rhein Westphalen on the German day of remembrance.
There was a brass bound book open on a pedestal in the covered rotunda with the names of the interred and I asked my German wife to translate the preamble. It said that most of the buried had fallen elsewhere and been relocated there after the war. They were largely the very old and the very young.
It went on to say that it was doubly tragic that they had died in the final days of a war that had already been lost long before.
All of a sudden I became very conscious of my military haircut and the Canadian Army Europe plates on my VW, and I respectfully left as German families placed flowers at grave markers.
There was a brass bound book open on a pedestal in the covered rotunda with the names of the interred and I asked my German wife to translate the preamble. It said that most of the buried had fallen elsewhere and been relocated there after the war. They were largely the very old and the very young.
It went on to say that it was doubly tragic that they had died in the final days of a war that had already been lost long before.
All of a sudden I became very conscious of my military haircut and the Canadian Army Europe plates on my VW, and I respectfully left as German families placed flowers at grave markers.
Ah! Good info. Thanks for posting that.
IIRC, and its been 30 years, sooooo. There was a small monument in the woods a couple hundred metres from CFB Badens back gate, which I thought was dedicated to Volksstrum members gunned down by one of thier own when they decided enough was enough and they were going home. I distinctly remember the two things, but maybe I am putting them together incorrectly.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
Sad place to be, Sharps. So damn much pointless sacrifice for a cause long since lost, with Hitler ranting in the bunker about the "lack of will" of the German people. What an abject tool he was.
Here's the kind of propaganda crap they were pulling so late in the game:
Frau Mueller, plopped in a grubby trench with some exasperated vet. "Then you flip up the rear sight like this. Is any of this getting through, lady?" She's wondering how soon she can GTF out of here and go home to a cup of Ersatzkaffee and some nice sawdust bread.
The whole Volkssturm movement was unbelievably morally bankrupt. Kids and old men, FFS. A very sad thing, and one more evil act perpetrated by a government handed too much control. There's a lesson in there.
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My dad was 14 when he was conscripted into the Volksturm. He deserted and made it home shortly before the war ended. If the SS or the Feldpolizei would have caught him,they would have hung him from the nearest tree. He told me that he saw quite a few "traitors" rotting in trees with signs on their chests describing them as such.....
So rough that yo ucould be considered a "traitor" for refusing to become a child soldier with questionable last-ditch weaponry - most of that stuff looked like you could not trust it to go bang every time. Not terribly confidence-insiring.
