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Posted: 9/30/2002 8:55:53 AM EDT
| Hi there, please excuse my ignorance on this matter but I was thinking about this the other night..So hear me out.. Here's my thought: The first assault rifle, the MP-44, which I believe the Soviets copied and made the AK...? Why hasn't someone made a (now post ban...maybe in another year or so) semi auto copy of this very historical rifle? This way, we all can own one without the 7-10,000 price tag? Plus BATF paper work..etc. I personally have seen maybe a half dozen of these rifles either in museums, or at the Hiriam Maxim shoot...Would there be interest in some company making "copy" of this rifle in lets say 7.62X39? This would make ammo easy to purchase vs the actual ammo (7.62X30?)that currently sells for some ridiculously high price.... What are other people's thoughts about this...? Thanks! |
| Some say that the M1 Carbine was the first assault rifle. Better to say the M2.Which came out near the end of the war.But Im like you it would be nice to see a 44 reproduced. Thinking it would be kinda cheap being it made of stamping and welds for the most part. WD |
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Valmet (a Finnish firm) made a copy of the AK in 7.62 x 39, and in 5.56 x 45. These seem to have gone the way of the dodo bird. I did see one in the early eighties. Ejected brass flew about 20 feet. I thought the German Sturmgewehr (airborne troops) had the first assault rifle. Have to check my Small Arms of the World when I get home. |
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Just for the record, Mikhael Kalashnikov would punch you out if he heard you call his baby in any way connected to the MP43/STG44 series. He has always maintained that he was working on his weapon, and that the 7.62x39 designers were developing the cartridge, long before they ever heard of or saw the German weapon and cartridge. In the absence of any info to the contrary, I'm willing to take his word for it  Re someone bringing out a semi auto version of the STG----why? It's ugly, it's clumsy, and the few thousand collector/enthusiasts who might be willing to buy one would make such a limited production run that you'd probably have to pay thousands of bucks for the piece anyway. The only way I could see it being economically feasible would be if a cache of several thousand of the things were found, and all that was necessary to build new was a semi auto reciever. That might work. If you don't count the fact that it fired the full power 7.92x57 cartridge, then the FG42 would be the first "assault rifle". If the use of a reduced power cartridge is part of your definition though, the STG is the first one. Our M1 carbine would have been the first if the original specs, which called for select fire capability, had been followed. However, the Pentagon pencil pushers dropped the requirement during the test phase. |
| See, now everyone is getting all technical on me... he. I'm sorry, but those two rifles look an awful lot alike. And yes it won't be exact, but that's the point..if it was exact, it wouldn't be affordable...but anyway Thanks guys! |
What about the Russian 1916 Fedorov? Full auto, 6.5 Japanese rather than the "full power" 7.62x54R  I will agree that the M2 Carbine is/was the first US "assault rifle" The BAR shoots full power .30-06 & the Thompson shoots pistol ammo. How does .30 carbine compare to the original 7.92x33 Kurtz? |
The name of the assault rifle is actually Sturmgewehr, rather than the troops. I don't recall the name of the german airborne at the moment. SturmTroupe maybe? Sturmgewehr in german sturm is storm and gewehr is rifle. |
| the german paratroops were "fallschirmjaegers" (literally "falling umbrella hunters" or "Parachute hunters") The FG in FG42 stood for "fallschirmjaeger gewehr" or "paratrooper rile". 42 was for the year of adoption, 1942. It was basically a MG38 or '42 modified to take 20 round box mags |
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