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Posted: 1/19/2002 3:24:34 PM EDT
[#1]
Must be a hungry little bastard.......
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Posted: 1/19/2002 9:42:04 PM EDT
[#2]
SAW stands for Squad Automatic Weapon there have been many over the years.
I am assuming you mean the current FN Minimi M240 This is a belt fed gun and those magazines are just a box that sticks into the magazine well and actually holds the belted ammo. There is no 200rnd drum. No drum at all. They will also fire with std. stick magazine or Beta C type 100rnd drum. |
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Posted: 1/19/2002 9:57:56 PM EDT
[#3]
Since you're getting technical, its actually the M249, and those DRUMS go in a bracket on the underside of the gun, not in the mag. well. There are four types of linked ammo carriers for the weapon: The 200 round box plastic type, the 200 round soft bag, the older, round-shaped 200-round soft bag, and the 100-round soft "assault" pack. |
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Posted: 1/19/2002 11:53:52 PM EDT
[#4]
Yes, it was a 249, sorry, I thought I mentioned that in the post.
As far as the definition of 'drum', I realize the function of a M249. It was a green plastic 'box', I suppose that it would technically be a beltbox, but figured it was a minor point. Anyhoo, the point of my thread was that I am happy that I got to handle the thing drum or no drum... |
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Posted: 1/20/2002 3:16:32 AM EDT
[#5]
It is a greedy little bastard. Will absolutely gobble up a two hundred round drum very quickly. I carried one for awhile in Desert Shield before switching over to an M203. We were doing trench line clearing and I had to lay down suppressive fire on a bunker till the grenade tossing grunt could get close enough to lob it in. Had it been a manned bunker, his ass would have been smoked. We were about 75 to 80 yards away and that little 249 absolutely drilled the firing hole. It was great until it slammed one in the chamber and it go no bang anymore. The only draw back to the M249, they did not work very well at all in the Sandbox.
My NG unit has got three brand new ones and I can't wait to get my meathooks on one of them!!!!!!!! |
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Posted: 1/20/2002 6:35:58 AM EDT
[#6]
HKocher,
I've got a Makita 12" circular SAW I'll sell you cheap.  (Sorry, couldn't help myself  )
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Posted: 1/20/2002 7:45:34 AM EDT
[#7]
I carried one for a bit...it's a fun weapon. |
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Posted: 1/20/2002 12:10:26 PM EDT
[#8]
Heehee. 
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Posted: 1/20/2002 12:14:57 PM EDT
[#9]
I was a S.A.W gunner for a while.
Biggest hunk of garbage ever made. We had a 90% malfunction rate at the S.A.W. range at Ft. Ord. |
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Posted: 1/20/2002 12:23:26 PM EDT
[#10]
I believe this is a fine weapon system, but only if:
1. its brand new out of the box; 2. its used in excellent field conditions; 3. you employ it in bursts of 29 to 32 rounds. Otherwise its full of "fatal flaws". |
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Posted: 1/20/2002 1:02:04 PM EDT
[#11]
I carried the SAW for quite a while, and I never had any "Fatal" problems with it. What are you basing these claims it doesnt work on? How many malfunctions over a period of time? Did you check your ammo to make sure it was linked properly before you fired it? The pieces dont magically break or malfunction. Was your weapon clean? Every drum of ammo I've come across has had mislinked rounds. All it takes is to push the round forward so the link sits on the rim of the case. That is what causes all these problems that everyone claims makes it so bad. People spread rumors about this weapon and than others adapt it as there own experience and opinion of the weapon. This is a fine weapon and I would not mind carrying it again in the future. |
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Posted: 1/20/2002 4:43:24 PM EDT
[#12]
I wouldn't mind having both, an M249 (FN Minimi) and an M240 (FN MAG58); but I don't think it is one of those things I have to worry about.
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Posted: 1/20/2002 4:58:56 PM EDT
[#13]
I think it really depends on when the weapon in question was made. I had one in Germany in the late 80s that was fine...but one of the guns in my company arms room was one of the mid-80s first issue guns. I remember it well. FN hadn't plugged the chamber and muzzle before applying the Parkerizing solution, resulting in a run of fucked-up barrels. It also didn't feed worth a shit with the 30rd mags. The later guns didn't have that problem...at least not one I carried. I think we forget sometimes that a belt-feed is a different breed of cat from an automatic rifle, and it requires attention to detail in maintenance. They don't always get it, either. QS |
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Posted: 1/20/2002 11:32:14 PM EDT
[#14]
 -Troy |
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Posted: 1/20/2002 11:43:47 PM EDT
[#15]
Ours are pretty iffy as well,but everyone in the Army thinks the SAW is the greatest thing ever, "80% of a squads firepower" "squads most casualty producing weapon" bs and so on. They aren't real reliable, don't feed from a mag,(and if they did one would last,what,a second or two?). When your SAW gunners are 20 or 21 yr. old kids who don't give a shit about firearms, they are some quick rusting,fouling hiding POS. Loaded with the 200 rounder they run about 22-23 lbs. I just don't get the point of a 23lb. .22. Just glad to be a grenadier instead.
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Posted: 1/21/2002 2:16:16 AM EDT
[#16]
Time and again I get to handle and fire one. Last time was at MOUT/CQB training. It's great fun firing full auto etc, but when you have to haul it around jumping in and out of ditches, climbing over walls, fences, through windows etc it becomes one cumbersome SOB. For the houseclearing I opted to use mags instead of the box as S.O.P. overhere is that the Minimi is the backup for the FNC guy who gets the honour of entering the room etc. As you only fire small bursts, the mags are usefull, but you need to carry a sh#tload in order to get through a number of houses. You have to keep track of the number of bursts you fired and make intermediate reloads. But it's much more easier crawling through some small opening if you use a mag. For some reason we don't have the Beta's overhere (probably budgettary ones).
Other way we use it in CQB is with having a belt of about 50 to 70 rounds dangling off and keeping the rest ready for use in the small buttpack on your LBE harnass. All in all a fun gun, but it needs proper maintenance. Never had any real problems with it. C-2-6  |
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Posted: 1/21/2002 3:26:43 AM EDT
[#17]
David_Hineline
The M249 was the first weapon that was classified as a SAW, prior to that the US military had machine-guns and automatic rifles. The SAW was suppose to bridge the gap between the two classes of weapons. The M249 is an alright weapon with ball or tracer rounds while feed via the belt, they are plain crap with blanks. The magazine feed option really doesn't work well with the M16 magazine. There is a trick of grabbing the magazine and pulling back on the front bottom, it seems to improve the function. Back in 1994 the Marine Corps tested a SAW specific magazine, it was a black plastic magazine with a much more powerful spring. The testers said that the lack of reliability with the magazine went away. However the magazine was less than reliable with the M16. Since the magazine feed is an emergency option and SAW gunners should not be firing magazine after magazine of his own magazines. It didn't make sense to field a SAW magazine. |
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Posted: 1/21/2002 4:17:56 AM EDT
[#18]
The biggest problem with the M249 is that the feeder pawls and cartridge guides are'nt maintained/replaced when worn. Take an M249 that has feeding problems replace those parts and their springs, soak it in CLP and it'll run fine. On the down side since there are only 1 or 2 fully transferable ones and semi's are $8500 I don't think we are going to have to worry about it too much.
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Posted: 1/21/2002 5:39:24 AM EDT
[#19]
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Posted: 1/21/2002 1:55:22 PM EDT
[#20]
I've been told that there were no transferables. I never checked the dates, when was the M249 first manufactured? I've only heard of few pre-86 dealer samples even. But I'm not an expert on the matter. I would assume a transferable would be well over $100K. As far as a semi, I would be interested, but have never heard of such a beast, yet. Do tell more... Ponyboy, have I told you lately that I hate you??? Lucky bastard.
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Posted: 1/22/2002 1:24:32 AM EDT
[#21]
We were tought to fire in 10-12 round burst with the SAW,switch barels after each 200 round drum.
My Platoon Seargeant was in Somolia or someplace and had seen the effect a SAW can have on the human body and he said it wasnt nice. The only problem with the SAW is that it seems to be a brass cruncher always pulling broken shell out of'em,it fires from an open bolt. The M240 golf is the shit no matter how its configured its a bad dude man. Now I have a Question for you guys who were in the service.We had old SAWS and they were Fabriqe Nationale "FN" how ever you spell it,Well my second training cycle we had new SAWS and they said on the Reciever HR and the serial.Do you guys know what HR is?Im thinking maybe Harrington and Richardson but i dont know it was just TWO letters HR and the serial. |
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Posted: 1/22/2002 3:26:37 AM EDT
[#22]
HKocher there may well be no fully transferable SAW's this discussion came up over on subguns last week and that was their conclusion, that there was 1-2 at most, and yes their guess on price was over 100K. I think Ohio Ord is making the semi? One of the Ord's anyway. Ponyboy that's a fairly old pic, as the buttstock and barrel modifications were made in '91-'92.
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Posted: 1/22/2002 5:19:28 AM EDT
[#23]
HR would be harrington and richardson. I also came across a few m16 that were made by them.
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Posted: 1/22/2002 5:44:50 AM EDT
[#24]
Man, I wish my unit would get the SPW version. Looks a lot lighter and less cumbersome. On the other hand I got no reason to bitch. I love shoot'n the SAW. Operators in my unit stick to 3 to 5 round bursts as we only carry 3 belts and like said before. It gobbles ammo fast.
Maybe the Para =) |
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Posted: 1/22/2002 8:22:59 AM EDT
[#25]
I carried one for a while, no major issues, but I didn't really care for it. I do recall it didn't like Magazines too much. I later was put on the Pig (M-60) and loved it. A lot of people don't like it, but I carried it in the Panama war and The Gulf war-it never let me down.
AIRBORNE |
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Posted: 2/5/2002 8:54:01 PM EDT
[#26]
An interesting update...
I was at my C3 looking at my USP Tactical that arrived today (still have to wait for the permit  ), and I was asking about SHOT show.Starting talking about FN's new products and I brought up my M249 experience. He says: "you wanna see a SAW???", goes to the back and brings out a beast of a SAW creation. It was a Daewoo with a nasty twist...a 14" (or less) bbl. Now that was a real beaut. |
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Posted: 2/6/2002 4:56:00 AM EDT
[#27]
My experience with the SAW in the Marines was always favorable. Once I was helping out with a class at the School of Infantry, firing a familiarization with the SAW. The armorers had a weapon with two very shot out barrels and were pulling them off the range for maintanance. For fun they linked 10 drums of ammo together and had a few guys support the "link". I'm serious, he fired a 2000 rnd burst continuously and the weapon didn't stop once. Of course the barrel was glowing and if he would have stopped, I'm sure he would have had cook offs...but still! This gun had been on the firing line all afternoon and besides some clp down the bore and lsa to keep it running, hadn't seen a cleaning tank that day. It was also a school gun that fires tens of thousands of rounds, including blanks yearly. Maybe they run so well because they are loose but they always amazed me with their reliability, something that can't be said for the M60.
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