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We had the privilege of attending a superb HBSA lecture at The Royal Armouries last Thursday night where we not only got to hear about the development of the FG42 but also got to pawdle* several FG42 prototypes and issue rifles along with examples of contemporary semi-automatic rifles that influenced their design. For any of you that live within travelling distance of Leeds, we'd strongly recommend you consider joining the northern branch of the Historical Breech-loading Small Arms Society... The HBSA meet every month at the Royal Armouries and are given access to a wide and exotic range of firearms and have members who can give truly authoritative lectures on them...






*handle, in the case of you bald monkeys we supposes...

A fascinating weapon, did you manage to get any pictures?

No, I was too busy listening to the lecture and pawdling the FG42, several self loading Tokarevs, Gewehr 41, Gewehr 43, MP 38, MP40, P38 and STgwr 44 that were used to explain the development of the FG42. Other members of HBSA photographed them though...

Sounds good, how do you sign up?

You'd need to toddle along to http://www.hbsanorth.co.uk and read up on the group, then contact the secretary. Membership is by invitation and interview.

I used to be a member of the London HBSA some years back; might think about applying again.

The Londinium branch is still going strong and meets at the Imperial War Museum. However, as we understand it, the curators there don't take any guns out of their display cases whereas at the RA they are far more obliging...

I love the FG42, was it the early war (metal stock) or late war (wooden stock) FG42? The Type 1 is nicer IMO.

If you like this type of gun, you might be interested in the mkb42w and stg45, I only learned of them recently. They're extremely rare...

mkb42w:


stg45:

I was fortunate enough to shoot a FG 42 and a a Gewer41 and Stgw 44 at RMCS shrivenham a few years ago, along with many other early automatic weapons. I don't think that they allow guests to do that now.

Lucky man