this is the g3

its a german 7.62x51 battle rifle from the cold war used by a shitload of countries

the g3 and the fn fal were the two big competitors on the international market

but even tho they fill the exact same role

the ways they work could not be more different

so we talked about the sturmgewehr before

and how revolutionary it was

except it was so revolutionary it made mausers bolt actions obsolete

and mauser didnt have a contract to build any sturmgewehrs

bummer dude

so mausers engineers had been working on taking the idea and making it cheaper more efficient easier to make and so on

then maybe they could go back to getting that sweet government contract money

so they had a thing called the gerät 06

that just means like object 06 or something

so one thing the mauser guys looked at was the locking system

the stg44 used a tilting bolt

it tips down to lock into the receiver

thats a lot to machine precisely

and mauser thought thatd be a good place to simplify

the simplest way to make an autoloader is a blowback action like the ppk or the sten

but those shoot pistol rounds for a reason

the weight needed to hold an exploding rifle cartridge with nothing but resting inertia

its pretty intense

its much more than a little pistol

so they couldnt just use a straight blowback either

to try to keep it simple they put rollers inside the bolthead

those lock into grooves and press against an angled cone at the front of the bolt carrier

the bolt cant move until the rollers squeeze the bolt carrier all the way back

this is enough delay so the pressure lowers

and in fact the designers eventually noticed you could even ditch the gas system entirely

that ends up being a big savings in construction time

and the gun is lighter and simpler

they ended up calling this the gerät 06h

h means halflock

with the right combo of rollers and bolt carrier weight you can basically get a blowback action in a rifle

kickass

except bad news guys

like i know you are finishing up this sweet new rifle

but now its 1945

and germany is in chaos

the allies invaded normandy and are sweeping east

the soviets have delivered crushing blows on the eastern front

its basically a race to see who gets to berlin first

meanwhile mauser

well it was a pretty sweet gig while it lasted

but uh mauser is about to experience a hostile takeover lol

what do you do dude

the soviets would love to have you

they got plenty of space in a factory prison for guys just like you

or maybe the americans are a better choice

hey they might not even put you in a war crimes tribunal lol

well the choice many of the mauser guys made was neutral spain

see spain had a civil war in the 30s

they were like the opening band for wwii

and the fascists under general franco won with help from nazi germany

but they didnt actually join wwii because by then they were worn out from all the shooting they already did

so none of the allies were invading it

and the mauser engineers went there to lay low

after they set up shop they whipped out the gerät 06h and kept on tinkering

at first spain had some really weird ideas for them to work on but in the end they abandoned all that when they joined nato and adopted the 7.62x51 nato round

right after wwii people werent sure about that intermediate cartridge thing yet

but guys 7.62x51 is just the nato designation for .308

which is just a slightly reformulated .30-06

which is like trying to use the full size 8mm mauser round instead of the 8mm kurz the sturmgewehr was using

so the mauser guys took their gerät 06h and scaled it up for the beefy 7.62x51 round

but then they were having problems with the pressure blasting cases open

but man they really liked their cool roller delayed blowback and didnt wanna give it up

so what they came up with is the idea of fluting the chamber

those lines are little channels in the chamber

normally theres a bunch of pressure inside the cartridge trying to get out

like

thats the entire way the bullet gets pushed

but fluting the chamber gives little channels for gas to lean into

that equalizes some of the pressure and makes the brass float on a cushion of gas and extract more easily

check out this technical schematic

instead of megastretching against the chamber

some pressure is actually pusing from the outside to keep the brass in shape

and a cushion of gas forms around the case

that lowers the friction on the brass

and made it so the gerät 06h could even shoot the powerful nato round

so after inventing all these additional elements the mauser guys ended up with a decent rifle

they were working for the spanish centro de estudios tecnicos de materiales especiales

so the rifle was called the cetme

it worked out really well

in fact just as they were finishing the design up a couple of the engineers were able to start a new company in germany called heckler und koch

named after two of the mauser guys

originally the name was totallynotmakingweaponsiswear gmbh

but the restrictions on german arms manufacturing were quickly lifted because nato got super scared of the soviets

so hk manufactured the cetme rifle design and it got adopted by the german bundeswehr as the gewehr 3 or g3

and it was super popular

tons of people adopted it

in fact 8 million were made

4x more than the fn fal

so ya people really liked it

and hk went on to design entire families of weapons off of the design in all sorts of calibers

even very different weapons

like the psg1 sniper rifle

and the mp5 submachinegun

they all use a roller delayed blowback like the g3

hk loves that roller delayed shit

and the german military loved it too

even into the 90s they were putting out new improvements on the g3

everybody else had already switched to an assault rifle well before then

but the g3 kept on truckin

now we talked a lot about the specific changes that had been made to take the sturmgewehr concept into the g3

but all the other stuff

if i didnt mention something then just assume that stayed the same

its still stamped metal receiver with fire control group as a separate housing that pops out

disassembles the same way

pins holding the buttstock and everything

ya its totally just the nazis gun

so lets say you need an hk g3

well theyre select fire

but hk made a semiauto variant called the hk91

so go get you one

theyre expensive but hey its hk

they do it on purpose lol

and there are friggin 8 million of them out there

so it shouldnt be hard to find

and literally every country in the world cant be wrong

pewpew

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