Glenn Fleming, a gunsmith at Red Jacket Firearms, regularly gets requests from customers to rebuild MG42 from cut-up parts kits – apparently a job that is a lot less fun than it sounds. Glenn writes …

The thing is, when you are remaking them, they are a pain in the ass to get running right.

Remember, I deal with guns that have been cut up to the point the US government considers them destroyed. It’s no easy feat to make these things shoot again; that having been said, it can be done. Just look at the amount of post samples and even transferable rewelds out there. It’s no wonder all the surplus 8mm is drying up — a fact that I hate!

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So, what did I learn through all this? Well, if someone says, “Hey man, we need you to build 4 MG42’s in a week,” . . . run.