Photo Of The Day – Above you can see U.S. Marines with Delta Company, Infantry Training Battalion, School of Infantry West, as they fire a Mk19 40 mm automatic grenade launcher during a live-fire range.

This happened on Range 204B on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, at the beginning of December 2019, just a few days before their graduation.

Below: 40 mm rounds. And what looks like a lot of gun grease.

U.S. Marines with Delta Company, Infantry Training Battalion, School of Infantry West, carry 40mm ammunition to a designated area during a MK19 40 mm automatic grenade launcher live-fire range on Range 204B.

Below: A yellow-tipped rattlesnake of 40 mm grenades.

Below: -“You see that hill over there? Let’s destroy it!”

The Mk 19 is a belt-fed, blowback-operated, air-cooled, crew-served, fully automatic weapon that is designed not to cook off.

It fires 40 mm grenades at a cyclic rate of 325 to 375 rounds per minute, giving a practical rate of fire of 60 rounds per minute (rapid) and 40 rounds per minute (sustained). The weapon operates on the blowback principle, which uses the chamber pressure from each fired round to load and re-cock the weapon. The Mk 19 can launch its grenade at a maximum distance of 2,212 meters (2,419 yd), though its effective range to a point target is about 1,500 meters (1,600 yd), since the large rear leaf sight is only graduated as far.

The nearest safe distance to launch the grenade is 310 meters in training and 75 meters in combat. Though the Mk 19 has a flash suppressor, it serves only to save the eyesight of its operator, not concealing the weapon’s position.

Source: Mk19 Wikipedia

US Marines locating their shot impacts.

All photos by U.S. Marine Corps, photo by Lance Cpl. Alison Dostie.