#GreaseGun

This past July 4th my friend Victor got access to a collection of guns. My friend Kythe and I tagged along to check them out and shoot them of course. I was more interested in filming some machine guns in slow motion so we selected a few guns to shoot and film. We decided to focus on slo-mo WWII machine guns and a Luger pistol. I figured filming the toggle action on the Luger in slow motion would be fun.

An American .45-caliber submachine gun on full-auto. I think most people would think of the Thompson M1A1 submachine gun, except this one came in service from 1943, and was much cheaper to produce. The M3 submachine gun (a.k.a. Grease Gun) is our Photo Of The Day.

Forgotten Weapons’ recent video on the M3 and M3A1 “Grease Guns” ( http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/04/19/forgotten-weapons-covers-well-remembered-grease-guns/)  briefly mentioned the conversion kits built in limited numbers  – 500 or so, Ian says – to make the .45 ACP submachine guns capable of firing 9x19mm rounds when eventually (but, I think, rarely) needed. This prompted me to recall that much larger numbers of clones of the U.S. weapon were actually factory-made in that caliber… but in Argentina.  The whole thing began in the early fifties when State-owned Fábrica Militar de Armas Portátiles -“Domingo Matheu”, in Rosario, Santa Fé Province, acquired from the U.S. Government production rights for the M3A1, which was extensively demonstrated in that country in October, 1950.

I love it when Ian over at Forgotten Weapons falls off the actual “forgotten” weapons and delves into well-known and respected designs. His brain housing group is replete with an encyclopedia of facts and history on weapons and when applied to even well-known guns, I personally come away learning more.                 In this case, Ian takes a look at the M3 submachine gun fielded by the United States in World War 2 and slightly beyond. The M3, knick-named the “grease gun” for its external resemblance to

I asked this question a few years back, but decided to do a little redux for TFBTV:

The M3 Grease Gun is one of my favorite firearms from WWII, it was ugly but it was simple, cheap to produce and they worked. In fact they worked so well that the  US Army used them with select units such as radio operators, engineers and vehicle and tank crews well into the 2000’s, supposedly. Anyone know how true that really is? There was also that M3 Grease Gun that was turned into the police last year, luckily the cops were cool and were trying to find a museum to take it. Over 700,000 Grease Guns were produced for the war effort, I’m sure still there’s a few more hidden in someone’s attic or barn yet to be discovered.

I was originally alerted to the idea of this post by the recent posting of pictures from a parade in Pyongyang in which troops were shown goose stepping with bayonet affixed Model 91/30 rifles and thought to myself, just how bizarre looking it appeared in the modern age, with a comparatively modern army. Then I started looking at more pictures of North Korean parades, and they must either be getting tired of looking at AKs, or have some sort of a need to display everything in their museum armory, because everything from M3 Grease Guns to PPSH41s are on display in some sort of fashion. In addition to all their modern stuff! The whole thing reminds me of a time myself and my uncle visited a military museum in Rangoon, where the front guard had an M2 Carbine and was standing post. My uncle inquired about whether or not the poor guy should put it back in the museum.