Machine Gun History, Part I

In this week’s No Lowballers podcast by GoWild presented by GunBroker.com, we’re talking all about machine guns including their history and how we got to modern machine guns. Logan gets right into it and dispels a big myth: The Gatling gun is not a machine gun! This helps us define what a machine gun is and what it isn’t. When did the world’s first fully automatic machine gun come out and who invented it? It came out at a pivotal time and completely changed modern warfare. Find out where you can go view some of the earliest machine guns. 

In World War I we saw several of these early machine guns enter the playing field, including the Maxim MG0 used by the German army, the Lewis Gun used by American and British troops, and the Browning M1917 used by the United States. These early models were big and heavy and we’re definitely a crew-served weapon. 

By World War II we started to see some advancements in technology and a few more machine guns hitting the battlefield, including the Browning M2 used by many nations and the MG42 introduced by Germany and feared by the Allies. We outline the differences between belt-fed, box-fed, and pan-fed guns and which ones were meant for anti-personnel and anti-material purposes. We then move into the Vietnam War era talking about the M60. 

Over time, machine guns have become smaller, lighter, and more portable, but many of the attributes from the early foundational firearms are still utilized in today’s modern armaments. Allen jumps in to talk about the design of these different machine guns and how they would dissipate heat, either through water or air cooling, or swapping barrels. Logan mentions that many of these guns were adapted in the field over the years as servicemen figured out how to best use their weapons in innovative ways, like using them in aircraft. When aircraft went from being an observation tool to an offensive weapon, the machine guns went with them.

Jacob asks an important set of questions we all want to know: Can we own a machine gun, where do we find one, and what’s the expected purchase price to buy one? Logan outlines the legalities and what the process looks like. Allen then speaks to the popular machine guns selling on GunBroker.com along with their price ranges. The process is not as intimidating as you think, and while owning a machine gun is not cheap, it’s otherwise just a pile of paperwork and playing the waiting game on the federal government. Another way to get the machine gun look and feel is by picking up a belt-fed semi-automatic firearm, like the FN M249s. Allen jokes about the hardest part of owning a machine gun … tune in to find out what that is!

As usual, we close the episode by hearing from Allen on whatever weird, interesting, and obscure guns have sold on GunBroker this past week!

If you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a rating and review!!

The No Lowballers podcast is a brand new joint venture between GoWild and GunBroker.com to explore the history and heritage of firearms. We hope to expose you to the vintage guns of the golden age along with newer, modern guns, specialty items, and a few other odd balls along the way. Jump in and come along for the ride! 

The show launches every Thursday morning. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

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[00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to this episode of the No Low Ballers Podcast. It is a production between Go Wild and gum broker.com. I'm your host, Logan Metis of High Caliber History. This podcast, we talk about all sorts of things. Interesting, unusual, weird, wacky, military, civilian, a little bit of everything. If it's guns, we cover it.

I'm joined here at the table by some of the folks from Go Wild. I'm joined here with Alan from gum broker.com, and this week is a fun topic. It is everybody's favorite topic, tacos. Oh God. Second. Sorry, I second. Second. Still thinking about lunch. I know, I know, but man, were those tacos good? It was good stuff.

Yeah. No, not tacos. So everybody's second favorite thing. Gotcha. Machine guns. Ah, yeah, I like it. Who doesn't? Some powder. We just [00:01:00] worked the Star-Spangled Banner in right here. And an eagle screech. That's right. A little bit of Francis. I said cheeseburgers. A little bit of Francis Scott. Key some F sixteens flying overhead.

You know that's fireworks that's in the show budget, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. We'll fix it in post. It's fine. Oh yeah. We'll fix. That's right. Ai. Ai. No, that, that's gonna take all of our jobs. Oh, you guys won't need me If you, if you're doing ai. You know so no, but we're gonna talk machine guns and, and we're gonna go over, you know, the history of 'em and how we get to where we're going.

And we talked before we started rolling that this probably will have to be a multi-part episode just 'cause there's so much to, to talk about in the world of machine guns. But it's interesting to note that what people, at least I think it's interesting what people tend to think of as. Early machine guns aren't actually machine guns.

For example, the Gatlin gun, you know, Richard Gatlin comes out with the Gatlin gun and it's around in the Civil War era in the 1860s, and people think, oh, you [00:02:00] know, it's a machine gun. It's not like, oh, well, is it semi-automatic? Well, No, it's, it's not, is, you know, it's hand cranked and, and you're getting a shot each time you're cranking from these multiple barrels.

And so it's operating like you think a machine gun should operate in those senses. And certainly how you see the design, like with a mini gun that is a machine gun and all those barrels rotating around. But Gatling guns aren't machine guns. And I think that's, that's an important distinction we need to make.

If, if folks aren't. Quite sure what is, what isn't a machine gun. You know, there's, there's a lot of mystery in the N F A world and on in which machine guns lie, and I think people don't totally understand. Mm-hmm. What incorporates a machine gun and what doesn't? So a galling gun is not a machine gun.

Hopefully we've answered a dumb question. Right. You know, so what do you want to call it? A Gatling gun? Yeah, it's a Gatling gun. A crank? Yeah. Oh, I like [00:03:00] that. It's a crank. Yeah. I think we were gonna say a good time. Yeah. Yeah. They are a good time. They're a lot of fun. I've had. Had a chance to shoot a few of 'em.

They are a ton of fun. But you know, after your arm gets going with that, I can tell you it is not a machine gun either. It is surprisingly stiff to crank. And that, that it takes a pretty good amount of energy to turn that turn crank. Yes, it does. Especially to do it with any consistency. Mm-hmm. Instead of like, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

Pop pop, you know, if you, you gotta get into, you gotta get into that rhythm. Yeah. Get 'em, you, you know, workout coming into it, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's, they're, they're interesting. They're a lot of fun, but they're definitely not machine guns. You know, you don't truly get machine guns for another 20 years with RA maxim and we're talking about Hiram ss maxim of the machine guns and not.

Hiram p Maxim of the suppressors. I was gonna ask about that. I knew you were, you're just, I'm here for the details Exactly. To hold you, you know, just making sure that you're up to par. Yep. I could, I could hear it before I even said it. Brad's like, what's the middle initial, Logan? Which one are we talking about?

No, but they are related. Right. And [00:04:00] then the, the brother. Is is involved with t n t, so it's a whole family of explosives. The Maxim family is really interesting like that, but Thanksgiving was so much fun at their house. Boy, you ain't kidding. Nobody ate Turkey, but it was everywhere. But so Ra Maxim comes out with the machine guns.

He's, he's developing them in the 1880s. And there is a bit of a story. Who knows if it's. Actually true or not, but Maxim was told, you know, if you wanna make a pile of money, develop a gun, that'll allow the Europeans to just absolutely slaughter one another. And who knows? Maybe that was said, maybe it wasn't said.

If it was said, maybe it was a joke. If someone was joking, Hiram did not take it as a joke. And he set out and built the maximum machine gun. Mm-hmm. And that sets the stage for. Basically all machine gunnery that we know. I mean we, okay. We can't exclude Jam Moses Browning in this, you know? 'cause he did have some things to play with the, the Colt, 1895, the [00:05:00] potato digger, you know, and then of course the madu and stuff like that.

Mm-hmm. But, but it all starts with ra maxim. And not just that, I mean, maxim also changed the complete face of what we think of as warfare and tactics as well too. Absolutely. You know, because World War I is is the first conflict that we're using machine guns. With tremendous effect. And it, it is an absolute game changer.

I mean, you've got a war where people are going into it on horseback, coming up against tanks, wearing bright red uniforms. Wearing bright red uniforms. Yeah. You know, it, it, it absolutely changes the face of warfare for. Ever, you know, what we're doing on the field of battle today mm-hmm. Is built upon what didn't work in World War I.

Right. So, so how big was the first maximum machine gun? Was it a large game? Yes. Yeah, they're large. They are big tripod mounted guns. They are heavy. One of the prototypes is in the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia. I've got to check that one out. And it's, I mean, it's. Big, you know, and it's a big metal block and, [00:06:00] and a big wooden ammo box to feed out of.

And it is not something that you're picking up and moving to a new position. You know, it, you have a machine gun position and that's where that machine gun is going. You know, it's, it's a far cry from. You know, even from the b a r, the Browning automatic rifle, or it's a far cry from, you know, the, the 2 49 saw mm-hmm.

And stuff like that. You know, the, it, they were a totally different ballgame in the beginning. They were not easy to move around. Crew surfed, they were definitely a crew surf. I was gonna ask like, how many, how many people were running, right? Yeah. You're definitely, you know, Two, three, sometimes, you know, because you need guys, you need someone to hump the gun.

The tripod. The ammo, you know, it is, it is a crew served weapon, but in a very different concept of a crew served weapon today. And even different from the tactics. So then the field of fire, you'd have the gunner who's operating, you know, the trigger basically, and the feeder, making sure the belts fit. But then you'd have another man down there just turning the turret.

So you just swept slowly back and forth across no man's land and just put literally a sheet of lead down there [00:07:00] making it. You know, well, the standstill that World War I became. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And, and that leads us into the development of what we get in World War ii. You know, we, we, I had briefly mentioned the, the M two, you know, the, the Madu, and that's a gun that is still being used today.

You know, and so that's, that's a design that's pushing a century old. And you know, it's no more iconic than a 50 caliber madu, you know, chugging along. I mean, I think that's a testament to that gun that they're still being used all these years later. And in so many ways. I mean, you've got them on aerial platforms, on mounted platforms, you know, on just crew served, you know, individual person platforms.

Yep. Guys on Humvees with 'em and, and all sorts of stuff. They're, they're an incredibly versatile gun, but again, also not a small gun. That is definitely a large machine gun still, even though there are accounts of some guys in World War II actually managing to pick them up and carry them and like hip fire them, you know, when, when shit got a little too real, you know, and they [00:08:00] needed to be able to move and lay down some fire.

You find a way to, to, you know, life finds a way, you know, and you, you pick up that modus and, and you're running gun with it. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug. Yeah, exactly. You know, whereas the b a r was what you should have been running and gunning with, that's what it was designed for. You know, a box fed 30 out six, not a belt fed, 50 cow.

I'm thinking about it strategically, like a lot of, you know, the time period, you're talking about late 18 hundreds, these are kind of replacing what would've been where your cannon fire would've been, right? Like I'm thinking of Civil War, how important a ridge line that would've been, this really took over that I imagine.

Absolute. Absolutely. Strategically right? Is that kind of what they would, because, and then it's the same, same strength, you know, from a vantage point. You know, you, you mentioned laying down that line of fire. Mm-hmm. You know, you, that's your stopping point that a cannon really was pro up until this point.

Right. It gives you a little bit more precision than like grape shot or a canister round would do, which is essentially just a glorified giant shotgun. Right. Right. But yeah, I mean, you know, you, like you're talking about being up [00:09:00] on a hillside, you know, before you'd want the cannon to be up on the hillside mm-hmm.

For your artillery fire, you know, it's not uncommon in, in the 1870s and eighties, you know, out in the plains during the Indian wars. You know, you put that Gatling up on a hill and, and you've got this awful field of fire with that Gatling raining town that, that. Would have previously been your artillery range field, you know, field of fire with grape shot and stuff.

Mm-hmm. And now you're doing it with a gr crank Gatling gun. And just laying down a tremendous amount, more firepower, certainly more cost effective. And you know, like you said, you can, you know, run through belts of ammos opposed to the, just the load time on an artillery piece of that era, especially.

Yep. And it's, and there's not the precision and the math and the things you need to know with trajectory and stuff. Right. It's just, it's an easier way. To to run it, you know. Where do we go from here? You're the historian, man. Don't ask me and Jacob. We're like, lunch tacos. Lunch tacos, yeah. You know, so yeah, so we've covered, you know, [00:10:00] the, the M two, you know, we've covered some of the ally stuff, but in, in Germany, I.

You know, we've got the MG 42, which is another incredibly iconic machine gun of World War ii and just an absolute powerhouse of a machine gun. There have been so many designs that kind of build upon that gun into what we've seen today. And, and in fact, those guns are still, some of their descendants are still being fielded.

The M 60. The M 60. Right. You know, those guns are still being used. And we're still finding 'em. In fact, I, I've seen news accounts some of the stuff that's going on, you know, over with Russia and Ukraine, MG 40 twos still being used, you know and, but that's, I. MG 42 kind of gives us the design and, and the, the thought process for, for what we get with more of a man portable machine guy, the light machine, kind of what I was seeing a second ago.

You know, you have, you know, you get to a high point. They would build these machine gun nests. Is this [00:11:00] what they were running on a lot of those famous machine gun nests? When you travel through Europe, is that kind of what they would bring in to set up that kind of stronghold? Not, not like the M two or, or anything like that.

Okay. At least not in, in the time period that I'm thinking, you know, that's gonna be more of like the maximum M g O eight. And stuff like that, like in the World War I era and stuff. Okay. Yeah. The, the Browning's really designed as an anti material weapon. It was designed to take out Jeeps, light armored tanks, personnel carriers, aircraft where the, the MG eight and the MG 42 were really anti-personnel firearms.

You know, the 42 had such a reputation because of its high rate of fire. They called it what Hitler's Buzz saw or something like that, that the US military created training films specifically to. Desensitize and indoctrinate recruits to that sound. Still they're out there on YouTube, you can find 'em and it's, you know, Joe GI walking through, you know, whatever.

And he hears they, they've got, and it's a very distinctive sounding rate of fire telling him, you know, it's just, don't be scared, do your job. But it was such a terrifying psychological weapon that the military had to counteract that. Yep. Absolutely. And then we get other machine [00:12:00] guns that have some, some interesting feed designs.

You know, we've talked about belt fed stuff and we've talked about box fed. But there's some interesting pan magazine designs and, and the two that come to mind are the Lewis gun and the DP 28. And so this is ammo that is mounted. Cylindrically, for lack of a better term in a big circular pan magazine that is mounted on the gun.

They're very distinctive looking. Mm-hmm. And, and so you've got the Lewis gun being used in, in World War I and in World War ii the Lewis Gun's actually getting mounted on a lot of planes. Yep. They, they. Take off the barrel jackets so that they're turning them into air cooled guns on the planes to make it a little more efficient that way.

Yeah, that top, that top Pan magazine was really conducive to the confined spaces of an aircraft. Yep, exactly. A lot easier to just switch out the pans than having to, you know, carry in a bunch of ammo boxes and. Belts of ammo, you know, you're in a very confined space in that plane. Mm-hmm. So that, that is much more conducive in there.

And then of course, you know, we get [00:13:00] beyond World War II and we get, you know, into the, the Vietnam era and stuff. If the show budget can afford it, this is when C C R's Fortunate Sun starts playing in the background. You know, we'll just let them, you put that together in your own head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And, and, and we get some, some more iconic guns in there. Like the M 60, the pig very popular machine gun and called the pig for a good reason, right, Alan? It is, it is a big chunk of metal, but I gotta tell you, I've spent some time on 'em and they are, That weight pays off. It is more probably the most controllable machine gun I've ever been fortunate to shoot.

You can just put the rounds wherever you want to just walk right across. I can see why the guy, I mean, it always went to the big guy in the battalion because that's who had to carry it. But you know, the small, some of the smaller versions like the E two the guys who carried him loved him.

They hated giving up. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, and you do hear stories like, oh, you know, oh, I hated lugging that gun around. I hate, but yeah. But when it came time for shit to hit the fan, Who do you want on your side? You [00:14:00] want the guy who's humping the pig around, you know? 'cause that that gun, that can lay down some serious firepower.

Yeah. In 7, 6 2 it was, it packed a little bit of a punch. Uhhuh just a little bit. Yeah. It was no slouch. I mean, comparatively though sounds like a much, while while big sounds like a much more mobile, Gun than what we've kinda laid out up until now. So quite the innovation compared to the first, you know, four or five that you've kind of talked through through here.

Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. You know, even though the M 60 is, is a beast of a piece all day long, I would rather carry an M 60 than to try to take a maxim Yeah. Off of its mount right. And pump that thing around, you know? That's, even though M 60 is a. Big bitch. It was designed to be, you know, Mancar and Port.

You know, it was designed to be a portable weapon. It's not like people were having to retrofit and try to figure out how they're gonna hump around a madu and stuff. You know, with machine guns, it's all about controlling heat. And in the early days they would have water jackets, basically a big canister doing around your barrel, filled with water, you know, a canister water and a hose system to.

Get it circulating through, so you could [00:15:00] shoot rates of fire without melting your barrel. If you didn't have that, it was burst fire and you really limited your, your cyclical rate. Well, with an M 60, it featured a quick change barrel system, so you could run a pretty high rate of fire. When that barrel started getting too hot, you could pretty quickly change it out for a new one and keep the, keep the gun up and running.

Right, exactly. So how are you taking that barrel off? That's extremely hot. You had some very big insulated Nomex MITs that came with part of the kit. Mm-hmm. And they just swap yeah. Yeah. Kind of. Basically it's a rotation handle that pop kind of slides forward and out the side. You jam in, the new barrel comes in, close, locks into place.

You came with a, with a machine gun. We're not talking p r s here. You know, you're not trying to. Super precise. You're talking vol of fire. So yeah, you can have kind of a quick and dirty barrel change system. Exactly. Yeah. And you're talking, you know, talking about the, the water cooled stuff, you know, that's why I was mentioning with the Lewis gun, it was popular on aircraft 'cause they would take the water jacket off and now the barrel is exposed.

But you're flying through the air at, you know, however many miles an hour a byw can fly. I don't know, but it's enough that it's your air cooling that barrel[00:16:00] on, on a what should be a water cooled machine gun. Which is actually a pretty cool innovation. You know, it's I thought, I think that's a kind of a, a cool.

Adaptation of technology at that time. You know, I mean, aircraft is brand new being used in World War I and then they're taking these machine guns and adapting them to fit their needs. 'cause there's no way you were gonna cram in a biw plane with gallons of water right. As well to try to cool your machine gun, you know?

So that's, that's an interesting. Innovation and way that they were doing things with that. It, it took the aircraft from a observation platform really just trying to see what the enemy was doing and turned it in, in 19 15, 19 16, observation by 1941, it was an offensive weapon, right? Mm-hmm. It was the sharp tip of the spear.

Right? So just in that 30 year period, by being able to arm those aircraft, it completely changed their use in the military. Yeah, absolutely. Jacob, you had a fantastic question that was I'm sure is in the mind of many people. You had mentioned it before we started filming, so [00:17:00] what is your question, my friend?

Yeah, and, and I'm sure some people have Googled this and tried to figure it out. But I don't know the answer to this question and I would love to own a machine gun. What do I gotta do to be able to get one? What price range are we talking about for somebody that wants to get into a machine gun? And, you know, what does that picture look like?

Sure. Well, I will, I'll talk to the, the legal side of it and I'll let you talk to the money side of it. So machine guns are heavily regulated we'll, we'll dispel the myth that machine guns are illegal, okay? They are not illegal, they're heavily regulated. They fall under the jurisdiction of the National Firearms Act of 1934.

So the N F A, you hear 'em called N F A items. They're often called Class three weapons. But it's important to know, people talk about, oh, I gotta have a class three license. That is a total mishmash of terms. There's no such thing as a Class three license. Okay? What you have to do is that gun needs to be registered [00:18:00] as an item on the N F A, and so you will have to go, you'll have to determine if you want to take possession of it as an individual.

As a corporation or as a trust. Those are all different legal entity ways of owning it. There are benefits and drawbacks to each, but, so you'll figure out how you want to take possession of your new machine gun. You will have to fill out the form for application for the transfer of the machine gun.

You'll have to submit fingerprints and a photograph, and you'll go through a big background check process and you'll pay a $200 federal tax stamp. And then. In months and months and months and months and months later of waiting, you know, you're talking 10 months to a year or more of waiting, the government will finally bless you with an approved form that comes back, and now you can finally take possession of that machine gun that you paid for.

To the seller on gum broker.com, months and months and months and months and [00:19:00] months ago. So that's how you do it? Mm-hmm. It's a lot of government paperwork and hoops to jump through. But none of it's intimidating. You know, it, it shouldn't be intimidating. Once you understand what you're doing, that you're filling out paperwork, you're going through a background check like you would buying any other gun on a 44 73 and stuff it's just different that it costs you more you know, in terms of the tax stamp.

And you gotta submit fingerprints that you normally don't have to do with a 44 73. And then you just gotta wait, you know? But the big thing beyond all the paperwork, the paperwork's easy to come up with. Money on the other hand, for most of us is the hard thing to come up with. So Alan, what are some of the more popular machine guns going for on gun broker.com?

So I took a look this morning. You know what we consider some of our entry level guns, which are, you know, a lot of World War. Two surplus pieces like sten, guns, like Sterling's v m three grease guns. You're super fun gun, by the way. Oh yeah. Yep. Super simple. Mm-hmm. I mean, it's called a grease gun.

'cause frankly it's almost made out of grease gun parts. You're probably looking around [00:20:00] five figures in the eight to $9,000 for a starting price for something in okay shape. If you're looking for something a little more familiar. A transferable M 16. MP five, my personal favorite, the Uzi. Now you're looking in that 15 to $20,000 range, but you know, obviously things go up and get really esoteric and wild from there.

You know, I did see an m a full auto M two move the other day for 15,000. I'm sorry, that was the semi-auto. I'm not even a full auto. I was say, really? Let me know where, sorry. You know, the semi-automatic version of of the, the M two move for 15 and that was a really active lot of bidders going on that one, driving it hard and heavy, so.

Mm-hmm. You know, one thing I will say about this, the process and the paperwork, though, I'm sure a lot of folks listening have, like most of us have in the last 10 years, jumped on the suppressor train and bought suppressors. Mm-hmm. It's the exact same process, right? So everything you went through for that, which certainly is a little bit of a pain, but you know, like you said, it's not really that intimidating.

You just gotta figure out the process. It's the exact same process. So if you've bought a silencer in the past or a suppressor, you're. Already prepared to buy a machine gun. Yep, yep. You just, you just gotta [00:21:00] do it all over again. It's again, like with the suppressor, you know, I went through all this and paid my $200 when I bought my first suppressor.

What do you mean? I can't just buy another one? You gotta go through the whole thing. And it's the same way with machine guns. You know, you gotta do that whole process multiple times, depending on how many $20,000 machine guns you can afford. You know? Now if you don't want to get into the machine gun, but you still want the look and feel.

Mm-hmm. There are a number of companies that make semi versions. We talked about amadu, but f M. Maybe five or six years ago introduced a semi-automatic version of their 2 49 saw. Yep. The 2 49 Ss I, we see these sell every single day on, on gun brokers. They're out there, they're available. There's both new and used inventory.

Pretty good supply of both new, you're gonna look around $9,500. Used as a great value, you're gonna take a quarter of the price off that they're going for around $7,500. You can get into some crazy additions though. We did see one move last year. It was a number 1 76 of 200 special collectors edition.

It went for a mere $160,000 oh, for a semi-auto chunk change. But I mean, at the end of the day, you're still getting a belt fed. That'll [00:22:00] still, you know, run, you know, as quick as your mark one actuating device will get it to run. And it still brings up in my mind the biggest challenge of owning a machine gun.

Not the cost of buying it. Not the cost of the paperwork, the cost of feeding it, feeding it. Boy, do they go through the ammunition? You think teenagers are expensive to feed? Try feeding a machine. Gun 600 rounds a minute. Yeah, no problem. I'm gonna shoot for 20 minutes. Yeah, 20 minutes. Boy, you got deep pockets.

You know, I'm like shooting for like two minutes, you know, like I, I just can't afford it. You know? That's, well we were talking before at one point somebody made a full auto, Version of the Ruger 10 22. Mm-hmm. And I've been told, it just vibrates, it doesn't even recoil just, and I can afford a lot of 22 ammunition.

Right. So I, I, that's what I'm keeping my eyes out on for, on gun brokers. One of those guys, if I wanted an, an affordable to feed machine gun, I'm going with the grease gun that we, that we had mentioned. Very simple gun. You know, it was stamped outta sheet metal parts during World [00:23:00] War ii. Fires from an open bolt chambered in 45 a c p.

And it just, it chugs along, you know, like, like with an Uzi or, or an MP five. It's just like, you know, and it's done. Not the case with the grease gun. It chugs. It's like to the point where like when I was firing it, like I was watching where I'm hitting him, like walking my fire onto Target, you know, because it just, it's so low recoil and it's a relatively low.

Rate of fire that, you know, one I can afford to feed it 'cause it's going slower. And, and it's just, it's, it's a ton of fun to shoot. You know, if you've got someone who's intimidated by, you know, fast machine guns and you know, the noise and everything, I would say a grease gun's a great, I. You know, one to, to turn someone onto 'cause it's so much fun to shoot them and it's low speed.

It's 45 too, too. 'cause to me, 45 has such a gentle, you know, recoil impulse. Exactly. Exactly. That. It's, it's just a, like you said, it's a chug. Exactly. But it's such a simple gun. Then even have a charging handle. There's a little indentation where you're supposed to put your thumb and use that to run the pole pack [00:24:00] and forth.

Right. It really was the ingenuity of American manufacturing in World War in wartime. What can we make a lot of quickly, cheaply, and effectively. Yep. Exactly, and along the same line in, in terms of the caliber, but the 45, you know, we talked about the, the Thompson in, in our gangster mobster episode, you know, and again, that being in 45 a c p and it's a heavy gun.

You know, there's very little felt recoil on something like that, even when you're holding the trigger back and running it in full auto. You're still not, you know, it's not gonna be something that you have to be afraid of, you know, losing control and it running away from you. Mm-hmm. You're, you're just not gonna face that.

You know, you and I were at a media event one time and somebody was shooting a full auto. It was, I think it was a Oma event. Okay. And I. Right up the right up the, I can't remember what venue we were at, but they had those low overhanging ceilings to, to honestly catch this scenario but just zipped right up onto the wall and you could see it wasn't the first time it's happened.

That's always the best. We always say it. It goes Target, target, [00:25:00] berm, berm. Airplane, airplane, airplane. Well now we're back to World War I machine guns, you know? That's right. Oh man. So, you know, the machine gun stuff is fun to talk about and, and obviously we can find that stuff. On gum broker, but there's a lot of interesting, weird things sometimes that pop up on gum broker.

What is an interesting piece that has sold on gum broker recently? If you've never seen the Sig Master Series Pistols, you need to do a Google search. Okay? These are. Done by the literal artisans over in their Germany factory. And they are just insane, really. We've had 'em on display at Chacho in the past.

They're absolutely stunning pieces. You'll have one where the front side is a trout coming outta the stream and the rear side is the bear going after it. It incredible craftsmanship. We had one of those X five pistols move a couple of days ago for just a little over $12,000. Oh, wow. But these are.

I mean, you're not really buying a firearm. You're truly buying a work of fart. Yeah. So I seriously jump on the Google hit the image search. Just look for your sig master shop series. They're, [00:26:00] they works fart. That's awesome. Boy, a trout and a bear like that to me, as he was saying it, I was like, there needs to be a go wild addition.

I know. I mean, yeah, like, I don't even fish, but like, you know, but the fish front side and the bear, like that would be really cool. Yeah, a fish's tail lined up for that. And then the bears, I believe the bear's paws were up in those rear, rear, rear side. It was sweet. It's insane. That's really cool. Yeah.

Well that is definitely. File that under things I didn't know I needed. Right. Learning all kinds of stuff on this one. It's one, if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. Yeah. Well, I won't ask. I already know you can't afford it, you know. Awesome. Well guys, thanks for joining us here around the table for this episode of the No Low Ballers Podcast.

Appreciate everyone tuning in to the show. Hope you learned something today. Hope maybe it sparked an interest. You know, don't forget to log your time in the Go Wild app that you spent listening to this podcast, and definitely go over to gun broker.com and look up some of these things you never know.

You may find yourself a really good deal and then you can add it to your gearbox and go [00:27:00] wild once you pick it up. So every everybody wins, right? You get a new gun, you get to log it in, go wild. You get to. Buy it off gun broker. It's a beautiful thing. So Meka Meka Freedom. Yep. So, all right. Thanks everybody for tuning into this episode of the No Low Ballers podcast.

We will see you on the next episode.

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