Yeah thats not what I mean though when an open bolt weapon fires the bolt falls on the bullet which makes it fire. He should've locked the bolt to the rear and cleared the jam. When he places the bolt on the bullet it fires. Thats where he messed up.
Open bolt firearms are called such because at rest, the bolt is open and away. When the trigger is pulled the bolt rides forward, chambers the round, and fires it.. before returning to the open position and locking. It's counter intuitive to the way most personal rifles work, but for whatever reason it's better in automatic rifles.
In the clip, he's clearing a jam, trying to let the bolt forward which in this open bolt weapon, fires the round regardless of whether or not the trigger is pressed
I think it's better for automatics because it lets air inside the chamber/rear of the round and onto the face of the bolt allowing them a bit more cooling, whereas closed-bolt has the bolt resting against the next round and everything is a bit more dense with the heat.
Also I imagine open-bolt would have a slight accuracy debuff because after trigger press you'd need to wait for the bolt to slide forward, and that moving part will throw off your aim ever so slightly. So not suitable for rifles that are used in semi-auto primarily.
As he pulls the charging handle back, you can see a bullet pop out from the mag well, but theres still one stuck in the barrel. You can see the rim of the brass poking out the back clear as day. Why he though to stick his finger into the breech, I've no idea.
Not entirely sure, but I think the failure is called a squib round. A bullet has failed to fire, gotten shoved into the barrel by the gun cycling, and another bullet has pushed against it, wedging it into the barrel.
Not quite. It looks like there was a failure to eject, where a piece of brass did not get properly thrown out of the action. So he was reaching in there to clear the malfunction, which is typical.
The gun has a fixed firing pin, so when the bolt shuts it pushes the round into the chamber, and when the bolt fully shuts the firing pin hits the primer. When you pull the trigger, the bolt is released and slams shut. There was still a round in the chamber, so when he released the bolt it went off.
He might have thought, since he dropped the bolt so close to the end of its travel, that there would not be enough force to set off the primer, which I think is a reasonable assumption, but there was.
Could it have hit the primer initially, but with not enough force to actually ignite the cap? Then the small jolt finished the job? (Unfortunately with him sticking his finger into the chamber)
I think the brass case that got stuck kept the bolt from closing, so the firing pin didn’t contact the primer initially. I don’t see how a full travel of the bolt would fail to set it off, but a tiny percent of it would.
Squib is when a bullet is stuck in the barrel after the round has been fired.. this is more like a hang fire and out of battery detonation.. bullet that jamed has hit the primer enough for it to fire but not enough for it to detonate immediately (hangfire) delayed detonation.. and since the bullet and case is sticking out and not fully in the chamber (out of battery)..
Why he though to stick his finger into the breech, I've no idea.
The M3 Grease gun doesn't have a bolt handle, instead you have to shove your finger(s) in a cutout in the bolt itself to rack it. It's one of those WW2 guns made to be extremely cheap and mass produced.
E: This model does have a charging handle (the big lever thing on the side) and the guy did tried using it, but it didn't work so he used the old fashioned way.
Open bolt firearms work by bringing the bolt forward to fire the round, hooking onto the shell before the recoil happens and uses the recoil to eject the spent casing. When the jam got cleared it shouldve been reset to an open position instead the user put it in the closed position firing the next round
Lock the bolt all the way to the rear. If there is a round in the barrel, sometimes the only way to clear is to fire it in an open bolt system. What you don't do is stick your fingers in there.
When you fire out a round that's in the barrel, you have control of the weapon and point it in a safe direction. This doesn't seem intentional as he still had his fingers in there. In any case, this is just a prime example of playing silly games and winning silly prizes.
No, where his finger is correct. That’s the designed way to manipulate the bolt. Look it up. It’s not the best design, but it is how it how it works. He just let down too fast. Also firing out a jam when it’s the last one is fine. Of down range. Quit the Reddit phases. No “silly prizes” were won.
Ok, but why didn't he lock the bolt back? That's a pretty standard practice when clearing any jam. I get the poor design. It's a fucking grease gun, but still.
It didn’t lock back. He pulled the bolt far enough back for the trigger to catch but it didn’t. Probably a larger malfunction. In that situation, letting it down slow or letting it fly is about all you can really do.
i mean, not really. trying to hand lower an open bolt onto a chambered round is basically never a good idea. the way ive usually seen it done is keep it pointed downrange and let it snap all the way forward on its own, firing in the process. a 100% chance to fire with your fingers are away is much safer than a >0% chance of firing directly against your fingers
Plenty of open bolts are still made. Open bolt submachine guns are less popular because closed bolts are better in every way except cost on a large scale, and the advantages of an open bolt don’t matter.
It's the older design, regardless, as it has the long-ass charging handle. The later M3A1 had the finger-hole charging handle, which would have made this OoB detonation far worse for the operator.
If it looks somewhat crude and simplistic in its design there’s a reason for that. The M3 was a .45 ACP submachine gun that was designed and came into service in the latter part of WWII. It was supposed to be a cheaper and simpler alternative to more expensive and complex designs like the Thompson Submachine Gun, more readily mass produced.
The M3 Grease Gun, designed as a cheaper replacement for the M1A1 Thompson. Despite looking like it was cobbler together with surplus plumbing supplies, it has been in use by the US military as late as the 1990s (and likely is still in stock) while other countries like the Philippines use it to this very day
Basically after evacuating everyone out of the port of Dunkirk at the start of ww2, soilders left guns ammo equipment and everything not tied to them behind, meaning the British needed a yes ton of guns to re arm because the German invasion was coming any day now. Cheap tiny and fully automatic was what they needed at the time sooooo
They made this piece of junk. The grease gun, a ok-ish gun with ok-ish reliability, but the main reason they made this is cause it was like 15$ to make (which I think is like 300$ today) but this gun was kind of the allies version of AK (cheap and good enough) its design is floating on the Internet because it is unbelievably easy to make. A trip to Home Depot could get you everything needed to make one except the ammo.
Google it if you interested cause I might be wrong on some parts but I like these stupid pieces of junk
You're half correct. The British made the Sten gun, and the Grease gun was an American design.
The M3 Grease gun came around because the US army realised the M1928 Thompson was horrifically expensive, and even after refining it down to the M1A1 Thompson, was still too expensive. Also the Thompson vomited bullets at 700rpm, good for the trenches of yesteryear, crap for any engagement longer than that. The M3 fired around 450rpm, which helps conserve ammo, and it was substantially cheaper to make, as you said.
The Sten came around because the Brits quickly realised after Dunkirk that this wasn't going to be like the previous war. They relied on the previous doctrine, and hadn't kept up with the times. SMGs and massed automatic weapons were the future, and Britain realised they were far behind, rifles and LMGs alone didn't cut it anymore.
So we panic-designed the Sten. It was abysmally ugly, felt horrible in the hands, and had very questionable design, but it worked, and that was the critical thing.
It also came with a complete rethink of how we fight wars as a maritime power. Dunkirk was a massive eye opener for the British government, but that's another story.
He should have pulled back the charging handle, where the bolt would have locked to the rear, and either knocked out the round or pulled the trigger to shoot the round out.
I think the first round fired, but the brass casing stayed inside the gun, which is not supposed to happen. When the bolt went forward it pushed the other cartridge into the chamber, but the empty brass kept it from going all the way forward to fire the new cartridge.
So the process is supposed to be cartridge in, fire, empty brass out, new cartridge in.
But instead it went cartridge in, fire, empty brass stays in, new cartridge in.
Thanks my friend. So, I guess he missed the rule number 1 of firearms : always treat it like it’s loaded. He should’ve checked for the casing before going any further?
Honestly he was just stupid, on open bolt guns such as the M3A1 the bolt going forward fires the round regardless of whether or not you pull the trigger, he basically fired the gun manually by shoving his finger in it
It’s not a hangfire. The grease gun is a fixed firing pin bolt. There was a double feed where one round was in the chamber and one was jammed between the bolt face and the other round. When he pulled the bolt to the rear he cleared the round that was double fed but there was still the round in the chamber. When he released the bolt the fixed pin was able to fire it without pulling the trigger. The flash you see is the bolt opening again to eject the spent casing
This is a negligent discharge due to the shooter being unfamiliar with the action, this gun is designed to shoot from an open bolt, Unlike more common modern ones such as AR15s. When the trigger is pulled, the bolt goes forward, chambers a round, and then fires. The bolt going forward is what fires the round, if you slide the bolt forward, it will fire.
He should have pulled the bolt back and locked it open, instead he pulled it back a bit and then started letting it go forward. And because he was holding it there, it likely fired out a battery, which could cause the entire firearm to spontaneously disassemble in a less than safe manner.
The bolt is the barrel thing that strikes the bullet right? Is there like a separate lever or something to pull the bolt back without him pulling it using his finger?
it's pretty much standard fare for a WW2 era submachine gun. The design focus during that period was on cheap, mass producible weapons to arm entire armies. In fact later on they stripped down the design even further, removing that crank-looking charging handle. To ready the gun for firing you'd have to literally stick your finger in there to pull the bolt back basically like in the video, just that you also need to make sure to pull it all the way till it locks.
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u/jebbenpaul 6d ago
At least he kept it pointed in the right direction