H31152 MG34/42 M41 AMMO BELT LOADING TOOL. (Maschinengewehr 34/42 Gurtfüller 41)  

BACKGROUND: Among other restrictions, the Treaty of Versailles banned Germany from developing any type of heavy machine gun. To circumvent this German development of an all purpose machine gun were secretly being done in Switzerland in the early 1930's. By 1934 designer Louis Stange of the Rheinmetall armaments factory had made improvements to the secret machine gun developed in Switzerland and the MG34 was introduced as an all purpose selective fire weapon. In spite of the relatively high production cost the MG34 was accepted by the Wehrmacht Ordnance department and deliveries of the MG34 began in 1936. From 1937 ongoing development resulted in the introduction of the cheaper production, fully automatic, MG42 in late 1941. Both the MG34 and the MG42 utilized the standard German 7.92mm ammunition and came equipped with a wide variety of accessories. With a rate of fire of nine hundred rounds per minute for the MG34 and twelve hundred rounds per minute for the MG42 assorted length ammunition belts were utilized to sustain continual firing capability. The ammunition belts consisted of assorted numbers of individual round links that were time consuming to load by hand which resulted in the introduction of the Gurtfüller 34, (Belt Loader) in 1934 with an improved model introduced in 1941. Both the Gurtfüller 34 and the Gurtfüller 41 were designed to fit into the standard M41 MG ammo carrying case. 

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Tooled multi-piece steel and sheet metal construction M41 MG belt loading tool consists of a roughly, 8 7/8" long, 1 7/8" wide, 3" tall, sheet metal body with a roughly, 5 1/2" long, 1 3/4" wide, 2" tall, tooled steel, spring activated push lever and a roughly, 3 1/4" long, 9 3/8" wide, 2 1/2" tall, tooled steel, dual sided feed tray situated on the top of the body. The forward edge of the body has dual, tooled steel, cogged feed sprockets and a tooled steel belt guide. The opened top, dual sided feed tray has a central separating bar, four oval cut-outs and two spring activated ammunition guides. The interior bottom of the feed tray has dual ammunition push bars. The ammunition would be placed into the opened top, dual sided feed tray and depressing the spring activated push lever moves the dual ammunition push bars forward and turns the dual feed sprockets. The push bars would propel the ammunition into the ammo belt, and the feed sprockets would advance the belt forward two spaces permitting two more shells to be loaded. The tool is still fully functional. Both the body and the feed tray are well marked with stamped waffen-amt and designation, "Gurtfüller 41". The feed tray also has an unknown stamped marking, "ZR" and the body also has the stamped manufacturers code and date, "wa 43", indicating manufacture by Hugo Schneider A.G. Leipzig in 1943. The tool is in overall very good condition and retains about 90% of its original bluing with some minor surface spotting and pitting. Scarce MG accessory.

GRADE ****                             PRICE $775.00

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