Grease Gun

[39mto39g]

I picked one of these things up after a firefight that a VC had left behind. IT was made of tin and shot 45 ammo.
I thought it would be a good second weapon, But that was a mistake. The one and only time I shot it was just as we were leaving an overnight area. I had 2 -30 round clips of 45 ammo. I pulled the trigger and Brrrrrrrp. about 10 rounds went somewhere. I pulled the trigger again and the mag was empty.
Way to fast of a rate of fire and couldn't hit shit. next chopper that came to us I gave it to one of the door gunners. He liked it.
It only fired auto and had no sights. what was the Army thinking when they made this thing?
Ron

[DMZ-LT]

Just the opposite with the one I humped one day it had a real slow rate of fire and still could not hit shit. Probably how new that big ass spring was

[39mto39g]

LT
That door gunner I gave mine to must have fired it a couple thousand times and gave it to a marine who dropped it on a trail somewhere along RT 9. Was it black?
I should have carved my initials in it.
Ron

[DMZ-LT]

Was in a tank BN in germany for awhile before RVN and were issued them , though never shot them. Told us it was to blow people off trying to get on the tank. It would be good for that. No it wasn't black.

[exlrrp]

I had one of these for a while, traded for it to some SP Forces guys.
My experience was the same as John's--slow rate of fire, you could snap off single shots real easy . Thing only had like a 12" barrel so it was probably more dangerous to throw it at someone than shoot it at him, beyond 50'. still it was something different to carry around to set us apart from the average GI. Plus the ammo matched the .45 I always carrried (in the lrrps)
I would NEVER have taken it out on patrol, only used it for going to town

[Stick]

Was in a tower one day and drawing some irregular fire. Nothing to really worry about since it was just to let me know that there was somebody else out there and whoever it was they weren't even hitting sand bags. Called the Sgt. of the guard on the phone and told him what was happening and a little while later this 2nd Louis climbs up the ladder into the tower carrying one of those grease guns with one clip. That's all he had and all I could do is wonder was what the heck he thought he was going to do with that damn tin can toy gun. Chuck was at least 200 yards out.

[urbsdad6]

One of the "oldtimers" in our recon team in the 1st Cav carried one and swore by it . Worked well in bamboo (shot through it) when m16 rounds had a tendency to ricochet, made scary loud noises really fast, shot a lot of holes just about everywhere.

Doc Urb

[39mto39g]

The grease gun fired between 350 and 450 Rounds per min. Thats 7 to 8 a second, it is slower than a M-60 but not slow.
and most were Black.

[Packo]

Interesting hearing these comments. Urb, almost all of us in my Cav unit wanted one. We keep hoping to get one in a cache'. They were considered great close up jungle clearing weapon and with the much slower and heavier .45 slug, wouldn't deflect. I've heard some WWII guys swear by them and others say you couldn't hit crap with them. Would have loved to find out myself. There was a guy in the 25th Div that got one and from what we heard, while trying to figure out how to use it accidentaly fired off 3 rounds. A soldier in the mess tent was killed and they put this guy in LBJ. The CO of the 25th got wind of it and got him out knowing it was a tradgic accident. It was my understanding that this was the American version of the British Sten. Very inexpensive to make especially compared to the Thompson. Would love to fire one just once in my life.

Pack

[39mto39g]

The grease gun had some pretty crappy features to it, The picture is a M3A1 which is a latter version.
The thing I noticed about it first was that there was NO safety.
The M3 had some nasty habits, like dropping the Mag out when firing, The M3A1 had a guard around the Mag release. Neither would use a mag from a Thompson.
Ron