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                                       WW2  Mg34   Machine Gun dated 1941   

CRA Marked for Alkett  only 15000 ever manufactured and the rarest of all Mg34's

    This is a very rare Mg34,  manufactured by  Alkett in 1941 at its Rheinmetall-Borsig AG Sömmerda factory near Erfurt in Central Germany. 

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    The Mg34 which is a 900 round per minute open bolt,  belt fed medium machine gun with an interchangeable barrel system designed by Rheinmetall-Borsig AG chef designer Louis Stange. 

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         Rheinmetall-Borsig AG chef designer Louis Stange was the original engineering designer of the Mg30 ( S2-100) and went on to design the Mg34 but due to the ban of Rheinmetall-Borsig AG manufacturing the mg30 in Germany. 

 

       For Rheinmetall-Borsig AG  this was a big problem so it acquired the majority shareholding of the Swiss manufacturer called Waffenfabrik Solothurn AG to continue the development.

 

      Rheinmetall-Borsig AG  Relocated production to Switzerland to get around the ban on manufacturing machine guns in Germany,  but by 1933 production had switched back to Germany where Louis Stange carried with the design of the Mg34 incorporation with Heinrich Vollmer ( a small arms company) . 

   

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In 1937 Rheinmetall-Borsig AG formed a subsidiary called Alkett short for Altmärkische Kettenwerk GmbH and it was a private limited subsidiary company.  Alkett started tooling up in mid 1937 and by early 1939 full scale production was well under way and from 1939 until 1941 production was around 40,000 units.  Unfortunate this was no nearly enough for the German War department and in 1942 the German Government took over the factory. 

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    A year after this Mg34 (1941) in 1942 Rheinmetall-Borsig AG private limited subsidiary company was nationalised by the German Government and renamed Maget.

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  Maget increased production of there Mg34's by using slave labour , on April 23, 1945 Soviet troops over ran the Germans Maget plants.

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                      Below

This Mg34 is Fully strippable 

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    This Mg34 is in almost mint condition and is fully Strippable,  it has a smooth dry firing action.  It has both Single shot and full automatic selector on the trigger and has a crisp operation.  The safety selector on the trigger group also has a smooth crisp action.

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    Very clear waffen stamp WaA 11 for Rheinmetall-Borsig AG factory at Sömmerda on the top of the receiver

 

 The top cover marked “bpr” makers code bpr is that of Johannes Grossfuss, Metall- u. Lackierwarenfabrik, Doebeln, Saxony with Nazi acceptance stamp Eagle over WaA4 who were the main sub contractors to Rheinmetall-Borsig AG.

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The serial number is 2950 d and is common numbered on the receiver and butt stock assembly.  It the d after the serial number which is for the month code for the last two weeks in February and the year code is 1941.  This information give you a factory production rate of 1475 per month at the Rheinmetall-Borsig AG  Sömmerda factory. 

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From factory records there was only 15000 manufactured that year so at some time after March 1941 production slowed down.  The left hand side of the receiver has the Eagle over WaA63 for Mauser-Werke Oberndorf Maschinenbau GmbH. 

 

 With this information we can assume the Mauser-Werke Oberndorf Maschinenbau GmbH was the receiver subcontractor to Rheinmetall-Borsig AG factory at Sömmerda.

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   From a collecting point of view it does not get any better,  this Mg34 was manufactured at the  Louis Stange (Alkett factory)  a subsidiary of Rheinmetall-Borsig AG,  there was a very limited production run ( less than 40,000 in total ever manufactured). 

 

       This Mg34 is in mint condition and would not be out of place in a Museum due to being the rarest of all Mg34 and almost impossible to find.

£4550.00

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