Rifle 41

Gewehr 41 (W)
general information
Civil name:	Rifle 41
Military designation:	SG41 semi - automatic rifle 41 (W)
Country of operation:	Germany
Developer / Manufacturer:	Carl Walther GmbH / Berlin-Lübeck weapons factory Zella-Mehlis
Development year:	1940/41
Manufacturer country:	Germany
Production time:	1941 to 1943
Model variants:	G41 (M), G41 (W)
Weapon Category:	Self-loading rifle
Furnishing
Overall length:	1124 mm
Weight: (unloaded)	4.7 kg
Barrel length :	546 mm
Technical specifications
Caliber :	7.92 x 57 mm
Possible magazine fillings :	10 cartridges
Ammunition supply :	Loading strips of 5 rounds each
Cadence :	40 rounds / min
Number of trains :	4th
Twist :	Right
Visor :	Open sights
Closure :	Mauser: Quarter-turn lock Walther: Support flap lock
Charging principle:	Gas pressure charger
Lists on the subject

Gewehr 41 (M)

The Gewehr 41 (G 41) was Germany's first attempt to develop a semi-automatic rifle for the Wehrmacht and to get it beyond the prototype stage. Development work began before 1940.

Tender

Since the senior German troop leaders and procurement officers did not trust the construction element of the drilled barrel (which was also the reason for the sluggish first series of tests in the 1920s and 1930s), they made it a condition of the designers that the self-loading rifle should be used with the automatic reloading cycle the barrel must not be drilled. There were also additional requirements that there should be no moving parts on the top of the weapon and that the weapon should have a repeating device in the event that the automatic loader fails.

Documents were submitted by Mauser, Krieghoff, Rheinmetall and Walther in response to the corresponding tender by the weapons office. Mauser and Walther were asked by these to produce prototypes for testing.

This is how the Gewehr 41 (M) from Mauser , the manufacturer of the proven 98k carbine, and the Gewehr 41 (W) from Walther came into being . They both had a gas tap right at the muzzle, which made the system complicated, expensive and fragile. While the Mauser system has a rotary bolt lock (with an additional bolt handle, similar to the 98k karabiner), Walther ignored some of the tender requirements and submitted a prototype with movable outer parts and without a bolt handle.

The gas system in both weapons consisted of a tubular gas piston that slid back and forth on the barrel, a sleeve pushed over it that was provided with relief bores and also served as a grain carrier, a conical muzzle nut that held a small portion of the gases out of the Muzzle directed back to the gas piston and a bumper that transmitted the impulse to the bolt carrier. Because the front sight was not firmly attached to the barrel, the accuracy of the hit suffered, especially with increasing wear. In addition, the system was susceptible to contamination, as the gas piston had sliding surfaces both inside against the barrel and outside against the sleeve.

The weight was around 4.6 kg and the muzzle velocity was 745 m / s for the Gewehr 41 (W) and 776 m / s for the Gewehr 41 (M) due to the slightly longer barrel.

The rifles fired the standard 7.92 × 57 mm cartridge . The magazine held ten cartridges, but was permanently installed and had to be loaded with two Mauser 98 loading strips of five rounds each, which made reloading under combat conditions a cumbersome procedure.

Both versions of this weapon were not particularly popular on the front lines as they were extremely susceptible to dust and pollution from gunfire. Although the rifles were not very popular with the troops, Gewehre41 (W) were manufactured until the end of 1943.

Gewehr 41 (M)

The Gewehr 41 (M) had a rotary bolt lock based on the proven 98 system. Just like this, it locked in the chamber with two warts. In order to enable the self-loading function, it consisted of the rotatable bolt head and the non-rotatable middle piece as well as the bolt stem with the closing spring. If the bolt handle was in the right position, the weapon was locked and could be fired semi-automatically. In the event of a malfunction, the chamber stem could be turned upwards by 90 °, as with the K98. As a result, the closing spring was separated from the locking center piece and a recess in the bolt handle engaged in one of the pegs of the center piece. Now the lock could be repeated manually.

If the bolt handle was in the right position, the pin of the middle piece acted on the closing spring located in the bolt handle. If a shot was fired, the gas piston and the bumper located under the barrel slid back a short distance and transmitted the impulse to the middle section of the breech. This slid back further and unlocks the bolt head by turning it 90 ° to the left. The center piece and locking head now slide back together further and tension the recoil spring. The empty cartridge case is ejected and the mainspring is tensioned. When the bolt has reached its end position, it is pushed forward again by the recoil spring, inserting a new cartridge from the magazine into the chamber, the bolt head locks by turning it 90 ° to the right and the weapon is ready to fire.

The G 41 (M) was only manufactured by the Mauser works in Oberndorf, only around 12,000 to 13,000 pieces were manufactured for troop trials.

Gewehr 41 (W)

The Gewehr 41 (W) had a support flap latch that was largely similar to that of the Soviet IMG DP . In contrast to the Gewehr 41 (M), the bumper lay over the barrel and was partly designed as a stamped sheet metal part. The weapon does not have a breechblock like the Gewehr 41 (M), but the forged bolt carrier forms the upper cover. A rotating chamber handle was also dispensed with.

When the shot is fired, gases are directed through the gas channel to the gas piston. This slides back a short distance and transmits the impulse via the bumper, which in turn acts on the bolt carrier. The bolt carrier slides back on the milled bolt frame and takes the lock with it via a pin. After about 5 mm of travel, it runs onto the support flaps and pulls them back into the lock. This unlocks the lock and can slide back with the lock carrier. In doing so, it compresses the recoil spring, the empty cartridge case is ejected and the hammer is cocked. When the bolt carrier has reached its end position, it is pushed forward again by the closing spring. A new cartridge is inserted from the magazine into the chamber and the weapon is ready to fire. The clamping lever is attached to the left side of the bolt carrier . If the weapon does not repeat automatically, the cocking lever can be used to repeat in the manner of a straight pull repeater.

Of the Walther version, around 115,000–130,000 copies were produced, initially by Walther in Zella-Mehlis (code: “ac”), and later by the Berlin-Lübeck machine factory in Lübeck (code: “duv”).

From 1943 onwards, the Gewehr 43 was developed and made ready for the front based on the experience gained with the Walther model .

literature

• Vladimír Dolínek, Vladimír Francev, Jan Šach, German edition by Harald Fritsch: Illustrated lexicon of weapons in the 1st and 2nd World War . Edition Dörfler im Nebel-Verlag, Utting 2000, ISBN 3-89555-223-2 (Czech: Zbraně I. a II. Světové války . Translated by Günter Brehmer, photos by Jaroslav Guth and Martin Tůma).
• Chris Mc Nab, GERMAN AUTOMATIC RIFLES 1941–45 . Osprey Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-1-78096-385-3 . 83 pages (online PDF)
• Chris Bishop: The Encyclopedia of Weapons of WWII . Sterling publishing, 2002, ISBN 1-58663-762-2 , pp. 216, 217 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Günter Wollert, Reiner Lidschun: Infantry weapons yesterday . (1918-1945). In: Illustrated encyclopedia of infantry weapons from around the world . 3. Edition. tape 1 + 2 . Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89488-036-8 , weapons, p. 157-160 .

Web links

Commons : Gewehr 41  - Collection of images

• Ian McCollum: Mauser's Gewehr 41 (M) Semiauto Rifle. In: Forgotten Weapons. Retrieved November 18, 2017 . 
• Ian McCollum: Rifle 41 (Walther). In: Forgotten Weapons. Retrieved November 18, 2017 .