FG 42 Countdown

Trying to contain myself until 6:00pm on Friday!!! After almost a year waiting for ATF approval and after offloading around 40% of my previous collection to pay for it, I was just notified that I can pick up my new-to-my collection FG 42 tomorrow. Comes with its very own original bayonet, sling, scope and mount. Before I pulled the proverbial "you bought it" trigger, Ken Keilholz in Cincy reviewed the bona fides of all of the items and gave me a short history of this particular gun. It's on his list of all known original FG42s in the latest version of the FG book, Death From Above, and he graciously promised to give me a history of this particular gun, where its been, and how it got there, from the first time he became aware of it to now, ending up with me.

Can't harldy wait, I feel like a 6 year old again on Dec 24th pestering my folks as to why Santa Claus can't show up right now!

Wow. Congratulations! Was this the one being offered by OOW sometime ago? Or was this a private sale?

Congrats! I'm excited to see it posted!

sold less than half of your collection to buy a $80k+ gun!? Im excited to see the FG42, but I want to see the rest of your collection!!

Please.... post ... pictures !!!!!

Here are some pictures. As some of you suspected, It did come from Bob Landies at OOW. The two full size pictures are from him, the others I took this afternoon. I was particularly pleased to see that the ZF4 is "L" marked. Notice the reweld picture, I queried several of the FG42 collectors that i know and they told me that most of the FG42s in private hands came back as a duffel bag cut individual bringback. Just to check, I measured this one against a WWII GI duffel and it looks like this was the height it needed to have it fit in the bag. They also indicated that capture papers are extremely rare with these as most of these were confiscated if they came to the notice of the Army authorities and suggested most FGs in private hands have a similiar duffel cut somewhere. I'd never heard this before, but upon rerflection, it makes sense to me. According to these references, our Army was extremely interested in examining these and supposedly, the M-60 incorporates some of the features. Anyone ever hear anything similiar to this?

Anyway, this one at least has found a happy home next to its Luft buddies, the Drilling and the MG15 w/ground mount and AA tripod. In two weeks, its going to a private range to see how smoothly it works so that should be interesting enough, correct?

Luft1,
What can I say but "WOW". You made a good decision, although I am not sure what you sold from your collection. I wasn't even aware of the Drilling until now, maybe you should start a thread and post about that as well.
"Cincy Ken" is about as straight shooter as they come. He never ceases to amaze me what he digs up as far as rarities go. Good guy to deal with too. I always enjoy seeing him at the Knob Creek show where he has a table. I like your "L" marked Zf4 scope, blue triangle for cold weather too. Looks as if you have found a real gem there. Thank-you for posting pictures of this, it is a real treasure.
CaptMax

Words can't describe that piece!!!! Thank you for showing - now we can all be envious.

p.s. Bob is a good man to deal with too...

NOT a hard choice to make im sure.. Sometimes its best to have a few than many. Im sure you know you made the right choice. Great item and the others are great as well.. Congrats !!!!

Fantastic, what a beauty! You are a very lucky, and no doubt very happy man.
Green with envy,
Jonathan.

Very nice.....

Do you want to shoot that FG42?
Nice drilling too

bjarne said:

Do you want to shoot that FG42?

Click to expand...

In the late 60's, a good friend had a beautiful "unregistered" 2nd model bought directly from a WWII veteran. It was a near mint example but unfortunately did not have a magazine. We had to fire it one round at a time. At least I can say I have fired an FG42!
Fortunately, he registered it during the '68 amnesty and DID find a magazine after many years of looking.

Luft1, congrats again on your great buy.

Just got an update on the history of this one from Ken Keilholz from his all inclusive database.

"It was captured by Capt. Rich Gooley of the 28th Infantry Division ( Keystone) . Actually what I have written he was in the 112th Infantry division that was part of the 28th.
The FG42 was taken from a prisoner of the German 5th parachute regiment that was attached to the German SS Kampfgruppe "Ellwangen". Date of capture was February 1945."

Neat stuff and many thanks to Ken. It's really unusual to me to collect something that has its very own database with a history of all know examples

Luft1 said:

Just got an update on the history of this one from Ken Keilholz from his all inclusive database.

"It was captured by Capt. Rich Gooley of the 28th Infantry Division ( Keystone) . Actually what I have written he was in the 112th Infantry division that was part of the 28th.
The FG42 was taken from a prisoner of the German 5th parachute regiment that was attached to the German SS Kampfgruppe "Ellwangen". Date of capture was February 1945."

Neat stuff and many thanks to Ken. It's really unusual to me to collect something that has its very own database with a history of all know examples

Click to expand...

From what I remember this one had a curious extra 4 digit serial number on the receiver. The buttstock was matched to this number instead of the factory serial number. Are the rest of the parts matched like that?

Does Ken have any thoughts on this?

Where exactly is the "duffle cut" on the FG42? I see the picture of the reweld but I have no clue where it is on the rifle...

Luft1 said:

Here are some pictures. As some of you suspected, It did come from Bob Landies at OOW. The two full size pictures are from him, the others I took this afternoon. I was particularly pleased to see that the ZF4 is "L" marked. Notice the reweld picture, I queried several of the FG42 collectors that i know and they told me that most of the FG42s in private hands came back as a duffel bag cut individual bringback. Just to check, I measured this one against a WWII GI duffel and it looks like this was the height it needed to have it fit in the bag. They also indicated that capture papers are extremely rare with these as most of these were confiscated if they came to the notice of the Army authorities and suggested most FGs in private hands have a similiar duffel cut somewhere. I'd never heard this before, but upon rerflection, it makes sense to me. According to these references, our Army was extremely interested in examining these and supposedly, the M-60 incorporates some of the features. Anyone ever hear anything similiar to this?

Anyway, this one at least has found a happy home next to its Luft buddies, the Drilling and the MG15 w/ground mount and AA tripod. In two weeks, its going to a private range to see how smoothly it works so that should be interesting enough, correct?

Click to expand...

Absolutely beautiful. I really hope to get the chance to shoot a real one someday.

Good questions above, I had the same ones when I first looked at the FG.
1) extra 4 digit number: according to Ken, the GI brought it home and gave it to a friend. The friend didn't know anything about the 1968 amnesty so it was kept in a closet. Eventually, the gun went to a Class II mfgr in the 80s to get registered and the extra 4 digit number was added for that registration process, though they made sure to not obscure the original serial number and to try to keep the new numbers as inconspicuous as possible. Sounds like a Rube Goldberg opertion to me but if I remember correctly, there was a lot of paranoia going around then and they wanted to make sure that they wouldn't lose the gun to ATF on a technicality.
2) where the cut is: the buttstock has a pushbutton release that allows it to be removed rearward from the end of the receiver tail, which fits into a recessed tube in the butt. If you start to remove the butt, the cut was made about 2"-3" from the end where it fits into the hole and the piece that was cut appears to only be for stability, not involving any moving parts. The whole thing is right at the end of the tail of the receiver and as far away from the action as you can actually get, doesn't affect any type of operation, and you'd never see it unless you took the butt off of the gun. If it had to be cut, either to put into the duffle bag or to remanufacturer it, I guess there couldn't have been a better place to put it. In either case, it looks like the piece was substantually and professionally rewelded together again so that it has no affect on the operation. I'll find that out for sure in two weeks when I test fire it at a local private range. I got access to the range, by the way, because the owner wants to be able to say that he fired an FG 42, like Denny, so I promised him 2 rounds for the chance to use his range and he accepted.

Cool! Thanks for the explanation.

Please would you be able to post more pictures when you have chance? The bit that I'd most like to see would be the scope mounts on the gun and how it attaches. Great example... as others are, I'm very jealous!!!

Just WOW. I really don't know how to express how neat that is.

On a side note, that shotgun and other MG is uber cool too!