{"id":30182,"date":"2026-08-19T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T13:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/19\/mg51-when-the-swiss-make-an-mg42\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T08:00:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T13:00:25","slug":"mg51-when-the-swiss-make-an-mg42","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/19\/mg51-when-the-swiss-make-an-mg42\/","title":{"rendered":"MG51: When the Swiss Make an MG42"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mejs-video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"autoplay\" width=\"580\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LL7JbEEI2sM?controls=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>When Switzerland decided to adopt a modern universal machine gun toe replace both the MG11 Maxim and the LMG25, both SIG and Waffenfabrik Bern used the German MG42 as a starting point. W+F Bern was the eventual winning of the trials with the MG51. This is basically a Swiss out-Germaning of the Germans. The stamped receiver was replaced by a milled one, the barrel made heavier for more sustained fire, and an effective anti-bounce system added to prevent the out-of-battery discharges that were a problem with the MG42. A number of other minor improvements were made as well.<\/p>\n<p>The best firearms reference books: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.headstamppublishing.com\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.headstamppublishing.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! <a href=\"http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Switzerland decided to adopt a modern universal machine gun toe replace both the MG11 Maxim and the LMG25, both SIG and Waffenfabrik Bern used the German MG42 as a starting point. W+F Bern was the eventual winning of the trials with the MG51. This is basically a Swiss out-Germaning of the Germans. The stamped&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/19\/mg51-when-the-swiss-make-an-mg42\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">MG51: When the Swiss Make an MG42<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}