Tony Williams Wrote:I have some 7x43 dummies in 7.62mm links, made by a small ammo firm in the UK. They tried out a short length of belt by manually cycling it through a GPMG, and reported that the belt and rounds fed just fine...Despite their reported success with manual cycling, I remain skeptical that it would function reliably when fired.
The feed tray on machine guns like the M240 and M249 has a cartridge stop at the right front, which is designed to contact the shoulder of the cartridge to keep the round from going past the feed slot. With no shoulder protruding in front of the link, what will keep the cartridge from "overshooting" the slot and becoming misaligned?
IIRC, the frontmost feed pawl is also placed so that it pushes against the left side of the exposed cartridge shoulder. With no shoulder ahead of the link, what does the feed pawl push against?