Top 3 Machine Guns You Need to Buy!

Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. We earn from qualifying purchases.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

1 Timothy 6:10

Yeah, I get it. The pursuit of material goods can easily become all-consuming. The world is dirty with folks who spent their lives chasing wealth only to realize too late that it was actually family and God that brought satisfaction. I’ve known a handful of really rich people, and none of them seemed truly happy. However, a guy can still dream.

Don’t hate. We’ve all been there. The last time the Powerball lottery climbed to more than a billion dollars, I splurged on a ticket and schemed out my plans. I had a private island picked out off of the coast of Belize ($35 million) as well as a meticulously-restored 1944-vintage Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane ($3.5 million). And then some goober in California actually won, and, tragically, I had to go back to work. But what if it had actually been you?

We’re all card-carrying gun nerds, or we wouldn’t be inhabiting this hallowed digital space. The question I’d like to explore today is this: What would be the first three guns that you’d buy if you really did win the lottery? Let’s presume they’d be transferable machineguns, and let’s further presume that they were guns you could actually find in a timely fashion. That rules out a vintage German FG42 or transferable M240 belt-fed machinegun. Those weapons are hen’s teeth rare and only seldom come up for sale. Everyone will naturally have their own favorites, but these would be mine.  

The M1921 Colt Thompson

The classic Chicago Typewriter is the archetypal American submachinegun. Alongside perhaps the Colt Peacemaker revolver and the Winchester family of lever-action rifles, the Colt Thompson became more than just a gun. The Tommy Gun is a cultural icon.

General John Taliaferro Thompson was one of the most influential small arms figures of his generation. He was instrumental in bringing us the .45ACP pistol round. At the time of his promotion, Thompson was the youngest full Colonel in the US Army. After a long and illustrious military career, he retired to develop the big, bulky, beautiful submachine gun that bore his name.

Thompson didn’t actually design the gun, but he organized and administered the project. The first prototypes were completed the day after the armistice that ended World War 1. The gun went into production in 1921.

Thompson’s company was a think tank of sorts. They designed guns but lacked the capacity for actual mass production. The first run of 15,000 weapons was farmed out to Colt’s Manufacturing.

The Thompson was a magnificent example of the gunmaker’s art. Built around a heavy forged steel receiver, those early Thompsons were beautifully finished and meticulously executed. They accepted both box magazines as well as 50 or 100-round drums and could be had either with or without the distinctive Cutts compensator. All of those early guns sported a vertical foregrip. In 1928, the design was tweaked to slow down the gun’s spunky 900rpm rate of fire a bit. 

Originals sold for $200 back in 1921. That would be about $3,500 today. A pristine example nowadays will set you back nearly fifty grand. Give it a verifiable connection to some bloodthirsty gangster, and that number can climb astronomically. However, original Colt Thompsons are still available and remain great fun to shoot.

The German MP44

The MP44 was the alpha assault rifle. It actually began not as a gun but as a cartridge. Originally developed in 1938, the 7.92x33mm kurz round fired by the MP44 was legitimately revolutionary.

The Germans faced WW2 armed with the same finger-sized 7.92x57mm rifle round that had carried them through the First World War. Realizing that this big, powerful rifle cartridge really packed more horsepower than was typically needed for modern combat in Europe, German designers cut the cartridge length by 24mm and packed it with exactly half as much gunpowder. The end result offered substantially less bulk, weight, and recoil yet remained effective out to 300 meters. The world would never be the same. 

Once the cartridge was perfected, the Germans needed a gun to fire it. Famed weaponsmith Hugo Schmeisser led the team that developed this radically-advanced rifle. However, Adolf Hitler nearly scuppered the gun before it got off the drawing board.

Hitler fought with some distinction in WW1 himself and was accustomed to the range and power of a full-sized rifle round. He therefore forbade German engineers from spending limited resources on rifles that did not fire full-sized cartridges. However, Schmeisser and Company appreciated the exceptional capabilities of this stubby new round. As a result, they built the world’s first assault rifle claiming it was a submachine gun. Hence the MP44 (Maschinenpistole or machine pistol) designation.   

The first models were actually called the MP43. The following year, the guns were redesignated MP44. By war’s end they were stamped StG44. Aside from the markings, these three guns were really about the same.

StG 44 stood for Sturmgewehr or Storm Gun. Hitler himself was eventually thrilled with the weapons and purportedly thought up that term himself. Allied intelligence officers purportedly translated storm gun as assault rifle, and the rest is history.

The MP44 was indeed radically advanced for its day. Comprised of as much pressed steel as possible, the gun could be churned out cheaply by minimally-trained slave laborers with relative ease. The buttstock was cut from simple board stock, but most of the rest of the gun save the bolt, bolt carrier, and barrel was stamped. The generous curved magazine packed 30 rounds onboard, and the gun was selective fire via a knurled pushbutton. The safety was a separate rotating lever.

At more than 11 pounds loaded, the MP44 is surprisingly heavy. Its comatose 500 rpm rate of fire combined with the placid nature of the cartridge make the gun exceptionally controllable in all modes of fire. Additionally, while there never was another mass-produced military weapon that fired that curious round, it nonetheless remains in production by Prvi Partisan today. 

The Germans made nearly half a million copies. They cost around $500 apiece to produce in today’s money. Nowadays a nice example will set you back $48k or so. Curiously, the first time I ever fired an MP44 I dutifully wrapped my hand around the sheet steel forearm in a C-shape. In so doing, I inadvertently placed my hand over the gas exhaust port and got a nasty shock. Don’t be like me.

The HK23 Belt-Fed Machinegun

The extensive family of roller-delayed weapons from Heckler and Koch exudes more raw sex appeal than most other firearm. In service since the 1950’s, the line has evolved from the original Spanish CETME battle rifle through the latest MP5K PDW submachine gun. The real strength of the weapon is its pervasive modularity.

In American civilian hands, that means you can invest in a registered sear or trigger pack and then drop it into a dozen or more different disparate chassis. In so doing, a single registered machinegun part can drive everything from a concealable MP5K up through the HK33 assault rifle, the G3 battle rifle, or the HK21/23 belt-fed machineguns The 5.56mm HK23 is likely the top of the heap.

Semiauto HK23’s never were imported from Germany, but Michael’s Machines makes a superb version here in the states. By swapping out the barrel, the bolt, and the belt drive assembly, the same receiver can fire either 5.56x45mm or 7.62x51mm. The action of the HK23 is a bit different from that of most belt-fed guns.

The HK23 fires from the closed bolt, and the belt-feed mechanism is upside down compared to such common belt-feds as the M60, M240, and M249. That means you load the ammunition links down and brass up rather than the more traditional “brass to the grass” found with other weapons. To load the weapon, you release a catch, pivot the belt feed mechanism down, and arrange the belt on the bottom of the action. The gun charges via a left-sided charging handle up front just like every other roller-delayed HK. These guns are more finicky than something like an M249 SAW. However, once they’re tweaked, the run like an monkey after an orange.

The registered sear or trigger pack will set you back somewhere around fifty grand (that seems to be a trend, does it not?). Michael’s Machines MM23E’s, the domestically-produced version of the HK23, are currently in production, but they run about $15k with a fairly long lead time. The same gun can typically be found for sale online at around $18k. The whole package therefore runs about $68,000. However, what’s money to a guy who just won the lottery?

---