Got to clean this fast because I hear the Russians are coming down the gate.
Even though we're in an underground bunker, not Russian proof.
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video episode on Forgotten Weapons.
This is one of the cooler guns we've been
able to have a chance to shoot.
This is a Volkssturmgewehr Gustloffwerke,
generally known as a VG1-5.
That's really not too bad. A lot of people say this has a really fierce recoil because of its action, but not really.
It's not as smooth as some of the other Kurz firing guns I've seen, but it's not bad by any means.
[Operation]
First of all, let's talk briefly about the operation.
The VG1-5 is interesting in its design in that it is basically a large blowback pistol.
When you fire, this whole slide mechanism reciprocates.
There's a spring up here and it's ... in theory, it's a delayed blowback.
You have inertia from the slide pushing back, but you also have,
if you look up here at the muzzle you can see a couple of small holes in the barrel.
The idea is gas comes out of these holes and into this tube,
which causes pressure to build up in this tube and hold the slide assembly forward,
until the bullet has left the muzzle, pressure drops a bit and then
inertia runs this back. That's the theory.
In practical fact it's basically just a blowback ... 7.62 Kurz rifle.
All right, so you know a lot of people really bad-mouth this gun.
They say it's, you know, it's thrown together junk.
Well, we don't really think so. I wouldn't want this kind of mechanism with any cartridge larger than Kurz,
but clearly this particular one has lasted about 70 years and it's still firing just great.
There isn't as much side blast from it as people say there is.
And, you know, sure the recoil is a little bit more violent than ... an MP44,
but it's not bad by any means. We really enjoyed shooting this gun.
And, for what it is, we think it's really quite well done.
[How much blast comes out the breech of the VG1-5 when firing?]
So we mentioned that there's a lot of side blast coming out the back end of this gun.
Well, that's the common notion, but as you can see from the video there really isn't.
There's certainly some, but not any worse than, say, an MP44.
[Yep, contrary to common thought, the VG1-5 breech stays closed just fine when firing. Blast out of the breech is, if anything, less than an MP44.]
These are extremely crude guns, although they're surprisingly heavily made.
This main receiver assembly is all stamped sheet metal.
There's a main outer stamping and then there's an inner stamping for the magazine well.
And they're spot welded together on both sides.
Even a gun ... with production as low as this one, there were a number of different variants.
The very first version actually had a long magazine catch
attached with two rivets here. It was just a piece of spring steel that came out.
So you would lift up this end, put your magazine in and then ...
spring pressure would hold it down.
Those didn't work very well. This particular gun is the second variation.
It has a much more standard push-button
cross magazine catch. But, you can see
there are still two holes here for the original long spring metal catch.
The third version of the gun they got rid of those two holes.
[Let's take a look at the insides...]
Alright guys, so we have the VG1-5 disassembled here.
And we're going to take a look at how it works and how it was constructed.
Mechanically, this is basically a large blowback pistol.
We have a series of holes in the barrel up here, you can see gas rings machined onto the barrel itself.
And the gas tube, in effect,
is the front half of this slide assembly.
So this sits on the barrel here.
And when you fire, gas comes out these ports, fills up this cylinder
and that creates a little bit of gas pressure to help prevent this slide
from moving backward too fast and too early.
In addition to that, you just have the simple mass of this acting like a straight blowback slide, really.
The way this was made ... there are a couple interesting features here.
This is basically a piece of tube steel that's had some machining done.
There is this front guide lug which runs on
this set of tabs which are part of the receiver.
So that keeps this piston nice and straight and in place.
The main bolt assembly, or bolt face assembly, back here is
milled out of a piece of round stock, I expect.
And it is actually ... there're slots cut in the slide so that this piece rotates in,
and is then pinned in place.
So you can make this out of good steel,
stronger steel than you need for the rest of the slide assembly. It does also have a spring-loaded firing pin.
So despite the type of action, there is no chance of a slam fire on this gun, as long as it's working properly.
The sights are riveted and dovetailed in place, other than that, very, very simple.
The receiver ... is a set of stampings. There's an inside stamping for the magazine well,
and then the outside receiver shell are two pieces, a left and a right,
stamped out, and then spot welded together. You can see spot welds
connecting the magazine well on the inside to the main receiver on the outside.
So as far as the barrel trunnion, or the front trunnion, we have a block of steel in here,
a fairly substantial block. This goes forward to about here.
And it's locked into both pieces of the receiver by this cross pin / rivet.
As far as attaching the barrel, we have a shroud ...
basically a front trunnion, a hollow tube right here. The barrel comes in from the back,
it's run up to this shoulder and then pinned in place, you can just barely see it, right here.
So the barrel is pressed and pinned in place, a pretty typical, standard way to mount that.
We should also note the wood (the front stock and the rear stock)
are permanently riveted in place. There's no way to remove these.
Now ...
Trigger mechanism. At this point you know you're looking at a German gun.
Fairly complex, and this is all one complete assembly.
So, trigger, extractor, a trigger ejector,
the works, right there. And this connects into the receiver by a pin here and a pin here.
Alright.
We of course have the mainspring.
When the gun is reassembled, the mainspring
sits back behind the gas piston, so it's not exposed to the gas.
So this is how this is going to look underneath that slide.
So that prevents the spring from being exposed to the propellant gas from the cartridges,
which means it's much more likely to maintain a service life.
[Reassembly]
Alright, let's reassemble this, shall we? We're going to start with the main slide assembly.
It's interesting, we'll show you how this is actually held in place.
This slides over the barrel, drops in like this.
Now at the front, you can see this guide lug is riding on the receiver tab. That's what holds it left to right.
There's nothing holding this down. It's riding on top of these rails, but it's not captured by them.
What holds it down in the back is this trigger group.
Drop that down.
Now, this can't come up at all because it's held in place by this cover. Then on the front
we have this plug.
And between this at the front, and this at the back,
(the rear cover of course being held in place by these two cross pins),
that's what holds the slide in place.
And then this lug welded on the bottom guides it as it reciprocates back and forth.
Right, we'll go ahead and put the ... safety lever, which is one of the two retaining pins, in.
(There we go.)
And then our front cross pin.
difficult ... this side ... there we go ... There's our front cross pin.
Now, we're still wobbly at the front. We'll put in the recoil spring.
Make sure it drops all the way down around those gas rings and then
front guide.
This goes in, rotates 90 degrees, and it's held in place by that little spring.
And there we are.
So, thanks for watching guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Hope you learned something.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the owner of this gun for letting us
shoot it and disassemble it.
He knows who he is. Thank you very much.
And tune into ForgottenWeapons.com for more interesting information on cool German guns.
Thanks for watching.