Abstract: The cartridges are delivered laterally adjacent to the weapon barrel by a cartridge feed mechanism and must be deflected or depressed upon insertion of the cartridges into a cartridge chamber of the weapon barrel by the breechblock. At high cadences there is the risk that the cartridges slide off from the breechblock and impinge with their tips against the weapon barrel and then cannot be inserted. The inventive apparatus is intended to avoid this risk. A pivotable supporting and deflecting pawl having a pivot axis parallel to the weapon axis ensures reliable insertion of the cartridges into the weapon barrel.

Abstract: Before the empty cartridge case is ejected it is extracted from the cartridge chamber of the weapon barrel by an extractor and subsequently tilted by an ejector. During this operation large forces are exerted on the pivotably mounted extractor. It has been found that when high cadence firing takes place the spring forces are too small to hold the extractor reliably. Therefore, the extractor is secured by a support lever or by a locking pawl against inadvertent pivoting during the removal of the cartridge case. Preferably a support lever or support slide is arranged in the breechblock to prevent premature tilting of the cartridge case.

Abstract: A countercoil and recoil damper for an automatic firearm which ensures floating support of the weapon during automatic bursts of fire is disclosed. To achieve this, the damper provides annular spring packs (32-35) and a precompressed spring (24), colinear with the other annular spring packs. The precompressed spring is a coil spring which is compressed during countercoil and is released during recoil in order to increase the hysteresis of the annular spring packs (32-35).

Abstract: The belt links are constituted by a clamp member and a link member and serve to assemble together a series of cartridges to form a cartridge belt. Each cartridge is engaged or embraced by the guide member of one belt link, on the one hand, and by the link member of an adjacent belt link, on the other hand. In consideration of the infeed of the cartridges to a firing weapon the engaging or embracement angle, i.e. the overlap of the interfitting and superimposed guide and link members should be small. However, in order to prevent the cartridge belt from unintentionally disintegrating during kinking or buckling, there are provided stops or abutments at the clamp member and at the link member, by means of which the pivoting movement of the link member relative to the clamp member is limited.