Black Diggers

Prapor

Prapor

Active member
In case anyone remembers, I've posted here about Black Diggers before. Groups in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus that operate around areas where firece battles were fought in WWII, as well as near military weapons storage facilities and dump-sites, finding, repairing if necessary, and selling old, written off, but perfectly working weapons. Well, recently, my brothers and I went to one of those places, to see our very own Black Digger squad leader, no names, I'll just call him by his nickname here, 'Rembo'. Marine veteran, Cossack, and his group only sells to us, Cossacks. Because we know and trust each other, he allowed me to take some pictures in their warehouse for you guys.

289503.jpg

You can see some Maxim machine-guns, as well as a German WW-II era machine-gun, and a mine thrower (big upward-pointing tube there).
293599.jpg

More of Maxims.
292575.jpg

And the German gun in the middle there.

284383.jpg

Two Soviet high-caliber armor-piercing rifles (anti-tank) and an assortiment of swords, sabers and such, this is a Cossack shop after all, we like blades too :)

272095.jpg

Some other sort of machine gun, a bunch of AKs, a PPSh showing under the machine gun there, and on the middle-right a German WW-II Schmeisser sub-machine gun.

Hand-guns. I saw Lugers, Parabellums, TTs, Nagant revolvers, and a Makarov PM. We bought 5, different ones, they are cheap, about US$5 each.
276191.jpg


Rifles
264927.jpg

262879.jpg


PKM machine guns (eventually, we bought the one on top for around US$500), a gas mask, a AKM assault rifle, and another PPSh
321246.jpg


PPSh, Schmeisser, Uzi (I think), another PPSh, AKM
312030.jpg
 
Last edited:
More machine guns
305886.jpg

The one on the very right used to be aircraft mounted, I believe.
308958.jpg

302814.jpg

289502.jpg

288478.jpg


More blades
277022.jpg

326161.jpg

325137.jpg
312849.jpg
317969.jpg

315921.jpg
 
USA sent thousands of M1s to USSR with other aid during WWII/Great Patriotic War. Probably plenty are still left over. :)
 
It is a pity as I am hopefully about a month away from being able to buy an MG-42 although I still have to justify its addition to the collection (and to be honest I am a bit thin on the ground for reasons other than I don't have one and would like one which really becomes a hard sell).
 
A Can of Man said:
Nice! Do they do that for the MG-42s as well?
Click to expand...

Thank you, NOW I remember what that gun is called lol And yes, probably. I believe they adapt them to PKM ammo.

MontyB said:
It is a pity as I am hopefully about a month away from being able to buy an MG-42 although I still have to justify its addition to the collection (and to be honest I am a bit thin on the ground for reasons other than I don't have one and would like one which really becomes a hard sell).
Click to expand...

:smil: It is good being Cossack in Russia. We get any weapon we want short of WMDs, no questions asked. Especially if you are a member of a Cossack militia, which are recognized now as part of security forces (in Stavropolski and Krasnodarski krais and Rostov oblast, our men patrol together with police, in fact, in our communities, our militias act as police, enforce law, maintain order, and keep out bad people.

I have a ID like this:
393366b821848d67d452c4a1f848e077.jpg

Federal Service for Cossack Affairs. 750,000 Cossacks are enlisted with this... well... army, really, at this point. With own uniforms, own, Cossack, ranking system and everything
393366b821848d67d452c4a.jpg

With this, I can (and do) walk in to a police or military armoury and take whatever I want. I also do not have to pay taxes. In return, I am tied to the Russian military for the rest of my life. If the country is at war, I am to come to the nearest base fully armed and ready to fight.
 
Hehe I will take arms control over living in Russia any day of the week.
:)

My problem is that I declared my collection as a light automatic weapons collection and technically the MG-42 is not a light weapon (unless you compare it to an 88mm and then it becomes surprising light), in reality while I would like an MG-42 I really wanted a FG-42 which is classified as light but they are almost impossible to get.

Coincidently I think you have both the MG-34 and the MG-42 in those pictures, one looks to be on a standard MG-34 mount although the weapon is hard to identify without the barrel cooling shroud.
 
MontyB said:
Hehe I will take arms control over living in Russia any day of the week.
:)

My problem is that I declared my collection as a light automatic weapons collection and technically the MG-42 is not a light weapon (unless you compare it to an 88mm and then it becomes surprising light), in reality while I would like an MG-42 I really wanted a FG-42 which is classified as light but they are almost impossible to get.

Coincidently I think you have both the MG-34 and the MG-42 in those pictures, one looks to be on a standard MG-34 mount although the weapon is hard to identify without the barrel cooling shroud.
Click to expand...

The MG42 is a light machinegun compared to any water-cooled or tripod mounted MG's, but keep in mind that you need the Swiss defense-budget in order to feed them with ammo....they're hungry! :smile:

There was MG42's and MG34's in those pictures, but I noticed that one of the MG34's didn't have the standard cooling-shroud on the barrel, could be a shroud from some aircraft or vehicle mounted version.
 
84RFK said:
The MG42 is a light machinegun compared to any water-cooled or tripod mounted MG's, but keep in mind that you need the Swiss defense-budget in order to feed them with ammo....they're hungry! :smile:

There was MG42's and MG34's in those pictures, but I noticed that one of the MG34's didn't have the standard cooling-shroud on the barrel, could be a shroud from some aircraft or vehicle mounted version.
Click to expand...

True they did relegate the MG-34 to aircraft defence but I am assuming (possibly incorrectly) that the guns were refurbished with the materials they we recovered with as that one was on a standard ground mount but it may well have been added later for display purposes, another option is that it was one used in an armoured vehicle as the MG-42 was not suited to that role due to the barrel change mechanism.

Either way I would love to be let loose in that warehouse for a day or two with a full wallet.

Just to be sure (as I am terrible at identifying the 34 and 42) this is the MG-42.
289502.jpg

Stamped construction and square cooling shroud.

And this is the MG-34
272095.jpg


Milled construction, no cooling shroud though.

There were other 34/42s in the pictures as well but these were the two easiest identifiable ones.
 
Last edited:
MontyB said:
True they did relegate the MG-34 to aircraft defence but I am assuming (possibly incorrectly) that the guns were refurbished with the materials they we recovered with as that one was on a standard ground mount but it may well have been added later for display purposes, another option is that it was one used in an armoured vehicle as the MG-42 was not suited to that role due to the barrel change mechanism.

Either way I would love to be let loose in that warehouse for a day or two with a full wallet.

Just to be sure (as I am terrible at identifying the 34 and 42) this is the MG-42.
289502.jpg

Stamped construction and square cooling shroud.

And this is the MG-34
272095.jpg


Milled construction, no cooling shroud though.

There were other 34/42s in the pictures as well but these were the two easiest identifiable ones.
Click to expand...

I believe they are all altered. You have to understand, someof these guns they get, they have to rebuild much of the mechanism from scratch, from nothing. And not all authentic parts are available today. So, often, they would use what they can find, parts from other, modern guns. So, the result may end up looking (and working) differently from the original.
 
That is in a lot of ways a shame as the original weapons even in a bad state of repair are worth a lot of money to collectors etc. probably worth more than what they get for them rebuilt.

For example an MP-44 in firing condition complete with a set of spares set me back a little over 10,000 Euro, I am expecting to pay 15-25,000 Euro for an authentic MG-42 depending on its condition.
 
headwards said:
Christ that's an expensive hobby! What gives them such a high value?
Click to expand...

There is not a huge number of them available for sale mainly, there are also a huge number of fakes in the market so in order to get what you are paying for you need to get them authenticated which is a sizeable amount of work and equates to about 10% of the cost.

Collecting allied weaponry is a far cheaper process as after the war much of the material stayed in service with the allied countries where as much of the axis material was destroyed.

Obviously the equipment I am buying is in firing condition as well if I was to buy "display" quality equipment it would be a lot cheaper, then on top of that you try importing an automatic weapon into New Zealand the paperwork and security requirements are phenomenal, but it is what you have to do to stay within the law.
 
Last edited:
That's a shame for a genuine collector that it is such a hassle to bring automatic weapons in here, are there any requirements once you have succeeded? such as not having ammunition for it or anything?
I suppose you would not want to fire a weapon so expensive and time consuming to get!

It would be very cool to see and handle all that stuff in real life, my friend recently hung out with Peter Jackson for a day or so. He has accumulated a lot of stuff for the dambusters movie and bought it along to the omaka airshow. I can only imagine the hassle he had with bringing tanks and military vehicles into the country. I get a new appreciation now that I know the value of some of this stuff.
 
Well Monty, seems like we've got an explaination for the somewhat unorthodox appearnace of the MG34 then.
And you're absolutely right, the MG34 had a milled construction, while the MG42 was stamped sheet construction.

But the MG42 is just as easily adapted to the role mounted in a vehicle as the MG34, maybe even better suited due to the easy barrel change.
I suppose you knew that the barrel change on the MG34 is connected to the large hinge right in front of the reciever.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top