This is an exceptional original WWII fully functional German MG42 light machine gun. These were probably the most feared WWII German weapon on the battlefield. They were mass produced, highly effective, had a high rate of fire and were easily transported by the average German soldier and they were the corner stone of every German Infantry company. These MGs were actually a wartime improvement over the early fully machined MG34, in that they utilized new and innovative mass production techniques of stamped steel parts that were welded or riveted and combined with limited machined parts. Together they allowed the German factories to manufacture well over 400,000 of these MGs during WWII. They proved to be one of the best light machine guns manufactured during WWII, so much that in 1943/44 the U.S. Army copied the design to evaluate it for our use and later on also used many of the features during the development of the M-60 machine gun in the early 1960s. This weapon had several innovative features, the manufacturing techniques noted above, the new delayed roller-block locking system and the quick change barrel. This weapon had an extremely high rate of fire (1,200 rds/minute) so the last feature allowed the average infantry man to rapidly change out the barrels in the field during battle without any tools which helped to preserve barrel life and to prevent cook-offs. These features were years ahead of anything that the allies had. These unique weapons were made by four primary companies, Mauser, Maget of Berlin, Gustloff-Werkes, and Steyr. The left side of the receiver is actually marked "M.U./5301/h/dfb", indicating this excellent weapon was manufactured by the "Gustloff-Werkes-Suhl" and the receiver has the wartime code of "dfb". The front of the receiver has the original WWII folding bipod and the center section of the receiver has the machined top cover center support that is marked with the assembly numbers of "7824/n" and "ar" on top indicating it was manufactured by the Mauser factory. Attached to it is the stamped top cover that carries the wartime code of "Eagle/WaA510". The barrel is matching to the receiver and is marked on the side "dfb/WaA4/530/h". Most of the various parts carry some kind of a German WWII Waffenamt proof. It has the original folding front sight and tangent rear marked 2-20, (200-2,000 meters). It has the earlier wooden buttstock that is stamped on the left side "hvg/44". The right underside of the receiver is stamped "CELCO/KC/Mo." for the manufacturer who registered the weapon. This wonderful MG is complete with five MG42 barrels, four are WWII barrels and one is a post-war barrel chambered in "7.62 NATO", two barrel carriers, three MG34 drum/basket magazines, one MG 34 carrier, two ammunition cans that contain a complete spare top cover and feed tray, (maybe for 7.62 to use with the barrel), a linker/delinker with crank handle, a large folding tripod mount with anti-aircraft sight and adapter/extension rod, a field kit that includes an asbestos glove, oilers, barrel/MG wrenches, ruptured shell extractor, cleaning brush, pull through cleaning rope/brush all contained in green canvas carrying pouch. Also included with this complete set up is an original large tripod mounted range finder with metal storage case.