upright=1.35, An M60_machine_gun_belt_loaded_with_7.62×51mm_NATO_cartridges,_aboard_a_U.S._Navy.html" ;"title="7.62×51mm_NATO.html" ;"title="M60 machine gun belt loaded with 7.62×51mm NATO">M60 machine gun belt loaded with 7.62×51mm NATO cartridges, aboard a U.S. Navy">7.62×51mm_NATO.html" ;"title="M60 machine gun belt loaded with 7.62×51mm NATO">M60 machine gun belt loaded with 7.62×51mm NATO cartridges, aboard a U.S. Navy patrol craft An ammunition belt is a firearm device used to package and feed cartridge (firearms), cartridges, typically for rapid-firing automatic weapons such as machine guns. Belt-fed systems minimize the proportional weight of the

ammunition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other we ...

apparatus to the entire weapon system, and allow high rates of continuous fire without needing frequent

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

changes. The capacity of belts and associated belt containers is typically a function of weight and bulk, and their size is limited by

caliber In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore matc ...

and the combined portability of the weapon and ammunition. The most common ammo capacity typically carried on a man-portable weapon system vary from 50 to 300 rounds.

Variants

Feed strip

8mm Lebel feed strip on an M1914 Hotchkiss gun. The "feed strip" (also referred to as an "ammo strip" or "feed tray") was initially designed in 1895, based on initial designs by Captain Baron Adolf Odkolek von Ujezda of

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Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. A feed strip is a simple rigid metal (usually steel or brass) tray with typically 24 to 30 cartridges crimped together into a row. The feed strip is loaded into the side of the gun and as the cartridges are stripped off and fired from the weapon, the tray gradually moves to the other side until it falls out when it is empty, whereupon a new one is inserted. In this regard, it is similar to an ''En-bloc'' clip. The "feed strip" loading system was pioneered by the Hotchkiss machine gun designs, most notably the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun. The Hotchkiss guns were used by major militaries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and the French throughout the duration of the first World War and slightly afterwards. However, the feed strip mechanisms lived on through other militaries, most notably the Italian-designed

Breda M37 The Mitragliatrice Breda calibro 8 modello 37 (commonly known as the Breda mod. 37 or simply Breda 37) was an Italian Medium machine gun produced by Breda and adopted in 1937 by the Royal Italian Army. It was the standard heavy machine gun for t ...

and the Japanese-designed Type 3 and Type 92 machine guns, which were used up until the end of the Second World War.

Articulated "strip"

Though the feed strips were replaced by most militaries by machine guns using either belts or magazines, the Hotchkiss feed strip design actually pioneered an early 50-round belt mechanism, made up of articulated pieces of metal folded together, resembling feed strips. The articulated Hotchkiss belt design also dates back to 1896.

Disintegrating

An M27 disintegrating belt loaded with 5.56×45mm NATO M855 Ball and M856 tracer ammunition being fed into an M249 light machine gun Many modern ammunition belts use disintegrating links. Disintegrating links retain a single round and are articulated with the round ahead of it in the belt. When the round ahead is stripped from the belt and fed into the feed system or chamber, the link holding it is ejected and the link holding the following round is disarticulated. Many disintegrating belt designs allow two pieces of belt to be connected by a cartridge, it applies even to non-disintegrating belts. When done by assistant gunner in combat, linking a new belt to the end of the belt already being fed in the weapon allows for continuous fire without the need to open the feed tray and reload.

Non-disintegrating

left, upMethod of joining German non-disintegrating metallic-link ammunition machine gun belts This type of belt consists of a design that can be reused, as it does not fall apart during function, similar to a feed strip. This is found only on a few types of machine guns, such as the Soviet

DShK The DShK 1938 (Cyrillic: ДШК, for russian: Дегтярёва-Шпагина Крупнокалиберный, Degtyaryova-Shpagina Krupnokaliberny, links=no, "Degtyaryov-Shpagin large-calibre") is a Soviet heavy machine gun with a V-shaped but ...

, RPD, PK, the Russian RPL-20, PKP Pecheneg, the German

MG 34 The MG 34 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr 34'', or "machine gun 34") is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun, first tested in 1929, introduced in 1934, and issued to units in 1936. It introduced an entirely n ...

MG 42 The MG 42 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr 42'', or "machine gun 42") is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun used extensively by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS during the second half of World War II. Enter ...

MG 3 The MG3 is a small car produced by the Chinese automotive company SAIC. The first generation, marketed as the MG3 SW, is based on the British made Rover Streetwise, which itself was based on the Rover 25, while the second generation, introdu ...

, Chinese

QJY-88 The QJY-88, also known as the Type 88 LMG (Chinese: 88式通用机枪, 1988 shì tōngyòng jīqiāng; English: 1988 model general purpose machine gun), is a 5.8x42mm Chinese light machine gun designed in the late 1980s by China North Industries C ...

, and the British

Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public i ...

, which used a non-disintegrating canvas and brass belt. Arguably, precursors to the belt-fed machine gun were the Cass rifle, patented in 1848, and the Treeby chain gun, patented in the 1850s. Belts were originally composed of canvas or cloth with pockets spaced evenly to allow the belt to be mechanically fed into the gun. These designs were prone to malfunctions due to the effects of oil and other contaminants altering the belt. If they became saturated with water, canvas belts including the loops holding the cartridges would contract, and the gun mechanism would be unable to extract the rounds. Later belt designs used permanently connected metal links to hold the cartridges, and weapons which originally used textile belts such as the Vickers Gun were then deployed with these more dependable formats. These belts were more tolerant to exposure to solvents and oil. Despite it being a more efficient system, few are still used, possibly due to the added cost and effort. Non-disintegrating belts often come in pieces of limited length connected by disintegrating link, and after being fed through the weapon the piece falls off, limiting the length of the used belt hanging from the weapon to no more than one such piece. Many weapons designed to use non-disintegrating or canvas belts are provided with machines to automatically reload these belts with loose rounds or rounds held in

stripper clip A stripper clip (also known as a charger or charger clip, especially in British and in Commonwealth military vocabulary) is a speedloader that holds several cartridges (usually between 5 and 10) together in a single unit for easier and faster ...

s. In use during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, reloaders allowed ammunition belts to be recycled quickly to allow practically continuous fire.

Feed variants

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__Pull_out_–_Push_through_

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__Pull_out_–_Push_through_

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Pull out – Push through

Most often required by cloth belts, hence found on mostly early machine guns. The pull out – push through cartridge feed system has the cartridge withdrawn from the belt to the rear, then pushed directly forward into the barrel. Examples are the Darne machine gun">Darne mle 1922, M1919 Browning machine gun">Browning 1919, M2 Browning machine gun">Browning M2HB, Maxim gun">Maxim Maxim or Maksim may refer to: Entertainment * ''Maxim'' (magazine), an international men's magazine ** ''Maxim'' (Australia), the Australian edition ** ''Maxim'' (India), the Indian edition *Maxim Radio, ''Maxim'' magazine's radio channel on Sir ...

and

. Among the modern machine guns using this system are the PK family, where its use is favored due to the rim of the 7.62×54mmR cartridge, which makes it more complicated to eject the round forward from the belt (although not impossible, see the UK vz. 59 for an example of a push through GPMG using the same round).

Push through

Found on mostly modern machine guns. The push through cartridge feed system has the cartridge pushed directly forward into the barrel. Examples are the non-disintegrating ''Patronengurt 33, 34, or 34/41'' used by the MG 34 and

and the derived ''Patronengurt DM1'' used by the

whose feeding systems were based on the direct push-through of the cartridge out of the link into the gun's chamber. Accordingly, the link had to be of the half-open type to enable the motion of the bolt through the link. Many modern machine guns use or can use the disintegrating half-open type 7.62×51mm NATO M13 link or 5.56×45mm NATO M27 link.

External

Some weapons such as the M134 Minigun and related designs use a hybrid mechanism to strip rounds from disintegrating belts into a linkless feed system or a specialized delinker to allow for more reliable feeding at extreme rates of fire. Modern infantry machine guns often have feed systems allowing the use of linked ammunition as well as other forms of feed like from magazines or drums. In some instances—like the FN Minimi/

M249 SAW The M249 light machine gun (LMG), also known as the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), which continues to be the manufacturer's designation, and formally written as Light Machine Gun, 5.56 mm, M249, is the American adaptation of the Belgian F ...

and the IMI Negev—the feed system requires no modification to fire with either mechanism. Other designs—like the Heckler and Koch HK21-based designs or MG34—require the exchange of modular parts to allow belt or alternate feeding. Due to the lack of protection provided by the belt, belt-fed infantry weapons typically use a flexible or rigid container to retain the belt on the weapon. In some designs—like the MG3—the belt container appears to be a magazine causing some confusion to people unfamiliar with the design.

Container device

Flexible belts tend to hang downwards with

gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...

and randomly whip around with

recoil Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, as according to Newton's third law the force r ...

during continuous firing, which can sometimes kink/twist and cause feeding malfunctions. Free-hanging belts can also get dirty/messy with exposure to the elements, be clumsy to handle, and entangle to other objects especially when the shooter tries to maneuver around. To minimize such issues, ammunition belts are sometimes carried in

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

devices designed to be attached to the firearm either by inserting like a

drum magazine A drum magazine is a type of high-capacity magazine for firearms. Cylindrical in shape (similar to a drum), drum magazines store rounds in a spiral around the center of the magazine, facing the direction of the barrel. Drum magazines are contra ...

or just conveniently mounting to the side (for larger weapon systems). When loading ammunition, one end of the belt is pulled out of an opening on the container and inserted into the gun normally, and the belt progresses out of the container in a controlled fashion. These containers also often have a supporting/guiding bar which enables the belt to enter the weapon at an optimal (more perpendicular) angle, rather than bending down more acutely.

References

External links

How's It Made: A Giant Machine That Makes MG Links
Forgotten Weapons {{Firearms Firearm components

Variants

Feed strip

Articulated "strip"

Disintegrating

Non-disintegrating

Feed variants

__Pull_out_–_Push_through_

__Pull_out_–_Push_through_

__Pull_out_–_Push_through_

__Pull_out_–_Push_through_

Pull out – Push through

Push through

External

Container device

See also

Notable firearm belts

References

External links