Went unicorn hunting..bagged a one-pointer (PTR 44/MP 44)

June 24, 2019, 12:06 AM

3/4Flap

quote:
Originally posted by kimberkid:It makes me wonder how much the designers knew of other weapons and if they were inspired by other designs or if the designs were more coincidental ...

Andy ... Sorry for the thread drift.

That's a great question and historically it has been both.

Every major nation has ordnance collections for the purpose of studying designs and gun designers make extensive use of such collections. Why re-invent the wheel? But also, as you note, there have been a number of situations where it is impossible to tell who cooked up what first, and in fact, two guys may have simply bumped into the same idea at the same time. Was recently reading in the Schmeisser Myth of just such an occasion and there are others as well. sometimes these lead to patent suits where the chaos and confusion is hashed out and sometimes...not!

June 24, 2019, 09:06 PM

Andyb

Couple more with it's pal the K43. Working on getting an original sling for the PTR. The repro is nice but just doesn't have the "look"that only old leather gives.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Andyb,

June 25, 2019, 11:16 AM

kimberkid

from the pictures I"ve seen it looks correct, its just new ... like the rest of it!

June 25, 2019, 08:02 PM

sigfreund

quote:
Originally posted by 3/4Flap:
It is nearly impossible often to actually find the true inventor of gun mechanisms and looking over patents for various guns it is obvious many are strongly dependent or at least influenced by previous actions ....

Being influenced by prior knowledge is certainly true of me and, I suspect, of most people, especially anyone who has a strong interest in a subject and studies a wide variety of sources in depth. I’m not a gun designer, but I adopt the ideas of countless other people that relate to the things I teach. Sometimes they are distinct and useful enough for me to remember where I first heard them, but far more often than not they exist as vague concepts in an ever-evolving stew of thought. Very often as well I don’t give them much thought until other facts and circumstances arise and I think, “That idea would go well with these.”

But regardless of how much the Russians (Soviets, really) were influenced in their gun designs by others, they had no compunction whatsoever about deliberately stealing and consciously using other technical information from photographic processes to the atomic bomb. An extremely revealing book is Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, by Haynes and Klehr. Spies in America working for the Communists reported every technical secret they could lay hands on. If the Soviet guns didn’t rely on the work of others for their successes, it wasn’t because they would have hesitated to do so if they’d thought it worthwhile.

June 26, 2019, 10:13 PM

kimberkid

quote:
Originally posted by sigfreund:
<snip>
Being influenced by prior knowledge is certainly true of me and, I suspect, of most people, especially anyone who has a strong interest in a subject and studies a wide variety of sources in depth. I’m not a gun designer, but I adopt the ideas of countless other people that relate to the things I teach. Sometimes they are distinct and useful enough for me to remember where I first heard them, but far more often than not they exist as vague concepts in an ever-evolving stew of thought. Very often as well I don’t give them much thought until other facts and circumstances arise and I think, “That idea would go well with these.”

But regardless of how much the Russians (Soviets, really) were influenced in their gun designs by others, they had no compunction whatsoever about deliberately stealing and consciously using other technical information from photographic processes to the atomic bomb. An extremely revealing book is Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, by Haynes and Klehr. Spies in America working for the Communists reported every technical secret they could lay hands on. If the Soviet guns didn’t rely on the work of others for their successes, it wasn’t because they would have hesitated to do so if they’d thought it worthwhile.

Too bad we don't have a "Like" button ... but then there's a lot of ideas, pictures etc I like, and not just in this thread!