Small guns and big guns.

I made date to go and see neighbour Duncan today as last week did not work out, I was a bit wary as the forecast had promised rain and it had indeed tried to this morning although there were bouts of sunshine, so I kept my fingers crossed. My duty to the great British public done I had my lunch and headed off, the weather had held and although bit cold the sun was shining.

Duncan greeted me and asked what would I like to see, he mentioned guns and I said yes. He has some kind of old nuclear or biological shelter on his property, possibly a mobile one from off of a truck because that's what it looks like anyway it is locked up and secure. Once the door opened for me it was like Aladdin's Cave, crammed inside is all sorts of military gear, guns, uniforms, helmets, ammo boxes, bits of armour and stuff in boxes I didn't get to.

First up was the weapons and the Sturmgewehr 44 which we had talked about before, it is a hefty piece and heavier than I thought, it was also larger than it looks in photographs, it is a solid piece of engineering, I was really chuffed at getting to hold it, hell I was chuffed at holding all of it!

Next up was an AK47 then an MP40, ever since I was a kid I have admired the MP40 or Schmiesser as it was know in the Commando comics, it just looked cool, then there was a selection of rifles German and British along with a Russian PPSH-41 SMG. After that came the machine guns, an MG34 and MG42 Duncan has quite a few of these, once again I marvelled at how heavy they were and I for one would not have liked to lug one around for too long. He showed me around both weapons and how the bipod mount can be taken from the front to much nearer the trigger, he also has an MG34 on a tripod, you cannot use the same tripod for both guns. Just behind the MG34 tripod was a Maxim on another tripod.

Duncan left me to look around and I browsed through the boxes containing uniforms, zeltbahns, helmets and the rack of uniforms, until right in the corner I spied a nice piece of kit, a Panzerfaust 60, complete with firing instructions.

As the good weather continued we decided to take the tarpaulin off the Pak40 for a decent look, I think Duncan mentioned it has been used in A Bridge Too Far, we also got a close look at a German made Ford truck with 2nd Panzer Division insignia on it. He mentioned that Henry Ford tried to sue the American government for bombing his German factories during WWII, chancer. In the back of the Ford is a 20mm FlaK gun, I got up into the Ford and sat in the firers position but it was still under the tarpaulin, maybe next time we will get it completely uncovered, this was one of two used in Saving Private Ryan. I would also like to see the M8 armoured car without its cover.

I jokingly mentioned to Duncan that my latest acquisition was a Kettenkrad albeit 1/56 scale, he then surprised me by asking me if I wanted to see a real one, of course says I, there is one in Burton ten minutes away, so that is a trip for later hopefully.

I left again having spent a fantastic few hours in Duncan's company with his collections and with some more of his photographic books on WWII to browse through.