New but packing

Hi just joined the forum and what an interesting and informative one at that, just wished I had spotted it before now, anyway I am new but I own and do cherish an MGC MP40 and I believe a good one at that,in exellent condition with next to no visible wear on it.
I think it is a mid production model no 17064 in the time I have owned it I have made a few modifications but only a few and what I believe to be sensible alterations, firstly I got rid of the black plastic foregrip and pistol grips and replaced them with much more authentic brown wartime repro bakerlite one`s, secondly I replaced the plastic resting bar with a metal one making the gun truly 100% steel and last but not least a genuine wartime crosshatch sling to finish it all off.
Hope I have not affected the value by doing these alterations as I see these guns are worth a small fortune these days, but hey even so it looks better than it did.
Littleplonker.

Welcome to the forum! :-)

MGC MP40 is a fantastic model. Many of folks here tinker with their models, in my opinion replacing grips and bar does not take away from its value, on the contrary :-) I put an original (albeit damaged) foregrip on my Marushin MP40, I'd do the same on MGC one.

picture, picture, picture...

MP38/ Early MP40 resting bars were aluminium but this was changed to bakelite ( processing aluminium being more costly and ali being a rare commodity)
They then went to bakelite but this frequently broke so much later cast zinc or steel ones were used ( but in smaller numbers so are not often seen)
In the field the waffenmeister would make them from wood.

incidentally the main purpose of the resting bar is to prevent the barrel nut from unscrewing (because if this happened the two barrel lock washers would be lost and the gun become unusable)

DOC

Thanks DOC

The fact that the resting bar's main function was to stop the barrel nut unscrewing is an interesting insight, thanks again

I like to learn about these practical details, too :-) They make firearms designs more interesting as one discovers why something has ben done that way and not the other.

On a complete off-topic: I've recently read about Steyr Mod.1911 pistol. It had a fixed magazine and was fed by clips, like early Mauser C96. Why? Apparently soldiers often lost magazines for other pistols, making army replacement costs higher. With clips you got a lightweight clip factory-loaded with ammo, and you could throw it away right after loading. Fast and frugal.
It was not until later that doctrine changed, shooters needed to change magazine quickly, but required very few magazines. As soon as you run out of loaded magazines and need to reload them manually with ammo, pre-loaded clips are suddenly faster to use.

Thanks for the welcome and compliments guys will get pics on asap.
Little. P.