Shoei FG42 dummy grenade launcher kit

Here's a few pictures of a dummy grenade launcher kit for Shoei FG42. There was a 100 of these manufactured in a single run.

It consists of four parts: two parts of a launcher tube, special key and a dummy grenade itself. Sight was not made for this kit. Why two pieces of tube? In real FG42 one was an adapter that was screwed onto the barrel, the other was the actual grenade barrel with its own rifling. Shoei adapter is made differently from real one, as it screws in too far, going under muzzle catch and scratching itself a bit instead of locking on a spring-loaded catch.

To install: unscrew muzzle brake, screw on the adapter piece of launcher, then grenade barrel onto adapter. Use supplied key if you like - threads are well made and it can be easily done by hand anyway. Finally insert a dummy grenade to complete the kit.
Note: this assembly makes FG42 quite front-heavy, it might not be able to stand on bipod - legs collapse.

Historically there were two variants of grenade launchers for FG42. The early prototype was 171mm caliber, 235m range, later improved to 176mm/250m (reproduced by Shoei). Both used an additional grenade sight attached either over handgrip (early) or over magazine well (later). Grenades were fired with special cartridge loaded in chamber, but with magazine removed - heavy recoil made rifle jump enough to hit your face with magazine! Cartridge cases also ruptured in 70% of shots, making reloading fairly slow. What's more, too large tolerance of grenades made them either too loose or impossible to insert.