CODE-02-040-936

NAME – System Schmeisser M.K.36/III

NAME (NATIVE) – Maschinen Karabiner 36

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN – Germany

DATE OF MANUFACTURE – 1936

CALIBER – 9x19mm

OVERALL LENGTH – 112.9 cm (44.4 in)

BARREL LENGTH – 50.2 cm (19.75 in)

RIFLING (TYPE & TWIST) – 6 Groove, Right-hand twist

BULLET DIAMETER – 9.02 mm (0.355 in)

BULLET WEIGHT – 8.04 g (124 gr)

MUZZLE VELOCITY – 390 m/s (1270 fps)

MUZZLE ENERGY – 602 j (444 ft/lbs)

WEIGHT (EMPTY) – 4.76 kg (10 lbs 8 oz)

WEIGHT (LOADED) – 5.23 kg (11 lbs 8.6 oz) loaded with 20 round magazine

SIGHTS – Front sight – Inverted “V” blade, Rear sight – V-notched tangent curve, Graduated 1 to 10 (100 to 1,000 m (109 to 1,094 yds) increments

EFFECTIVE RANGE – 200 m (219 yds)

OPERATION – Blowback

TYPE OF FIRE – Selective fire, Semi and Full automatic

RATE OF FIRE – 40 rpm Semi, 80 rpm Full

CYCLIC ROF – 450-500 rpm

FEED DEVICE – 20, or 32 round box magazine, Double column, single feed

FEED DEVICE WEIGHT (EMPTY) – 20 round 0.24 kg (8 oz), 32 round – 0.31 kg (11 oz)

FEED DEVICE WEIGHT (LOADED) – 20 round – 0.47 kg (1 lb 0.6 oz), 32 round – 0.67 kg

BASIC AMMUNITION LOAD – 3 – 32 round magazines (96 rounds)

LOAD WEIGHT – 2.01 kg (4 lbs, 8 oz)

MANUFACTURER – – C. G. Haenel Waffenfabrik, Suhl, Germany

STATUS – Obsolete

SERVICE – Experimental, limited production, no market sales

     Very few of these weapons were ever built, possible as few as 10 toolroom guns. They were an experiment in the mid-1930s, to produce a weapon for the average German NCO that was capable of full automatic fire, yet was physically very close to appearing as a standard Mauser carbine of the time. Part of the reasoning for this was that the submachine gun was considered a specialist weapon from its use in World War I and troops who were carrying it were made priority targets.

     The model II version of the weapon had the cocking lever on the left side of the receiver. The model III had the cocking lever on the right side. The bolt and mainspring assembly are very close to the design used in the MP 38 and MP 40 series of submachine guns. It was the fact that Vollmer had patented the same mainspring assembly some years earlier that prevented the MK36 from ever going into production. The magazines were copied from those of the MP 28 and the weapon would accept the standard KAR-98 bayonet.