We used to pour 10 weight oil on the M85 just to get it to work! Remember the high/low rate of fire for it?! I wonder how well the reloading would be under combat conditions? Dan 19E/K

High /Low rate of fire was way cool. It did like being oiled well, didh't it? I was afforded the oppurtunity to do the cupola reload drill nine times in Feb 91'. Two of those occasions were buttoned up and it was muy difficult. But hey, with the right amount of cussing and banging anything is possible.

The question of links and casings has been more than adequately addressed, so about all I can add as an 18B is that Soviet MG's such as the PKM all have non-disintegrating belts as well. Unfortunately I've seen them misrepresented on some very fine models.