RPD belt question

is there a better belt for the rpd?i heard there are 2 styles.is one better than the other.going to order 1 and need info.
Are they the "L" type link where the tab goes behind the base of the shell-case (?).....or the "push-through" type-link where the link clips into the extractor-groove of the cartridge-case like an MG34/MG42 belt (?).

the push through are easierier to load but the L are less subject to the cartridge moving under the wip/bounce of feeding, which can cause jams. After about 10,000 rounds through my full autos evenly divided among the two, I put a slight superiority to the L.

pictures are at the bottom of my RPD page

http://www.arizonaresponsesystems.com/notes/rpd/pagerpd.htm

thanks for the pics.this will be a semi auto rifle.

Hey Gunplumber have you built your own RPD ?

Two of them - Post samples. I had someone else do the welding, because at the time my TIG work was not acceptable. Even today it would be a challenge. Its one thing to make them functional, and quite another to make them pretty. The two Hungarians are both re-welds, although except for a subtle change in the darkness of the bluing, the welds are almost invisible. The Chinese is a transferrable, Korean War gun - the corrosion on it is from blood (which is why the customer had me refinish it)

As to how to make a semi, I understand the mechanism that Vector Uses (like a semi uzi firing pin/striker assembly), but I've never done one myself.

L's are in my opinion much better and once you get a rythum in setting them into the clips are a breeze. I edge up the rim flush with the L and just push. Now Joni has a Flat Surface Pushing the clip onto the cartridge thing going on until she breaks a nail then quits ;)

Yeah Mark all of my welds showed up even when I used alot of Brass to Heat Sink. Note the Tail Pieces you can hardly tell where the weld is, And I really used a smaller Dia. Wire Rod there.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b363/MP5Guy/IMG_0018-1.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b363/MP5Guy/IMG_0020-1.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b363/MP5Guy/IMG_0021-1.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b363/MP5Guy/IMG_0024.jpg

Thanks Gunplumber we met @ the Fairgrounds Crossroads show I'm a friend of Dustin I'm still waiting for my Kit to arrive from AKparts & have a Prexis receiver on order.

It's been a while since I've had to read an RPD manual but I believe the "U" shaped belts are refered to as "Soviet" and the "L" shaped belts are called "Hungarian". This of course doesn't have to be where they are made. It's just to indentify the belt styles. I don't know from where the names come but I suspect the Soviets quit using the RPD earlier than other countries and the Hungarians "improved" the belt design.

The push through belts are listed as Sowjet by the east germans in their loading machine manual as well as on the loading parts themselves. The belts with the folded tab on the back are listed as Ug for Ungarn or hungarian in the loading machine info. From other sources I've heard that the soviet type belts were the early type basically copied from the MG34/42 belts with the added guide surface in the front. When new and fresh the belts worked fine but some of the satellite nations noted they got loose and caused jams early on. The hungarians saw the belts the Czechs were using on the Vz52 LMG and started making RPD belts with the same folded tab at the rear and the russians seeing this copied the hungarians. The old type belts were phased out and given as foreign aid to get them out of inventory of mother russia.

I've run thousands of rounds through a number of RPD machineguns, none through semi's though. In all of our firing the russian belts frequently dropped rounds out the back of the belt and jammed up the feed. The hungarian belts never had any problems unless we loaded them wrong. We loaded belts by hand for a long time and as John noted you can get a feel for them so loading is no big deal. The other belts are about the same to load once your feel for the hungarian belts is good. I ended up with an East German GFV64 loading machine that will load belts of either type as well as PK belts, MG42 belts and AK magazines. It is a fantastic loader and makes the RPD belts a joy to load. We burned through 4000rds in one of my post samples in an afternoon using this loader. That was when ammo was $69/1000....we always run the RPD's without the front handguard to prevent burning them up. Hard to find replacements and when shooting off the bipod the off hand is always on the buttstock.....
Frank

I ended up with an East German GFV64 loading machine that will load belts of either type

Got pictures?