A little bit of firearms history

And some folks thought Smith & Wesson only made handguns.

They didn't make this one for long, though, as only about 5,000 were produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They sold to police departments for $79 each after the US Government, their target customer, stopped buying them. (The police price is less than 2% the average price of one on the collector's market.) This is the original sales brochure (included with the gun). I'll scan the user manual later if anyone wants to see it. It's only four pages.

Doesn't S&W still make a SMG?

Unless they are making their AR15 clone in a selective fire version, I don't think so. I believe this is the only SMG they've ever made.

After S&W stopped making the 76, they sold the rights to a startup company called MK Arms, which produced a nearly exact copy for several years until stopping production around 1984. The MK-760 has parts interchangeable with the 76 and uses the same mags. The MK guns sometimes show inconsistent quality, but this is a good one (and it's mine, eventually). At least it and the S&W 76 are both paid for.

AND the S&W 76 is classified as a C&R gun and can be transferred directly to you as with any other C&R weapon. All the same BATF requirements are in play, but an out of state deal will have the gun shipped directly to your front door bypassing your local dealer's services, and saving one transfer tax.

Here's one for sale at 5K.

http://www.subguns.com/classifieds/index.cgi?db=nfafirearms&website=&language=&session_key=&search_and_display_db_button=on&results_format=long&db_id=16878&query=retrieval

Very true, though for the life of me I'll never understand why some old guns are C&R eligible and others aren't.

True, it is on the ATF's C&R list BUT the buyer must have a valid Federal C&R (Curio & Relic) Collector's license. It's similiar to a FFL but only for collectors. If you do not have the license then you can not have it delivered directly (after F-4 approval), period. No license means you'll have to go through a FFL/SOT in your state. C&R's are great BTW, you can get a lot of neat stuff directly.

Isn't this gun pretty much a copy of the Swedish K subgun?

Not exactly a copy, though the S&W was designed to replace the K in the special ops inventory. Smith & Wesson made quite a few changes to the K/M45 design. The K is probably a better weapon overall, but they are not the same.

Nice to see another S&W 76 owner on the MSGO board. I got mine in 1981.



My S&W 76 and a few extra 36rd mags.......................


As I understand the "76's history".... Smith & Wesson made 6000 76s (SN U100 to U6100). When Sweden refused to sell the US any more M45 (Swedish K) SMGs to be used in the Vietnam War, the US military advertised for a US-built SMG. Smith & Wesson won the contract. However, since the war was winding down, Uncle Sam bought very few of them. S&W then tried to sell to Law Enforcement, but the number of sells didn't support production and finally S&W discontinued production around 1974. The Mississippi Highway Patrol use to have about 25 of them.

Hey Free Stater, what mags are you using? Your pic of the MK 760 shows what appears to be a Port-Said mag. Port-Said is the Egyptain version of the Swedish K. If you have tried to buy original S&W 76 mags lately, you know they run about $100 each. The mags stacked up in my picture are M31 Suomi mags. M31 and M45 mags are exactly the same. Suomi is Finnish (actually "Suomi" is Finnish for "Finland"). After "The Ban" ended in 2004 and hi-cap mags flooded the market, I bought a bunch of M31 mags at $5 each. The M31 mags require minor fitting to work in the S&W 76, but the M31 mags are BETTER mags than the original S&W mags.... IMHO.

Free Stater, do you know about the 36rd stripper clips and the mag loader that uses them? You can load a mag in 5 seconds............

Post a picture of your S&W 76...........

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I'm still waiting for transfer(s) to go through, since I bought from an individual. But I do have a lot of the parts already, including 11 S&W mags that came with the gun.

I got three mags that I THINK may be Port Saids with the MK, and I bought 11 Suomi mags from Keepshooting.Com. Numrich had the mag loaders in stock, which I ordered, along with 30 stripper clips.

It took me maybe 8-10 seconds to load a magazine, but that was with pauses to marvel over just how cool the loader is.

The Hattiesburg PD had two of the guns they got in around 1971. One of the narcotics officers unloaded on a burglar at the old Camp's Pharmacy one night and killed the glass back door, a Coke machine, makeup counter, and various other merchandise. He hit the burglar in the knee.

My gun is in the #U200 range and is stamped on the receiver with "OPD" for the Oxford, Massachusetts PD. Would have been cool if it were from Oxford, MS, huh?

Nice looking 76, by the way. Have you had any problems either with the stock loosening up or with the barrel detent lever?