The "Stoner 63": The Machine Gun Navy SEALs Loved but the Army Hated.

October 28, 1967. The Rung Sat Special Zone. A Navy SEAL team opens fire on a Viet Cong sampan. The weapon they use sounds like a chainsaw tearing through canvas. It cycles at 800 rounds per minute and weighs less than a standard rifle. It is the Stoner 63A Light Machine Gun—a weapon the US Army rejected as "too complex," but the SEALs considered the finest machine gun ever made.

This video deconstructs the Stoner 63 System, a modular engineering marvel that could be converted from a rifle to a carbine to a belt-fed machine gun by swapping parts on a single receiver. We analyze the "grunt test" failure that doomed it for general infantry use, and how the SEALs adopted it as their signature weapon in the Mekong Delta, creating the concept of the "Float Gunner"—a machine gunner mobile enough to lead the patrol.

We explore the brutal maintenance required to keep the weapon running in the mud (running it "wet" with oil), the devastating "Buzzsaw Effect" of its high cyclic rate, and the tragic logistical strangulation that forced SEALs to cannibalize parts to keep their guns alive.

Ultimately, this is a story of vindication. We reveal how the Army spent decades trying to reinvent the Stoner, eventually adopting the heavier M249 SAW, proving that Eugene Stoner’s vision of a lightweight squad automatic weapon was forty years ahead of its time.

Key Statistics:

Weight: 11 lbs (Stoner LMG) vs 23 lbs (M60).

Ammo Load: SEAL gunner could carry ~800 rounds for same weight as 200 rounds of 7.62mm.

Cyclic Rate: ~800-900 rounds per minute.

Total Production: ~4,000 units (compared to millions of M16s).

🎖️ FEATURED WEAPONS & UNITS:

Stoner 63A / Mk 23 Mod 0

Navy SEALs (Team One & Two)

M60 Machine Gun

Eugene Stoner (Designer)

#VietnamWar #Stoner63 #NavySEALs #MachineGun #MilitaryHistory #Weaponology #SmallArms #ColdWarHistory #SpecialForces #GunEngineering

📚 SOURCES & FURTHER READING:

Stoner 63 Weapons System by Paladin Press

SEALs in Vietnam by T.L. Bosiljevac

Small Arms of the World by Edward Clinton Ezell

Official US Navy SEAL Oral Histories (Vietnam Era)

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