Machine gun, MG-34, serial #840c. It was made in 1944 by Waffen Werke Brunn. DEACTIVATED May 1977. THE 1991 FIREARMS LIST STATES THAT THIS FIREARM IN NON-SERVICEABLE. The Maschinengewehr 34, or MG 34, is a German recoil-operated air-cooled machine gun that was first tested in 1929 and was introduced in 1934, and first issued to units in 1936. The versatile MG 34 was arguably the most advanced machine gun in the world at the time of its adoption and deployment with the German Army. It entered service in great numbers following Hitler's repudiation of the Versailles Treaty in 1936, and was first tested by German troops aiding Franco's Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. The MG 34 combined four substantial advantages over other machine guns: 1. mobility, being light enough to be carried by a single soldier; 2. a very high rate of fire of up to 800 to 900 rounds per minute; 3. the ability of the gun to sustain that fire; 4. an effective range of over 2,000 meters. As such, it can generally be considered to be the world's first general-purpose machine gun