I have always assumed that on a Browning .50cal MG, the ammunition feed is always from the left-hand side (hence the position of the ammo box). This leads to wonder how the weapon operates in twin and quad configuration, where the ammo boxes are positioned left and right respectively. Any suggestions?
Paul
Any changes made to alter the feed are internal. You can simply have the belt coming out of the righthand side of the feed tray cover. As for how to mount the ammo box on the opposite side, just copy it in a reverse image. Academy made a dual fi’tty setup for one of the IDF tanks. Nothing much to see in that scale.
I’ve run the .50 station for four Best Warrior Competitions now. This is one of the things that needs to be changed to alter the feed. The bolt switch raises up and rotates.
Thanks for the explanation and the picture. I had often wondered if any gun could be switched, or whether you needed to have separate parts fitted to a standard gun to achieve this. Now I know.
When the Germans fitted the 20 mm Flak to their quads, they just fitted one side upside down
Not possible with .50 of course.
The bolt mechanism on the M2 Machine gun is reversible, as @18Bravo mentioned.
The machine guns were mounted on the P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang, as well as on the Supermarine Spitfire were fed from belts stored the full lenght of the wing, so the weapon had the reversible bolt and feeding system to make it easier to feed these guns.
Twin-Mounted MGs are common on surface vessels, as well as on vehicles and helicopters.
Another example of twin 50’s on a Vietnam-era PBR
H.P.
IIRC, there is a part that has to be switched in the feed cover also.
Ken
I didn’t photograph everything. 
That’s not even really why I took that photo.
Thanks to you all for your helpful responses. You actually confirmed what I originally thought,
but I wanted to check whether I was right.
Paul
That’s ok, you got more photos of it than I do. And the OP got the info he needed from it, that’s the important part.
Ken
And the ammo bay of each gun on the P-47 held 27 feet of belt ammo - so if you really let a German have it, you gave him “the whole nine yards”.
A classic connotation from the war.
I personally love this picture of a Ground Crew about to put the claws on a P-51 Mustang.
One of the explanations for the whole nine yards is that if you emptied all of your guns from a P-51 into an adversary you gave him the whole nine yards of belted .50 cal ammo.
Unfortuantely not true, but makes for a good story.
All I can add is: get some!
Further proof that it is nonsense is that it is also attributed to WW I aircraft guns.
KL
And goes back to January 30, 1855; the OED documents the use of the phrase in the New Albany Daily Ledger, in an article titled “The Judge’s Big Shirt” – ‘What a silly, stupid woman! I told her to get just enough to make three shirts; instead of making three, she has put the whole nine yards into one shirt!’ The first documented idiomatic use is in the May 2, 1907 issue of The Mitchell Commercial, regarding an upcoming baseball game – ‘This afternoon at 2:30 will be called one of the baseball games that will be worth going a long way to see. The regular nine is going to play the business men as many innings as they can stand, but we can not promise the full nine yards.’
Oh well. Another myth busted.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story
/ Mark
And if you can make the story outlandish, but just plausible enough that you spark the listener into doing their own research on the subject, then you’re helping lift them out of the rut of just believing any old bullshit they’re told.
Amen to that 
