On this video you can watch a MG 42 in action at regular speed and 240 frames per second, mounted on a large tripod, called the Lafette 42, which was used for the medium machine gun role.

As you know, the MG 42 was a 7.92×57mm Mauser, air-cooled, belt fed, open bolt, recoil-operated machine gun with a quick change barrel produced by Nazi Germany between 1942 - 1945. It had one of the highest average cyclic rates of any single-barreled man-portable machine gun: between 1,200 and 1,500 rpm, resulting in a distinctive muzzle report compared to the sound of a power saw or tearing linoleum.

On Quora you can know an important disussion about if the German MG 42 was effective or it was just a waste of ammunition. Here I leave some opinions about it.

Many experts, as Paul Adam, think it turned out to be a waste of ammunition. How do we know? Because of several features on it (the well-designed quick-change barrel and belt feed mechanism, for instance, were widely emulated or just copied outright) nobody else fielded a 1,200rpm machine-gun as an infantry weapon. Even the MG3 still in use by the Germans, has a heavier bolt to get the rate of fire down to a more practical number for general use. It doesn’t mean the MG42 was useless, merely that with hindsight it might have been more effective had it been buffered down to 600–800rpm. And what the MG42 didn’t have a chance of doing was sustained fire.

Other experts, as Mike Williamson, think it depends on the purpose you’re using it for. For suppressing fire, you can get by with a lower rate of fire…generally. However, that appalling rate of fire is terrifying to anyone hearing it. It will chew you to pieces. You will want to take cover. If you’re targeting small elements of troops, it might be more than necessary. If you’re trying to disable vehicles or other support weapons as aircraft, more fire is better.

More at Quora.