[ MAT 49 in 7.62x25mm at the Range ]
Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and courtesy of the Shooters Outpost Museum in Hooksett, New Hampshire,
we are out at the range with a MAT 49.
Which I'm really excited about because I've never had the chance to actually shoot one of these before.
But that is not the full extent, because this is actually a
Vietnamese-captured MAT 49 that was re-chambered to 7.62 Tokarev.
So if you take a look here at the top of the receiver, there's a big ol' "K" stamped on it.
And we have a big ol' K stamped onto our magazine as well.
The magazine has been slightly modified to securely hold 7.62 Tokarev.
And I'm really curious what this is going to be like to shoot.
Now it's a little unfortunate perhaps that I haven't shot a 9mm one
to have something to compare it to, but, well, this should be fun anyway.
Ready?
That is extremely easy to control.
It bounces a little bit, but minimal recoil, just pop-pop-pop-pop.
I can even pretty much keep a sight picture through that while I'm shooting.
And thanks to the uncomfortable wire stock, you can actually get a sight picture on these.
Instead of some of the other French automatic weapons that I've tried that have these
just for some reason, consistently, weirdly low iron sights like the MAS 38 and the Chauchat.
This one, yeah, you can actually get a reasonable sight picture.
It's perhaps a bit small of an aperture, but very, very pleasant to shoot.
Unfortunately, I have now emptied my one magazine, so I have to go and reload it.
Needless to say, the French lost a bunch of these at the end of Indochina.
And most of the ones that are in the United States, like this one,
are actually bringbacks from Vietnam,
where the French lost the guns to the Viet Minh during the Indochina fighting.
The Vietnamese had them for a time, some they left in 9mm, some they re-chambered for 7.62 Tokarev.
And then American soldiers during our Vietnam War would periodically capture them.
They are really quite good submachine guns, and were very popular with the Vietnamese.
But then it's American soldiers capturing them and bringing them back to the US
that has supplied virtually all of them that we have here in the country.
There is, by the way, no selector switch, there is no manual safety,
there is just a grip safety on here.
That ... yeah.
So a little bit of behind the scenes for you guys.
That first magazine was commercial PPU, that blue box commercial ammo,
which some people are going to say is underpowered.
This is actually surplus 7.62 Tokarev, which in theory ought to be a bit more spicy.
And this thing is just as controllable with that surplus as it was with the commercial ammo.
Until you run out.
I really have to say this is as good as I had been led to believe, if not perhaps better.
This is an extremely comfortable gun to shoot, it's really awesome.
I wish I had more than one mag. I also wish I had the mag loading tool.
One of the downsides of these things (and kind of all large-capacity single-feed magazines),
is that they are really quite difficult to load with just the thumb and not a loading tool.
... So I've been putting about 20 in it each time, because that's about the extent my thumb can do.
Anyway, ... oops, that's the other thing,
you have to get used to the fact that the magazine sits in there all the way up to this stop.
So if you're going to load it, grab it down here.
Grab it up here like a typical sub gun mag, and then you end up like so.
Down there, mag goes in, bolt back.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
A big thanks to the Shooters Outpost Museum in Hooksett
for giving me access to this super-cool example of a MAT 49.
Ah, and it jammed.
A little bit more of a mag - maglet - dump.
Man, that is just smooth and fantastic. Well done, France.