Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com,
I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm up here today, in somewhat blustery wintery Maine,
at the James D. Julia Auction House,
taking a look at some of the guns that they are going to be selling in their upcoming
Spring of 2018 firearms auction.
Now, the Uzi submachine gun here is in no way a forgotten weapon; it is in fact quite an iconic weapon,
however, we have never had the chance to actually shoot one on camera
and I thought that would be an interesting thing to take a look at
for a bunch of you guys who may not have seen them, and frankly,
I'm interested in how they shoot compared to a lot of other submachine guns.
So these were developed by Israel in the 1940s, late 1940s early 1950s;
as a newly independent state, with a lot of enemies,
they wanted to have some domestic firearms manufacture, and so they were looking for a gun that met a number of different criteria:
Had to be reasonably accurate; had to be not overly heavy; had to be compact; and,
perhaps most importantly, it had to be something that could be
easily manufactured by the state of Israel; they didn't have a huge history,
[please wait]
and existing industry for firearms manufacturer; so what they came up with is a stamped receiver gun,
stamped top cover;
not a lot of complexity in this firearm, and really a lot of clever elements in this; and what they put together was a gun
that would end up being adopted by a number of other nations. So in the 1950s
these were adopted by the Belgians, the Germans, the South Africans; they became very popular on the United States market;
not just the commercial market, obviously Hollywood had a big influence on that, you know Schwarzenegger and his "Uzi 9-millimeter";
but even the United States Secret Service:
Before the guns were popular in Hollywood,
the Secret Service was actually using these for presidential guard detail,
and you can actually see one in a rather famous photograph from the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan.
At any rate, I figured we should do a little bit of shooting with this guy.
Now this one has the metal folding stock on it;
these were issued both militarily and commercially sold with both, well, either this folding stock or a fixed wood stock.
The wood stock is definitely the more comfortable, more controllable,
better shooting of the two options; but the metal stock is definitely more iconic so,
pop that out.
The Israelis very specifically wanted a magazine in the grip;
they have this principle that "hand meets hand" and so it's easy to reload in the dark;
you don't have to see anything and search for a magazine well up on the front of the gun.
It is an open bolt gun so:
Charging handle is back, and it's hot and we're ready to shoot.
Make sure it's in full auto
Despite the fact that it has a relatively sharp metal folding stock, which makes for a rather unpleasant cheek weld,
it's actually a very controllable submachine gun; the rate of fire is low enough that
it's actually pretty easy to keep my sights on a target while I'm firing a burst, and that's not always the case.
There are a lot of submachine guns out there where the sights tend to, either not necessarily climb,
but bounce around quite a lot when you're shooting, and the Uzi is not one of those.
Now I suppose if I'm going to do the proper Israeli thing, I should be squared up to my target.
And now, I'm out of ammo.
I'll be honest. I didn't have really high expectations for the Uzi; because of this stock; the grip; it, to me,
it's a little bit uncomfortable because it is so
perfectly vertical because it's got the magazine in it; but this is actually a really pleasant gun to shoot.
Cheek weld aside, it's got a really large front post in it, and
it's actually really quite easy to keep on target while shooting; the rate of fire is pretty nice;
when you actually fire this, and being able to compare it to other submachine guns that are out there,
it becomes really kind of obvious
why it was so popular and why it became so iconic; it really is a very good submachine gun.
So in addition to the manual selector switch on the left side, the Uzi also has
a grip safety built into it. There are people who like that and people who don't; it seems to work pretty well,
to me on this one at least.
Alright, just because I know you guys are gonna want to see it, we'll try a little bit of shooting from the hip.
So if you're going to do this effectively,
you would want to square your body to the target; you're going to take the stock
into your side and clamp it in place tight with the elbow.
I'm gonna aim downward a little bit because my impact berm is slightly downhill.
And I think I'm now out;
that magazine is empty. You know that may be a
moderately effective
tactic at very close range, but when you have sights it's definitely best to use them.
As you can see,
the muzzle just doesn't really move at all.
Really a remarkably nice
submachine gun.
If you're interested in
getting yourself an Uzi, there are actually several of them,
transferable, available in the upcoming
Julia auction; take a look at the description text below and you'll find a link
to their catalog page where you can do a search for "Uzi" and find the various different ones that they have available;
in full auto, of course, these are all subject to the National Firearms Act and the
process of background check and everything else involved in that;
but, a cool opportunity for someone who is a serious firearms enthusiast and a great little submachine gun. Thanks for watching.