Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and courtesy of Morphy's we have a pretty darn cool and rare
submachine gun out at the range today.
This is a Steyr MP34, a Steyr-Solothurn MP34, but what makes it particularly unusual
is it is chambered for the whomping big .45 ACP cartridge.
This was ... sold to a variety of countries, mostly in South America,
also to the New York ... Police Department, very interestingly.
This one is one of a batch that came out of South America.
Anyway, we talked about the whole history of it yesterday, so if you didn't see that video, check it out.
What I want to do today is see how this is to shoot as a whomping big .45.
So I do have a selector switch here, single and full-auto. We'll put that on full-auto.
For safety we have just a safety notch in the receiver.
Alright, let's go.
It fires a little faster than I was thinking it would.
That's not bad for a .45.
As long as you put your mind into it, you can hold that very nicely on target.
It's got a good rate of fire, and that's a pretty darn potent cartridge.
The magazine holds - it's either 20 or 25, I'm not entirely sure.
It's either 20 and this spring in this one's a little tired, and will go a couple of rounds over.
Or it's 25 and there's a little bit of a dent in here, although I don't see one.
At any rate, it likes about 22 rounds.
Let's go ahead and reload it, and I want to do more.
You know, the thing with these side-magazine sub guns
is the magazine's always on the wrong side for a left-hander.
I don't know why they didn't build everything around us, we're like 10% of the population. Anyway.
I don't know that I have anything more to say,
I just want to do some more shooting with this.
That's fun. It's got a push to it.
It almost feels kind of like a constant recoil gun.
I suspect the receiver in this is designed to accommodate a really big cartridge,
a really high-pressure cartridge like 9x25 Mauser, because these guns were also offered in 9x25 Mauser.
And when you build it, when you take a receiver that long,
and put a relatively low-pressure cartridge like .45 ACP in it,
I suspect that the bolt is coming nowhere near actually impacting the back of the receiver.
And so you're getting the recoil impulse of 230 grains at probably 600-650 rounds per minute
going downrange, but you're not getting that jarring impact of the bolt
bottoming out on the receiver after every shot.
... That's really the most significant element of recoil in most guns.
The fact that this is relatively front heavy
helps keep the muzzle down so you don't get a lot of climb.
As long as you put your mind into it ... it climbs up a little bit,
you push it back and you can just kind of hold it there.
Now, in order to properly assess .45 really what I ought to do is shoot
the same gun in a comparable 9mm calibre.
Conveniently, Morphy's also has
this is an Austrian Army proofed Steyr M30 in 9x23 Steyr.
So we talked about the difference here in this video yesterday.
If you don't know the difference, check out yesterday's video, but...
Anyway, I only have a little bit of 9 Steyr ammo.
But we'll go ahead and run some through this, and see how it feels compared to the .45.
And we are on 'dauerfeuer'.
Whoo, that is a lot faster firing.
And I am out.
Unfortunately, that's the only batch of 9 Steyr I have available today.
But what I can tell you is it definitely fires faster.
The recoil impulse is not substantially different.
I feel like the faster rate of fire encourages me to let off the trigger and just shoot in bursts.
Where the lower rate of fire on the .45 makes it easier
to say, "Well I'll just keep shooting,
and I can just keep this chugging along wherever I want to be hitting."
With this it feels like it's going to climb more, and so I let off the trigger.
If I had 100 rounds of ammo to tinker with, then I could see, well,
does it really? What happens with a longer burst?
But that will have to be for a future video.
Alright, well if I'm out of 9 Steyr I have to shoot something else, so we'll go back to .45.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
A big thanks to Morphy's again for giving me the opportunity
to come out and actually shoot this on camera for you guys.
There are very few of these suckers, .45 calibre Steyr-Solothurns, in the US.
Thanks for watching.
Two for four.