Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum and today we're gonna take a quick break
from Rock Island content to focus instead on a
truly iconic and not really the least bit forgotten weapon,
that is in fact brand new. And that is HK's new SP5.
So this is a brand new on the market,
semi-automatic iteration of HK's truly iconic MP5 submachine gun.
So let's talk a little bit about where the MP5 came from and the history of HK selling
semi-auto versions of their guns in the United States, because I think there are a few misconceptions here.
Of course ... the MP5 began in 1964. It was originally Project 64 and became the MP5.
This is HK taking their roller delayed blowback system from the full-size G3 rifle,
and scaling it down to 9mm Parabellum for a submachine gun intended for police and security and military customers.
... Like, most submachine guns don't use locked or delayed blowback operating systems.
Most submachine guns use just simple blowback. Because for a cartridge like 9mm Parabellum,
which is what this is chambered for, that's perfectly adequate. That'll do the job.
However, it has a few drawbacks. One is that the bolt tends to be relatively heavy,
and the other is that these guns tend to fire from the open bolt configuration.
That makes them much simpler to manufacture and it makes them less expensive to manufacture,
but it also means that it's much more difficult to get an accurate, single, precise shot with an open bolt gun.
The issue is of course on an open bolt you typically have a fixed firing pin and the bolt is open when you pull the trigger.
So that upon pulling the trigger this heavy bolt slams forward, picks up a cartridge,
chambers it, and immediately upon fully chambering it, fires it, and then cycles back.
It's simple, but it means you have this big moving weight between when you pull the trigger and when the shot fires.
And that tends to disrupt one's aim, unless you're particularly well practiced.
With a closed bolt gun there's really nothing moving except just the hammer itself,
like any traditional semi-automatic firearm that we're typically used to.
And so that difference, that closed bolt operation, gave the MP5 a dramatically better reputation for accuracy
(and legitimately better practical accuracy), than most of the other submachine guns that were around at the time.
Having the delayed blowback system also means that the operating parts are a little bit lighter.
This helps contribute to less felt recoil as well as a lighter overall gun.
I think those considerations are a little less important than the practical accuracy implications.
But they do all come into play, and the MP5 really garnered a reputation as the best submachine gun on the market.
And a particularly well deserved one. It's interesting, today [This incident didn't hurt either]
I think HK would probably love to wean its customers off the MP5 and onto the UMP that replaced it,
because the UMP is way cheaper to make, and I suspect they have a much better profit margin on the UMP.
The problem is everybody really likes the MP5 still and they just don't want to stop using it. So.
Now when it comes to semi-automatic versions of this we have a little bit of a history to go through.
HK of course offered semi-auto versions of most of their firearms in the United States.
These are guns like the HK91, 93 and 94.
In HK's nomenclature the first number in a designation like that indicates the type of firearm,
and in this case 9 means semi-automatic rifle.
Compare this to things like a 3 is select fire assault rifle. So the HK33 is a select fire rifle.
The second digit indicates calibre, so using HK33 again, it's a select fire rifle in 5.56.
Where the HK93 is a semi-automatic rifle in 5.56.
The 93 being the civilian semi-auto version. There was of course the HK91, semi-auto rifle in 7.62 NATO.
And then there was the HK94, semi-auto rifle in 9mm Parabellum.
And that was essentially this, the MP5 with a semi- auto trigger mechanism, a stock, and a 16 inch barrel.
(Which is approximately double the standard, you know, intended 8.5 inch barrel length.)
There were a couple other design changes made, not just to the 94 but all the semi-auto rifles,
to prevent them from being easily convertible into machine guns.
Those included primarily a change in the mechanical system to lock the trigger group in place.
And we'll take a closer look at this in a moment,
but effectively what they did was they got rid of the push-pin and they gave it a shelf instead.
And in the process they got rid of the paddle magazine release, which kind of annoyed a lot of people.
That's actually been changed here and this, the new semi-auto SP5, actually does have a paddle mag release.
Which, again, we'll take a look at in a moment.
Now the HK94 was introduced in the early 1980s, and it was imported until 1988 when the assault weapons import ban prohibited it.
At that time HK actually replaced it in the US market. They wanted to continue US civilian sales and they had a second product
that was particularly well suited to the new conditions of the American market after 1988, 1989.
That was the SP89. Now in 1976 HK had their standard MP5s for sale,
and it was suggested to them that they ought to make a super-compact version
that was just a pistol with a 4.5 inch barrel, little tiny thing. They didn't even have a buttstock.
This was to be an executive protection sort of thing that one could very easily carry under a coat as a VIP protection sort of officer.
They ended up releasing this and it became quite popular and that was the MP5K.
Now a lot of people think about an MP5K and say,
"Ah well, you know, the semi-auto version had no stock so that it was just a pistol, but the, you know,
the full version was the MP5K PDW, personal defense weapon, and it had a little side folding stock on it."
Well in actuality HK originally introduced the MP5K with no stock. It was only years later that the stock was added as an option.
So when they come looking for a new semi-automatic firearm that they can introduce in the US civilian market,
the SP89, the MP5K, is a perfect option because it was actually designed as a pistol from the very beginning.
You leave the the buttstock off of it, give it a sling ring at the back
and a shoulder sling sort of strap that you can push out against to shoot.
And this seemed like an ideal option.
Those were imported into the US for only a couple years. Only from '89, it was named the SP89, Sporting Pistol 89,
only through 1993, when it was banned specifically by name in the domestic Assault Weapons Ban.
And after that HK kind of gave up,
... frankly, without being able to import a full-sized rifle version.
The craze that we have today for pistol versions of semi- automatic 9mm carbines didn't exist until relatively recently.
So guns like the SP89 were of limited desirability.
There weren't that many people who are actually out there converting them into legal short barrelled rifles.
And the option for things like shoulder braces did not exist at that time.
These are only going to come around in the last couple of years, and only get really popular in the last two years or so.
So, HK, despite their reputation as a rather stodgy company, has not been completely ignorant of these developing conditions.
And they actually reintroduced the SP89 as the SP5K a couple years ago in 2016 or 2017.
And then they have just now in 2019 introduced the SP5.
So let me show you it up close, and a couple things that they've changed for the better.
I don't know where I would even start on the pop-culture references to the MP5.
You've got Die Hard of course, but the MP5 is really one of the iconic
police, military, law enforcement style submachine guns out there, and so it shows up all over the place.
And for good reason, it is truly a fantastic gun.
I have a previous video doing some shooting with a true MP5. If you're interested, definitely check that out.
Now what we have on this is, first off, the proper magazine release.
So an original MP5 will have the trigger housing held in place with a pin right here. That has been removed.
And the reason was that one of HK's concerns in importing these legally into the American market
is that they had to be considered not easily convertible into machine guns.
Well, all the fire control parts are in this unit,
if you can just drop a full-auto fire control unit onto a semi-auto firearm that's a problem for HK and for ATF.
So they redesigned the attachment mechanism here so that standard machine gun lowers will not fit.
And this goes all the way back to the original HK91s, these are changes that were made in the 1960s.
You can check out my other videos on the very early import G3s, or HK91s, to see some of those changes.
At any rate, part of the conversion
to what was called a shelf-style lower without the pin, involved the removal of this half of the magazine release.
So the MP5 has two mag releases, one is this paddle that allows you to then pull out the mag.
The other is an AR-15 style button right here, which also allows you to pull out the mag.
So from HK's perspective originally: getting rid of the paddle, not a big deal, you've still got the button.
However, this is an issue that really irked a lot of American consumers
who wanted the paddle magazine release so that the gun looked and operated correctly.
So it's really cool that they have gone ahead and fixed that issue, responded to customer demand,
and reintegrated the paddle magazine release onto the new SP5s.
Now if we take a look at the markings here, we've got this, you know, modern requirement stuff.
These are imported through HK Inc. in Georgia.
Manufactured however at the original H&K GmbH in Germany.
Take a look at this side. We have our calibre marking. We have "CIP N", that's the modern German proofing, or part of it.
Up on top here we have HK's logo and the SP5 model designation.
There of course have been a bunch of companies making copies of various H&K firearms,
some under licence and some not so much, in the United States and elsewhere.
And so a lot of those clones have dubious reputations for quality,
as compared to HK having a pretty sterling reputation for quality.
So that's something everyone's looking for on that.
And then we have the serial number and German proof marks ... behind the model designation up on top.
HK pioneered this tri-lug system for suppressor attachment on some of its other firearms.
And it remains maybe not quite ... well, it remains an industry standard to this day,
however, it is kind of a unique thing that a lot of other companies don't necessarily copy.
And so they have also added threading to the SP5 to allow easy attachment of a wide variety of
suppressors or other muzzle devices.
Long threading on there, and it is actually conveniently marked 1/2
- 28 which is the thread pitch there. So this will accept either 1/2 - 28 attachments, or adapters, or the HK style tri-lug.
One of the other interesting differences between this and a standard MP5,
is the use of a rear sight drum that has four different sizes of rear ... notch, instead of aperture sights.
And the reason for this is that as a pistol (and you can see there's no stock, there's just a ... ring here for an elastic sling),
this is intended to be held out at arm's length to be aimed. And at arm's length that notch
in conjunction with the front post actually works quite well.
Now if you have a buttstock on the gun then your eye will actually be much closer to the rear sight drum
and you would want to have an aperture sight on it instead. This does interchange directly with the aperture style sights.
So anyone who wants to, say, SBR this, can just drop on the aperture sight drum instead.
In traditional style this of course has HK's forward mounted charging handle, which locks open like so.
These use 30 round, standard typical 30 round magazines,
HK has been making these things since the '60s of course.
They do not lock open when empty, in fact one of the downsides of the HK system is that
it's kind of difficult to to load a full mag ... under a closed bolt.
So standard practice with an HK, whether a 9mm or .308 is to lock it open, then change magazines, and then
give it the HK slap close. That by the way is not bad for the gun. I've heard some people
suggest that you shouldn't do that because it's gonna hurt the gun. That's not the case, that is standard recommended practice.
Just give it a slap down out of this notch, and let it go forward.
Disassembly is pretty easy, same as the MP5. We're gonna pull this pin.
This is a nice really tight gun because it is brand new. Once the pin's out
the rear cap comes off.
And this of course can interchange with things like shoulder braces.
Shoulder braces by the way are not sold directly by H&K. They will only sell this in a pistol configuration.
You want to do something other than that, you're on your own. Fortunately there is a lot of aftermarket support for it.
We can then pull out the captive recoil spring.
Then drop the fire control group off. This still has a little shelf here that locks in place on the receiver.
However, it does have a space cut out to allow use of the paddle magazine well as we talked about.
The fire control group in here is basically the same as ... any other standard HK.
Some of the parts are a little bit different for 9mm, and it is of course semi-auto only. So safe in white, semi-auto in red.
It does have an ambidextrous selector lever, which is nice.
Now we can pull out the bolt.
The last bit of disassembly would be to pull this pin and pull the handguard off.
And that gives you your stamped receiver, very classic HK there.
There are a number of different ... Picatinny rail mounting options out there which I won't go into in this video.
That's aftermarket support.
This is not a gas tube, this is just a charging handle tube to hold the charging handle there.
And this is actually technically free floating.
So the front sight is connected directly to the barrel, but the tube here is not actually physically connected to
this front sight ... block, so it does not exert pressure on the barrel.
The bolt and bolt carrier here are just like a little miniature version of the G3 bolt and carrier.
You can see that a lot of the weight has been cut away compared to a G3 carrier.
And that's because in 9mm this simply doesn't require nearly the mass.
We have our two rollers here. And so the idea is when the gun is in battery and this is pushed closed, the rollers stick out.
They lock into or sit in the trunnion, this round piece up here in front.
There are two little recesses in the trunnion for those rollers.
When you fire the rollers are pushing back on the locking piece, which I can show you here.
There's our firing pin. Here is our locking piece.
So this curved surface in the locking piece is what sits up against the rollers when the gun is in battery.
Upon firing, pressure from the cartridge pushes back on the bolt face.
And that is going to divide the ... rearward force using these rollers.
So some of the force gets pushed out into the trunnion, where it doesn't do anything.
And some of it gets pushed backwards into this locking piece and into the bolt carrier.
That allows the ... locking piece and the bolt carrier to come backwards, which allows the rollers to
push inward, which then allows the whole thing to cycle backwards.
However, the process of doing this takes enough time that by the time it happens
pressure in the chamber has dropped to a safe level. So hence delayed blowback.
And there is one completely disassembled HK SP5.
I think this is really a pretty cool thing to finally see on the market.
There have been a wave of 9mm carbines showing up in pistol configuration like this,
knowing full well that the majority of them are going to be either registered as SBRs,
which is a small percentage, or fitted with arm braces, which is the majority.
Hopefully that will lead to some legal reforms in the US, but that's a separate issue.
But we've seen AKs in 9mm, we've seen tons of ARs in 9mm, things like the SIG MPX,
the Skorpion, the CZ Scorpion EVO.
A lot of these guns have been very popular with competitive shooters.
... USPSA has a whole burgeoning division of pistol calibre carbines that are very popular because they're super fun to shoot.
So it's nice that HK responded to this with a really nice version of the MP5 in this configuration.
So thanks to HK. They provided this as a loaner gun for me to bring to you guys.
Which is why it's here on the official day of release, you know, supplanting, shifting a little bit of the other content,
but I thought that was worth doing because this is a truly iconic firearm,
and I think it's really cool to see it available in this form now. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.