Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today in
Karlovac, Croatia, at the HS Produkt factory
taking a look at some of the historical firearms
that have been made by HS Produkt and by IM Metal,
which was the former name of the company.
Now today, we're taking a look at the PHP MV,
or
The MV are the initials of its designer, Marko Vuković.
And this is a gun that was developed actually initially for the Yugoslavian army in the late 1980s.
Vuković came up with the idea as something to replace the M57,
which was a slightly modified copy of the Soviet Tokarev.
It had been in service obviously for quite a long time by the 1980s,
it's clear that the pistol calibre of the future is going to be 9mm, not 7.62 Tokarev.
And so Vuković comes up with a new pistol design.
And to do this he looks at, "Well, what's the best pistol out there?"
And comes to the conclusion that it's the P38,
and so the P38 is the basis for the design of the PHP.
Now we have a previous video looking at ... one of the original prototypes made for the Yugoslavs.
What we're concentrating on today ... are the two versions
of this pistol that actually went into full production.
And that would be the PHP for the Croatian military
after Croatia declared its independence from Greater Yugoslavia.
Let's see, so Croatia declared its independence in June of 1991
taking effect formally in October of '91. But people saw this coming.
The Croatian army didn't formally exist before it declared independence,
it was simply part of the Yugoslav People's Army.
But there was also a Croatian Territorial Defence Force that was armed.
And in April of 1990 the Yugoslav People's Army decided to confiscate all the arms
from the Territorial Defence Forces in anticipation
that there might be an independence uprising coming.
In response to this, the Croatian government formed ... basically a secondary version
of the defence forces, the Croatian National Guard, called the ZNG.
Which was made legal because it was technically a part of the police forces,
although commanded by the Ministry of Defence.
Now this force, the ZNG, would eventually become
the Croatian army formally after independence was declared.
And at that point they were in significant need of firearms.
So one of the results of this was development and manufacture
of a whole bunch of very simple, easy to make submachine guns
in Croatia by a wide variety of manufacturers.
But the ZNG also needed pistols.
Now IM Metal, Vuković, has this pistol design that he's already put together
that wasn't of interest to the Yugoslav military,
because it was a bit too expensive and complicated to make.
But when he presents it to the new Croatian army they are very much interested,
because this is a gun that can be manufactured in Croatia.
It's already essentially available.
And so in 1992 this is formally adopted as the MV-9, for 9mm Marko Vuković.
So there would eventually be two versions,
let's go ahead and take a look at both, and see what this pistol really is.
So there are two versions of the PHP,
a long-barrelled version that's a 5.5 inch or 140mm barrel,
and a short-barrelled version which is 4 inch or 103mm approximately.
The first production was the long barrel, this accounts for about 5,000 guns.
And then there were about another 11,000 of the short-barrelled version made.
And the reason for the change was twofold.
One was simplification of some of the parts, which we'll take a look at in a moment.
And the other was simply to make the gun shorter, to make it more compact.
This was a bit larger than it needed to be, and a bit impractical for a lot of guys.
The basic mechanical function is identical on both guns.
So we have a ... double-stack single-feed magazine with a capacity of 15 rounds.
It's worth pointing out if you haven't seen the previous video in this series,
that the original prototypes were actually a double-stack double-feed magazine that held 17.
However, it was found that you would get a more durable magazine
with single-stack feed lips, and the pistol was more reliable.
Because it only has one position that it has to feed cartridges from,
it was easier to design the gun to feed reliably instead of
requiring two separate feed paths, one from the left and one from the right,
that had to be equally functional and reliable.
So 15 rounds, ... single-feed magazine on this.
Like the P38 that it's based on, this is a double-action/single-action system.
So I can cock it. There is a safety here that I can engage.
A bit disconcertingly, if you have the safety on and pull the trigger - the hammer will drop.
However the safety blocks the hammer from actually hitting the firing pin.
You can see when I do this, that the hammer will not go any further than this.
Where if I have the safety disengaged the gun will actually fire.
Now when I pull the trigger the hammer goes all the way down,
hits the firing pin, and then rebounds under spring pressure.
The other levers here are a slide stop here, and a disassembly lever here.
And of course the magazine release on the left side.
These are all marked PHP MV, and again that's First Croatian Pistol, Marko Vuković,
and calibre 9mm Para.
On the opposite side we have a patent marking,
IMP, ... that's the company logo for IM Metal which is the original company that was making these.
"Made in Croatia", and serial numbers on the frame and the slide.
And there's also a serial number on the barrel which we'll see.
It's on the underside here, we'll see that when we take it apart.
The operational system here is taken straight from the P38.
You can see that the barrel reciprocates straight backwards just slightly
when it starts to open, and then it has a pivoting block like a P38.
So let's go ahead and take this apart, which is a little bit funky.
So I'm going to lock the slide open.
I'm then going to take the disassembly lever here and ...
pivot it down like that.
Then the slide goes forward, and it will go forward to this point.
I need to actually pull it slightly back and drop the hammer,
then I can pull the slide a bit further forward.
There's a recoil spring here underneath the barrel, and that I have to pull out at this point.
Which is a little tricky, there we go.
Spring comes out, and then the slide and barrel assembly come off the front of the gun.
You can see there's a guide rod for the spring here that is permanently, solidly fixed in place.
So when the gun is assembled, that's where the recoil spring is going.
On this first version we have an ejector right here in the centre.
And ... that's pretty much the gist of it.
As for the locking system, it is all fundamentally based on this locking block.
So when the gun is in battery, that block is holding the barrel and the slide together.
The slide starts to reciprocate, which causes the locking block to drop down.
Once it's dropped down it is out of engagement with the slide.
So these two lugs on the locking block lock into these two slots in the slide.
So that is locked ... and that is unlocked.
Once it's unlocked the barrel stops moving, the slide continues backward,
where it can kick out the empty case and then load a new one.
I mentioned the serial number on the barrel, there it is.
That flat on the barrel is there for disassembly.
So to take this the rest of the way apart we're going to just pull the locking block out.
It's held in place by a little wire spring.
And then the barrel comes ... this is a little bit funky ... a bit further back.
... There we go.
And then you can slide the front sight out upside down through the front of the slide.
I should also point out here, there is a Croatian national crest on the top of the slide.
Now the second version is actually slightly different because
one of the changes in production, not just to make it shorter,
but there was also a change to the controls made.
You can see where this has the slide stop and the disassembly lever as separate parts.
On the short version they are combined in a ... single pin.
Two levers, one pin that holds them both in place, so simplified.
This is also substantially easier to disassemble.
So on this guy we are going to again lock the slide open,
pivot down the disassembly bar there.
Then the slide comes forward, once again I'm going to drop the hammer.
And then you can take the slide to this point,
and it will actually lift up at the front and come off.
So ... the rails of the slide come forward and off just like that.
And I don't have to peel the recoil spring out from the gun.
The assembly of the slide however, is still the same.
... Take the locking block out.
Then pivot it around.
These two little cutouts in the side of the slide are there specifically
to give clearance for this lug to pivot around.
And then you can take the barrel out.
If we compare the frames for the short version and the long version,
there are a couple of subtle but relevant differences.
For one thing, the central mounted ejector was moved
to a side-mounted spring-loaded ejector,
instead of one that just kind of flops on its own weight.
You'll notice two little small cuts right here.
Those are what allow the slide to be dropped in, instead of slid all the way back from the front.
And then there's a little cutout here, and that's to facilitate
the installation of this single-pin combination lever system.
So because of the ejectors, if for no other reason,
you cannot interchange the slides on the frames.
The short version has to have the short slide, the long version has to have the long slide.
There are a few other mostly cosmetic changes that were introduced over the course of production,
including things like a change in the serration style of the hammers.
Another interesting manufacturing element to point out is the fact that both the barrels
have a visible seam right here basically in front of the chamber.
And the reason for this is at this point IM Metal did not have
the machinery to manufacture its own barrels.
So it purchased these barrels, just the actual rifled section of the barrel, from Lothar Walther.
And then manufactured the chamber and barrel lug section and then they are connected together here.
I suspect they're threaded together but I don't know for sure, they may be pressed.
Another of those minor changes was a change in style of the [extractor].
This is our early ... long gun, this is our later short gun.
The sights also changed slightly.
The later guns have slightly wider sights, the early guns have narrower sights.
And you can also see that on the front sights here.
Now I don't normally reassemble guns on camera, but I want to do it in this case
because the process is slightly different for the two different models,
and it's kind of a funky, sort of picky, process.
What you have here is a pair of rails on the barrel itself, and a pair of rails on the slide.
And the barrel rails slide in place right in the front of the frame here first.
So you have to slide the barrel in, then the slide comes onto the back frame rails.
And you bring the slide in to right about this point,
and then install the main spring which is kind of a wiggly, fiddly affair.
You may find that it's easiest, if you can get it started, to thread it in.
Alright, so that's now in there.
Now I need to make sure that the ejector is down and out of the way ...
like that.
And then I can pull the slide in, lock it open.
Drop that lever back in place and presto, the pistol is reassembled.
The process for the short version is quite a bit easier.
So on this one I put the spring in first, like that.
I again have to pay attention to the ejector here because I'm going to take the slide,
hook the rails in at the back, slide it back.
Make sure the ejector is down under the slide, and then this comes back to that position
where it can now drop straight into the frame.
Now I can pull it back, lock the slide open,
flip the disassembly lever back, and that one is good to go.
Obviously as you can see, the disassembly process kind of leaves something to be desired.
And especially with early versions of the gun,
there were problems with parts breakage in particular.
Now a lot of those problems were corrected
over the course of ... a couple of years,
as IM Metal basically got its feet under itself in the production process.
In general there really was quite a bit of
pride of ownership in the Croatian army with these pistols.
... Pistols aren't the most substantial, important weapon to a military force.
But they give one a sense of self-protection.
And the idea of having a domestic Croatian pistol as opposed to
basically leftover weapons from the Yugoslav People's Army,
was really a point of pride to a lot of soldiers.
So it's really a two-sided weapon.
Yes, it has technical flaws, but it also was a significant morale-boosting
development for the Croatian army to have.
There are a couple of different ways that you can look at the PHP.
On the one hand, it's not the world's best pistol,
there are some substantial design shortcomings in it
as you can see for example, from the disassembly process.
There is in fact sort of a joke name for the gun in Croatian service
that PHP doesn't stand for "First Croatian Pistol",
it stands for "First Croatian Miss", because of the shortcomings in the design.
And like they're true, ... you can't get around that fact.
However, it's also a pistol that was the opportunity for IM Metal (later HS Produkt)
to actually put a gun into mass production.
And you don't learn how to properly do that without trying it first.
Like your first pistol is never going to be a breakaway success (unless you're Gaston Glock),
but they need experience actually doing this.
And the PHP gives them 16,000 guns worth of experience in actually producing a pistol.
And it would lead to the HS-95, which would then lead to the HS2000,
which became a massive runaway success in the United States
with like 6 million total sold under the Springfield brand name as the XD.
So a big thanks to HS Produkt for giving me the opportunity
to take a look at a couple of their early PHPs.
A bunch of these were actually surplused by the Croatian army, purchased by importers in the US,
and so these guns are actually available in the United States, which is pretty cool.
So if you're interested in them, they are out there and available.
Hopefully you enjoyed the video. Thanks for watching.