- Hey guys, this is Alex C. with TFBTV.
Today we've got a really cool
historical gun to review.
This is gonna be a German MP 40.
It's in really good shape for being as old as it is,
most of you will recognize this from movies with
World War II in them,
the image of the German soldier,
or NCO carrying one of these
is a pretty iconic sight.
So today we're going to shoot it
and see how it goes.
(bursts of firing)
I gotta say,
it's really easy to keep on target,
and the recoil is ridiculously low.
All right guys, so one of the reasons
the MP 40 is so smooth
is because it operates under a principle
that we know now as constant recoil.
That is to say that the bolt
doesn't actually contact the rear of the receiver,
it's got a telescoping firing pin
that acts as a pneumatic buffer,
which is really cool, and I'll show you that
a little later.
But kinda to show how it works under shooting,
here's where the sear is
so watch how far the bolt recoils.
And you'll notice it does not go all the way back.
(fires single shots)
(fires short bursts)
I gotta say that pneumatic
buffer
really helps with recoil.
It's even lighter than an Uzi,
I mean, I'm very impressed with this gun.
(constant firing slowed down)
So the MP 40's
a pretty simple gun, it's full auto only,
so it lacks kind of the
user-friendliness of a gun that's select fire, like
a STEN
and I never thought I'd say
user-friendliness and STEN in the same sentence, but
it is nice to have a single shot option.
However, with the MP 40,
the cyclic rate's slow enough
to where you can pull off singles.
(fires single shots)
And then three-round bursts are also
(drowned out by firing)
And all in all, the gun's just a pleasure to shoot.
I've shot all the big 9mm submachine guns,
and this is just about as controllable
as the best of them.
- So now that Alex told you
a little bit about the gun,
I'm gettin' a
opportunity to go ahead
and put some rounds through it.
I'd say it's kind of a dream come true.
Kind've lusted after the opportunity
to shoot one of these for a long time.
(short bursts of fire)
You know,
Alex is right,
this thing is possibly the most
controllable sub' gun I've had the opportunity
to get behind.
I think they were really on to something.
So now one benefit that this gun has
over the M1 Thompson
that we were using
well, the U.S. was using
is that the stock can be folded.
You know, that really makes a difference
when you're dealing with
crew vehicles and
tanks or whatever have you.
We did have the 'grease gun' but
they really kind of beat us to the punch here.
So I'm gonna give it a shot,
see if we can't go ahead
and get it cycle properly.
with the stock folded.
(two short bursts)
That really is pretty controllable, and
(three short bursts)
Such an outstanding gun.
So Patrick hit a little bit on the folding stock.
The folding stock is one of this weapon's
greatest legacies.
All the AK-47 folding stocks that you see
are based on this mechanism,
which is very cool, simple button with the
swiveling buttplate here.
And you can't go to the range with a machine gun
without doing a Magnum.
(fires continuously)
That's just satisfying.
All right, so I wanted to give you
a little overview of the MP 40,
how it works, how it field strips, et cetera.
You notice there is a safety notch
for the bolt handle.
In this position the gun cannot be fired.
So to field strip the gun,
first you're gonna wanna undo it from the notch,
let it ride forward,
and then there's a small disc
on the bottom of the gun
that you pull down,
and rotate a half-turn.
After you've done this,
you can separate the upper and lower receivers
by pulling the trigger
and rotating them away from each other.
The last and final step
is to grab that bolt handle
pull back,
and out comes the telescoping firing pin
and the bolt.
Now here you can really see
how the telescoping firing pin works,
it contains the recoil spring,
and it is pneumatic,
you'll notice there is a hole on both sides
of the front section,
and this allows air
to help with a
sort of a buffering mechanism.
All in all, it's a very cool system.
All right guys, now you've heard us
yammer on about this thing,
I think it's time for us to just
have a little fun.
(bursts of fire)
And fun that is.
(bursts of fire)
Ahhh! It's good stuff.
(bursts of fire)
So we got one mag left
for the MP 40
and I've loaded it up with a mix
of 124-grain brass case
and 115-grain steel case.
Both of which
kinda were right for the gun.
So I wanted to see if the
rate of fire changed with the different
bullet weights.
Well, here we go.
(steady firing)
Looks like it's pretty consistent.
- All right guys, we hope you enjoyed
our MP 40 video.
I know I really had a lot of fun
shooting this gun.
- Yeah, I know, it's a fabulous gun.
- You know, our next video actually might be
or well, not the next one, but
coming up soon'll be a Thompson versus the MP 40
We're both experienced submachine gunners,
and I think it would be cool to showcase how
those two went head to head.
- You know, I'm gonna be honest,
but
I'm not puttin' any money on the Thompson.
This thing is fabulous.
- I will say,
this thing is probably more fun than a Thompson,
but you know, we'll compare accuracy
and everything and factor that in.
And see which one emerges.
- Obviously we're gonna give 'em a fair shake, but
you know, based on what we've seen today,
the Germans really did a
fabulous job with this gun.
- They did, they did.
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