Bonjour mes amis, j'ai un pistolet mitrailleur.
I have a Hotchkiss Universal folding submachine gun.
Now this sadly isn't actually a submachine gun,
this is a semi-auto rebuild that has been registered as a short-barrelled rifle,
so it has the appropriate original 10 inch long barrel.
This is a gun that the French tested and ultimately did not adopt,
... instead adopting the MAT 49 submachine gun.
They were looking for something in particular for paratroopers.
So having it fold up very compact was one of the prime requirements.
Now we've looked at this on the desktop,
and today we are out on my standardised course of fire for pistol calibre carbines.
And we're going to run this through and see how it does.
So the course of fire is all targets from MOA Targets, via Mitch, the evil genius behind MOA Targets.
We start with a Duelling Tree here, I have to clear the Duelling Tree.
Then I move to the Mini MOA target where I have to knock down the head and then reset the head.
Then we move over to the Red Neck Star, and in between plates I have to hit the full size silhouette.
And that ensures that the plates actually get moving between shots.
... And then I come back and do the Mini MOA and then the Duelling Tree one more time each.
This is set up to test target transitions, precision fire, moving targets, and reloads as well.
So I have two magazines here of 30 rounds.
And ... I do want to point out the sights on this are kind of iconically French,
in that they are very low down on the gun, and really quite difficult to use. So that's going to be a problem.
If I am not able to get the precision targets, I'm going to give them a couple of good tries,
and I might just move on, but we'll see. Hopefully I can get them.
So, go ahead and bring this thing into fighting capacity.
Chunk.
And we are ready to go.
- Shooter ready. - Ready. - Stand by.
- There it is.
- Aah, I got it reset too.
I'm out.
Man, I just cannot see that thing.
Alright, argh!
I have run out of ammunition, so this is a DNF.
Let's make a record of the time, because some guns may actually perform worse.
-150.01. - One five zero point zero one seconds.
So the problem was in order to actually see through these iron sights I have to have my face way back here,
which means the aperture is very small.
That head target is very grey, which is the same colour as the target backstop behind it.
And in addition, the iron sights are completely fixed, cannot be adjusted, and it's not quite perfectly on.
So I was unable to tell exactly where I was hitting.
... I'm not sure how I managed to get it on the first run through but not the second,
but frankly, I did better than I expected. I was worried
I was going to get stuck on that and not get past it the first time. Once I got to the star,
surprisingly effective on the star.
It is in fact the precision fire that is the major handicap behind this thing, because of its iron sights.
So that said, it's still an extremely cool gun, because when I'm done with it, I can go ahead and
just fold it back up with a magazine in it.
Aah, that's a little toasty but not too bad.
There we go, ready to throw it in a bag,
bring it back to the range next time, and try something different here on the pistol calibre carbine course of fire.
Hopefully you guys ... enjoyed this one.
It is a fun gun to shoot even though it's an awful gun to shoot,
and the French made a fantastic decision by not adopting it.
Thanks for watching.
[ sub by sk cn2 ]