Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am out here at the range today,
Trijicon's range by the way, thanks to Trijicon for ... generously letting us use their range.
And we are out here today with an MP5, and this is a pretty basic MP5A3,
collapsing stock, nice modern submachine gun from the '50s. Because
I've had very little actual trigger time with an MP5 and ...
the more I hear about them, the more I want to try these out, because
especially, in fact after listening to Ken Hackathorn talk about these,
(we have an interview with Ken about the MP5 and other submachine guns),
he really extolled the virtues of the MP5, as does pretty much everybody else who ever shoots them,
and so I really wanted to get my hands on one and see is this really as nice as everybody says. Now,
on the abstract, on paper, it should be. It's a light gun, it's a compact gun, and perhaps most importantly of all
it is a, not quite locked breech, it's a delayed blowback, closed bolt submachine gun.
So what that means is you actually have a really nice trigger in these guns, compared to a typical open bolt gun.
And the bolt's already closed when you fire it, so on ... all open bolt submachine guns when you pull the trigger
the first thing that happens is this rather heavy bolt goes slamming forward to pick up a cartridge
and chamber it, and that has the effect of throwing your aim off. In fact, if you watch people on video
if someone pulls the trigger on an open bolt gun where the magazine's empty, but they don't know it's empty
they will often jerk the gun forward, and it looks like they are flinching, but that's just the kinetic energy of the bolt
hitting the front of the bolt face, not firing, and going kerchunk down.
And that same thing happens when you actually fire. So it takes a lot more skill
to be able to properly and effectively shoot an open bolt gun.
Well, the MP5 bypasses all of that because it is closed bolt, so.
Anyway, enough yabbering. Let's see how this works.
Now I'm going to start with some shooting on semi-auto because
even in a military, law enforcement sort of circumstance, a gun like this is typically
used as a semi-automatic carbine. It is ... the most practically accurate to shoot in semi-auto.
You get a nice sight picture with each shot.
Full-auto is only used for emergencies. So let's give this thing a try on the dueling tree.
That's just like too easy, that's like cheating.
Alright, so semi's cool, but what you guys really came here to see is full-auto.
So, let's give that a try and see how it is.
That's really sweet. It doesn't have the weight of a typical submachine gun because the closed bolt,
delayed blowback action means that you don't need a really heavy bolt, like you do in an open bolt gun.
It's compact, it's ergonomic, it's ... almost completely ambidextrous, if you discount the charging handle there.
This thing is really sweet. ... I need another magazine.
Alright, you know what, I bet I can even hit these things on full-auto.
Let's see if I can do this with little two round bursts, and trigger control some single shots on full-auto.
Well, now I'm out of ammo, but, yah.
Alright, so I'm far from the expert on this sort of thing, there's many, many people out there who
been in the real, been there, done that and extoll the virtues of the MP5. But I'll tell you what
from my experience now, granted brief experience, this thing
totally lives up to the hype. This is a fantastic little submachine gun.
And it's really obvious why, despite HK's attempts to keep modernising this thing for decades now,
none of them quite take. Everybody just want to keep using MP5s.
Because, man, they just work, and they are nice to shoot. So,
a big thank you to HK for letting me come out here and put a whole bunch of ammo through one of their MP5s,
and thank you to Trijicon as well for giving us access to their range.
And I know that what all of you guys have been waiting for is a full mag dump, so.
I don't know many of those hit, but it was sure fun.
Thanks for watching.