[ HK51 at the Range ]
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, courtesy of Morphy's, with an HK51.
We took a look at the history of this interesting little firearm yesterday.
And I have to reiterate that I was genuinely quite surprised
the first time I discovered that this is actually a pattern that was
used by British special operations personnel in the early '90s.
Now they didn't use it for very long, because it is not exactly the world's most practical firearm.
It is however one of the world's most impressive firearms
to take onto, say, a machine gun shoot range.
People will notice you if you light up one of these. Let me demonstrate.
20 rounds, full power, 7.62 NATO out of an 8.3 inch barrel.
Are you ready for this? Am I ready for this?
Is my camera microphone ready for this? We will find out.
Straight to full-auto.
Whoo!
I believe a whole lot of that will give you probably a traumatic brain injury.
But, I'm here for you guys, so we're going to do some more.
That is one of those machine guns that does truly cause the world to go grey around you.
You'd better pick your target well before you pull the trigger,
because, unlike a nice pleasant comfortable relaxing 9mm submachine gun,
this thing just gets all angry and recoily on you.
I'm not that used to things ... this size trying to actually push me backwards,
and this does that.
Alright so I know there are some tough dudes out there who will look at this,
shooting this, and go like, "Ha-ha-ha, he's like candy from baby."
But the reality is this thing provides a tremendous amount of concussion, and blast, and recoil.
It's a very lightweight gun, it is legitimately a submachine gun profile 7.62 NATO rifle.
So, I'm going to put some more rounds through it for you.
We're going to do this until I run out of ammo,
or I run out of will to put myself through it.
Semi? Nope, full.
Whoo.
It becomes immediately obvious why the SAS would have got rid of these.
While, yes, it is nice to be able to fire a full-size cartridge like this in a very compact package,
... I can't even comprehend someone like the SAS or SBS
using one of these in a CQB environment inside a building or a room.
It is concussive here on an open range,
I can't even fathom firing one of these in a closed room.
And absolutely not without ears. Just eugh.
Alright, so controllability. It actually doesn't really climb.
It bounces around, it's hard to maintain on a point target,
But it doesn't have this tendency like we're used to hearing,
"Oh it's full-auto, so your first shot's on target, your second shot's high, and your third shot's up in the sky."
Well, at least if you've got a reasonable amount of practice with machine guns,
this doesn't have a tendency to climb.
If you're a total newbie to shooting machine guns, I bet it probably would.
But if you're competent with guns, ... there are some that have a tendency to climb,
this is absolutely not one of them.
However, once you pull the trigger, ... at least for me,
my awareness of the target completely disappears.
And I can focus on where is the gun,
like how is the front sight vaguely aligned with the rear sight,
and where am I generally pointing it.
But I can't tell you what's on the berm,
I can't pick a specific thing, focus on that thing through the sights while I'm shooting.
Once you start shooting, you kind of have to go onto autopilot.
Or maybe not autopilot, but you are controlling the gun
without reference to a specific point of aim at that point.
So, it's not uncontrollable, but it's certainly not a precision thing.
Whoo!
Alright, so I know some of you guys are looking at this and going, "Oh dear god, why?"
Well, it's worth pointing out that the way this gun is actually
configured and registered here in the US, the registered part is actually the sear pack.
Which is transferable among ... various patterns of H&K firearms.
So the expensive transferable part of this thing could just as easily go onto an MP5,
or an HK11, or something like that, it doesn't have to be the HK51 pattern.
It just happens that this one has been mated up for the time being with a 51.
So someone who's interested in this who doesn't want
the automatic flashbang dispenser doesn't necessarily have to keep it, so.
Now, I do know that the only reason that you are still here watching is
to gleefully watch me concuss myself with a magazine dump from an HK51.
So we will go ahead and accommodate you on that,
and hopefully I'll survive to do the next video without too much brain fog.
Whee!
Let's see, actually I believe the phrase would be, "Covering fire!"
The one saving grace of a mag dump with an HK51 is it's only 20 rounds.
Thanks for watching guys.