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Leaders in Machine Pistols: the Beistigui Hermanos MM31
Beistigui Hermanos is probably the least known of the Spanish machine pistol manufacturers, despite being the first to actually make such pistols. Beistigui was founded in 1910 in Eibar, and was one of the initial subcontractors chosen to make Ruby pistols for the French military during World War...
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Czech Small Arms CSA Vz.61 Skorpion Semi .32 ACP (Plus A Cheeky HK MP5K!)
"Bloke takes his 2012-production .32 ACP and, after having made it vaguely run with an awful lot of work, puts it through its paces on the 25m range. As a comparison, an HK MP5K both with and without PDW shoulder stock appears too!
Apparently these things were called the Klobb in James Bond Gold...
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H&K VP-70M: Polymer Framed Cutting Edge Machine Pistol from 1973
The VP-70 was designed by Heckler & Koch cofounder Alex Seidel, and introduced in 1973. It was made with the idea of being a gun easily mass produced for arming a civilian resistance in case of Russian invasion of East Germany, but the West German government opted not to adopt it. In the original...
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H&K VP-70M on the Range: How Useful is the Burst Fire?
After looking at the history and mechanics of the VP-70 yesterday, we are heading out to the range to try it out (and thanks to Trijicon for generously offering use of their range!). I am curious to see just what that 2200 rpm rate of fire is like to shoot, and whether the awful trigger is as muc...
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Marko Vukovik's Prototype Machine Pistol: the V.M.18
Today we continue our series on the development of Croatian pistols towards the XD line. Last week we saw Marko Vukovic's first design, and today we are looking at his second. This was the V.M.18, a step towards a more proven system instead of the really unusual flapper locking of the Kordun. The...
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Stechkin APS: The Soviet Machine Pistol
Sorry, slight mistake on my part - the arsenal mark on this is Molot, not Tula!
The APS is a machine pistol developed by Igor Stechkin in the late 1940s and adopted by the Soviet Union in 1951, basically at the same time as the Makarov pistol. The Stechkin and Makarov share many characteristic...
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Shooting the Stechkin: How Does It Measure Up?
I have been curious to try shooting a Stechkin machine pistol for a while, and now thanks to Movie Armaments Group in Toronto, I have a chance to!
I hate to be a downer, but my takeaway from this experience is that the Stechkin is little more than a range toy, at least in fully automatic. With...
