The One submachine gun is one of the ugliest SMGs ever designed, and yet also one of the most beloved by its users. The original basis for the gun was a .22 rimfire submachine gun designed by 23-year-old Australian Evelyn Owen. That prototype was found by his neighbor Vincent Wardell after Owen ...

The PM-63 Rak is a pretty interesting Polish Cold War machine pistol or personal defense weapon. It fires from an open bolt, but uses a slide like a pistol rather than a bolt in an enclosed receiver like a typical SMG. There are several other interesting elements to the design, so let's take a cl...

Whether it is described as a machine pistol, a submachine gun, or a personal defense weapon, the PM63 Rak is really not the best examples of this sort of thing to actually shoot. The open-bolt/slide mechanism is very cool from an engineering and design perspective, but does in fact have a tendenc...

In 1983, Dennis Tippmann started a company making beautiful half-scale Browning machine guns, fully functional and chambered for the .22LR cartridge. This was a pretty cool idea, and the guns remain popular today because of their mechanics and easy transportation and cheap shooting cost - but th...

This the fairly modern Chinese CS/LS2 - the 9mm Parabellum export model of the 5.8mm QCW-05 submachine gun. It takes most of its design cues form the QBZ-95 rifle, as you can see form the grip layout. It is a bullpup, with a right-ride ejection port that cannot be swapped. It is a bullpup style d...

Thanks to H&K and Trijicon, I have a chance to do some shooting with an MP7A1 PWD today. The MP7 is unusual for a gun of its size and configuration in having a fully locked operating system; essentially a G36 scaled down to 4.6x30mm. This allows the gun to be lighter, as the action is not depende...

In the 1980s, the US Navy requested a new submachine gun to replace the MP5 then in use. In particular, the Navy wanted a gun that was optimized for use with a suppressor. H&K built two models of experimental guns in the 1980s to meet this request, creatively named the SMG and SMG II.

Both gun...

The Z45 was a submachine gun designed during World War Two by the Start firm in Eibar, Spain for export sale to Germany as well as domestic Spanish use. It was heavily based on the MP40, including the same stock, telescoping mainspring guide/cover, and disassembly method as the MP40. To this, how...

In the 1960s, the Sterling company began to worry about the prospects of continued sales of the Sterling (Patchett) SMG, especially in light of new competitors like the H&K MP5. Its chief design engineer, Frank Waters, created the S11 as a gun to replace the classic Sterling. The S11 was based on...

During the 1930s, Sweden acquired an assortment of different submachine guns, including Bergmanns, Thompsons, and Suomis. As World War Two progressed, they decided that they really needed to standardize on a single caliber and model of gun, and requested designs from both the Carl Gustav factory ...

The Viper Mk I was an experimental submachine gun developed in the UK for use by military policemen in post-WW2 occupation West Germany. It was a simplified Sten gun (full-auto only, without the semiauto option normally included in the Sten trigger mechanism) put into a wooden housing. It was int...

During World War Two, Canada supplied some 73,000 Sten guns (made by the Long Branch arsenal) to Chinese Nationalist forces in an effort to help them fight the Japanese. These Stens were standard MkII pattern guns, chambered for the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge. However, many of these were eventua...

H&K introduced the UMP (universal machine pistol) in an effort to attract sales from American law enforcement by offering a modern submachine gun in .45 ACP and .40 S&W calibers. The MP5 was and remains an extremely popular SMG, but it has never been made in .45 caliber, and that was seen as a po...

My MAS 38 submachine gun is finally running properly and with the 7.65mm French Long ammunition now being made by Steinel Ammo, I can finally take this out to the range! What to shoot at?

A spinner, naturally.

In 1949, North Korea began production of a domestic copy of the Soviet PPSh-41 submachine gun. Designated the M49, it used a blend of Russian and Chinese characteristics, but was mechanically identical to the standard model, distinguishable only by its markings and its slightly oval-shaped stock ...

John L. Hill was a World War One fighter pilot who went into the oil and gas industry, and enjoyed tinkering with guns in his free time. In 1949 he got an idea for a new style of magazine and feed system, which he developed and patented in the early 1950s. Hill’s intention was to create a submach...

We have previously looked at the original MP-18, the System Schmeisser improvement, and the followup MP-28,II design on the table - but we have not taken the MP-28 out to the range. So, that's what we are doing today - how does it compare to its Schmeisser-magazine predecessor?

There are a fairly wide variety of silenced Sten guns that were made during World War Two, because many were needed for small Special Operations Executive missions. However, the British Army did also formally develop and adopt such a weapon. It was initially requested in 1942, with the first tria...

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Want early access to our videos and be entered to win a monthly raffle?! Considering giving to our Patreon. Link below! https://www.patreon.com/legacycollectibles Check out our Podcast "Flak & Fubar" https://flakfubar.buzzsprout.com/ Legacy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/legacy_collectibles...

Want early access to our videos and be entered to win a monthly raffle?! Considering giving to our Patreon. Link below! https://www.patreon.com/legacycollectibles Check out our Podcast "Flak & Fubar" https://flakfubar.buzzsprout.com/ Legacy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/legacy_collectibles...

Want early access to our videos and be entered to win a monthly raffle?! Considering giving to our Patreon. Link below! https://www.patreon.com/legacycollectibles Check out our Podcast "Flak & Fubar" https://flakfubar.buzzsprout.com/ Legacy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/legacy_collectibles...

Want early access to our videos and be entered to win a monthly raffle?! Considering giving to our Patreon. Link below! https://www.patreon.com/legacycollectibles Check out our Podcast "Flak & Fubar" https://flakfubar.buzzsprout.com/ Legacy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/legacy_collectibles...