The Pleter M91 is a simple design, but a high-quality one that was manufactured by a proper factory production line. The company making it was planning on (hoping for?) large-scale production, and they invested to proper polymer molds and other tools to make the gun. A total of about 4500 were ma...

Today we have the SIG MKPS out at the range – and WOW! I did not anticipate just how fast-firing of a submachine gun this is. Calculating from the high speed footage, it is running at 1350 rpm – and yet it’s still very controllable. It’s a beautiful looking gun, a beautifully made gun, and a real...

Yesterday we looked at the development and mechanics of the UC-9 folding sneaky submachine gun. Today we are out at the range with it – how does this thing actually handle? Well, actually better than I expected. The laser is a pretty terrible main sighting system, but the gun itself shoots smooth...

The UC-9 is a really interesting example of the market distortion caused by the 1986 Hughes Amendment. This is essentially an Uzi converted into a form factor than doesn’t look like a gun when folded up. It was designed (independent of the ARES FMG, incidentally) by one Utah Connor in the early 1...

Since I have the rather unusual opportunity to examine both the early Swedish m/45 and the improved m/45B at the same time, I figured this would be a good opportunity for a video. There were three substantial changes made to the m/45 when it was improved:

- Barrel proud holes made taller to m...

Yesterday we looked at the development of the Skorpion PDW/SMG in 9x19mm Parabellum both in the 1960s and then when it was revisited in the 1990s at CZ. Today I have the chance to take one of the 1990s Skorpion 9×19 models out the the range for some firing. I was expecting it to be a fairly viole...

Immediately upon the liberation of France in 1944, the French military began a process of developing a whole new suite of small arms. As it applied to SMGs, the desire was for a design in 9mm Parabellum (no more 7.65mm French Long), with an emphasis on something light, handy, and foldable. All th...

One interesting specialized version of the Steyr MPi-81 is this model, built for the Steyr/Saurer 4K 7FA armored personnel carrier. The vehicle could carry 8 infantrymen and their compartment had four firing ports fitted with MPi-81 SMGs. The changes required from the standard MPi-81 pattern were...

I expected the MPi-69 to be a rather difficult gun to shoot well, with its very simple construction and wire stock, but I was pleasantly surprised on the range. The rate of fire is quite low, and it was easy to hold on target. Furthermore, the intent of the cocking handle locking piece became cle...

During World War Two, both German and Russian soldiers often thought that the other side's weapons were better than their own. In particular, both sides often preferred their opponents' SMGs. In late 1941, a group of German officers formally requested that Germany simply copy and produce the PPSh...

The saga of how the original Stemple 76/45 became the Stemple Takedown Gun is a fantastic story of engineering design choices.

Essentially, John Stemple began by building a rather crude copy of the Swedish K in .45 ACP in the mid 1980s, called the Stemple 76/45. He produced and registered 2,0...

When the Stemple STG-76 was designed, it used internal parts from the Finnish kp/31 Suomi submachine gun. Since the whole point of the Stemple was to have a modular and interchangeable gun, it would make sense for BRP to make a version that duplicated the Suomi as closely as possible. This is esp...

Yesterday we took a look at the Stemple-Suomi on the bench - today it's time to find how similar it is in handling to the real thing! I have a Danish M41 Suomi, a Stemple-Suomi, and a couple of 71-round drums all ready to go...

The result? The Stemple pattern is virtually indistinguishable fro...

Having spent quite a long time yesterday exploring the origins of the Stemple/BRP STG-76, I figured I should take it out to the range. So, let's see what sort of groups I can make with a bipod-mounted open bolt 9mm...

When the Tikkakoski company bought the rights to produce the kp31 "Suomi" submachine gun in the 1930s, they attempted to make a bunch of export sales, although none were very successful. By the late 30s more countries were interested, but by that time Finnish military needs took precedence. While...

While I have filmed a MAT-49, I have not had a chance to actually try one out at the range until today. But today I don't just have a normal example; I have one rebarreled to 7.62x25mm Tokarev by the Vietnamese! So let's see how it handles...

An American entrepreneur named Bob Imel found the Sterling SMG particularly interesting, and wanted to import them into the United States. He reached out to Sterling in 1967, but was unable to work out a deal before the 1968 Gun Control Act prohibited importation of machine guns. So instead, Imel...

The Agram 2000 was originally developed in the 1990s in response to a Croatian Army need for a submachine gun during the Independence War. It is a closed-bolt, hammer-fired, simple blowback submachine gun. The initial prototypes used a top folding shoulder stock, but the production model omitted ...

The Alar is an interesting very rare Croatian domestic SMG. It is called the "Alar" after it's designer, Stipe Alar. He first came up with the design in 1971 and built one illegally - which resulted in him going to prison for a time. When the Croatian Homeland War broke out and guns were urgently...

The Alka M93 was a very simple SMG made by IM Metall (which later became HS Produkt) during the Croatian Homeland War. It is essentially a MAC M11A1 with a long barrel and a vz61 Skorpion stock, feeding 9mm ammunition form MP40 magazines. I did a video on this piece previously, but on a recent vi...

The ALKA model 93 is one of the nicest of the several dozen simple SMGs made in Croatia during the Homeland War of the 1990s. It was produced by the IM Metal company (later renamed HS Produkt) starting in 1991, was formally adopted by the Croatian armed forces in 1993, and produced until 1994 or ...

SKM was a small industrial manufacturing company in Croatia that began making submachine guns in 1991 to equip Croatian fighters in the Homeland War. Their product was the M91 Crogar, which is a selective-fire, open bolt SMG chambered for 7.62mm Tokarev. It uses the magazine from the Yugoslav M56...

The Chang Feng is named for the company that developed it, the Chongqing Chang Feng Company Ltd in (you guessed it) Chongqing. It was designed by one Qing Shangsheng, who had ample prior firearms design experience (including the Type 64 and 67 pistols and Type 80 SMG). The design is based around ...

There have been several examples of the AK being used as the basis for a pistol-caliber SMG or PDW. The Russians made the Vityaz, the Hungarians made the KGPF-9…and the Czechs actually made a version form the CZ-2000. This was the attempt to make a 5.56mm AK family of rifles form the roots of the...