All language subtitles for Forgotten Weapons - Video nº 0471 Walther MPL Submachine Gun

hey guys thanks for tuning in to another

video on forgotten weapons.com I'm Ian

I'm out here today with a Walther MPL

this is kind of an odd East in that it's

a submachine gun it's actually a very

well-made submachine gun by a very

well-known company Walther these were

manufactured well they were designed in

the late 1950s into the early 1960s they

were manufactured actually for about 20

years from the early 60s to the early

80s however for some reason that I

haven't really quite figured out they

never caught on um there were a couple

batches of these sold uh the German some

German police units had them uh the

Mexican Navy bought them but not a whole

lot else beyond that which is a bit odd

because they're actually a really good

submachine gun uh remarkably so now so

these look pretty stereotypically German

uh we have a a sheet metal gun for all

practical purposes all the major

assemblies here are stamped uh so

relatively cheap to make what makes what

looks very sci-fi-ish with this uh large

assembly above the barrel is actually a

uh a channel where the the majority of

the weight of the bolt is actually

riding here up above the barrel that

allows the bolt itself to be fairly

short and to have an overall short

receiver compared to a lot of other uh

tube guns basically where the the bolt

has to travel quite a ways back as it

Cycles uh these use standard 9mm

cartridges they use actually a rather

difficult to find proprietary double

stack magazine uh 32

rounds you know what they're just really

smooth and nice to fire I should also

point out they have two different sets

of sights we'll take a closer look at

that when we disassemble this but

running right over the top of the gun

you have what you might call a set of

gutter sights and then you also have a

little aperture sight here and a hooded

post so for in theory for a precise shot

you line up the aperture and for a quick

and dirty shooting up close you just use

this big kind of open Notch gutter thing

on top um I found out here today the the

peep site's pretty easy to use but it

does restrict your vision of the target

a bit I really like the gutter sight

idea but in this particular gun I find

it a little difficult to work with now

that might be something that I could get

over if I practiced with this a bunch or

it might just not be at the best

executed uh way to do this sort of

design so uh one other element to notice

this is a three position fire selector

we have safe and then

full and then we have safe and then full

and then all the way over is semi-auto

so start with semi-auto and then we'll

do a couple bursts see what it's

like the wire stock is not the most

comfortable thing it does have a little

bit of a kind of a rubberized coating on

it uh if I were going to shoot one of

these a lot I'd probably wrap some

paracord or something on that just to

make it a little bit more comfortable on

the cheek uh but it's certainly better

than than some wire stocks now full auto

it just sits there right on

Target and and I'm out of ammo um

extremely comfortable gun you know what

it's really weird to to shoot this and

try and figure out why these didn't

become a little more popular uh I've

heard some other folks suggest that

these are just as nice to shoot as an

MP5 and you know what I can see that uh

I'd love to have one of these it's kind

of weird there are so few of them out

there so let's go ahead head inside and

uh take this apart and take a look at

how the mechanics actually work it's an

open bolt subgun but it does have a few

elements that are a little different

than the

typical all right so here is our MPL

first off to unfold the stock all you do

pull it out it does lock open so to fold

it back you have to depress this button

and then just fold it back in place

pretty simple there now what makes this

gun technically kind of interesting is

the way that the bolt is built it's sort

of got a telescoping bolt or it sort of

has the same idea uh one thing that the

checks came up with in 1948 with their

CZ 23 through 26 series of guns was this

idea of having a very short bolt back

here but then having the most of the

mths of the bolt actually telescoped out

in front this allowed for a very short

uh travel in the receiver and made for a

nice compact gun well the Walther MP

doesn't quite do that but it comes close

it actually puts the the vast majority

of the bolt weight up here in this uh

travel area above the barrel so the

barrel is down here right there and then

this area is where most of the mass of

the bolt reciprocates so we can have a

fairly short bolt back

here I should point out this is an all

stamped gun um it does have a ventilated

metal handguard uh it was pretty hot out

today when we were shooting this and I

was happy to see that this actually

didn't get particularly hot now we

didn't do a whole bunch of Mag dumps and

that that would heat it up but there's

enough uh space between where where the

barrel is actually in contact with the

receiver that this doesn't overheat all

that quickly our magazine release very

simple push button paddle type mag

release easy to work

with our safety is a little bit unusual

for sub guns it's a three position

safety so we have safe D is for Rapid

Fire full auto and then e is for single

fire or

semi-auto now disassembly is pretty

simple we have one captive pin

here push that

through pull it out and

then we can split the upper assembly off

of the gun now we can bring

out the

bolt and The Recoil

spring

The Recoil spring itself is captive on a

guide rod it's sort of uh halfway

tensioned into the bolt assembly so it

stays in place but you can just pull it

out when you want it out and then this

is our bolt so the bolt face is down

here along with the extractor a fixed

firing pin it is an open bolt gun and

then this top assembly is basically just

Mass you can see the majority of it is

just a rough cast finish

and then it's got two bearing surfaces

one at the front one at the back that

are machined to a very nice smooth

finish so this these two surfaces ride

inside this upper receiver

area um pretty

simple put that back

in now in the upper receiver we have

this large area up top for the bolt Mass

we have the chamber right here and

Barrel we can EAS easily remove the

barrel by pushing this button

in and then unscrewing this this is

almost identical in concept to how the

uzi retains its Barrel once the keeper

nut is

off the barrel just pulls right out it

is keyed here at the front so that you

can only put it in in the right

configuration which ensures that your

extractor cut out and your feed ramp are

in in the right position that's it uh

fairly long barrel for wa for the

overall size of the gun it's about a 10

and a/ qu inch barrel pretty

good one other a couple other features

to notice here one is that this uh

charging handle can be depressed it's

spring-loaded uh under normal

functioning the charging handle uh only

it it's not reciprocating so uh you use

it to charge the weapon it's

springloaded on its own comes back to

the front and it doesn't move while

you're firing all right so if you need

to to actually grab the bolt and

physically Push It Forward you can push

the charging handle in and there is a

little stud that comes out right in

there see it right there

that so that stud allows you to push the

charging handle knob in and actually

then you can apply Force forward or

backward to the bolt so helpful in

clearing malfunctions should you get

them little hard to demon rate when we

have a recoil spring pushing the bolt

forward in the first

place now one other neat element to this

gun is it sights are sights so on the

back here we have this kind of

interesting rear sight assembly that has

a big wide open sort of gutter sight

Notch and below that right there

actually has a little aperture site when

we look at the front sight you can see

we have a post and then we have another

sort of gutter sight type um opening on

the top of the sight Hood the idea here

is you can actually line up the top of

both SES for very quick almost

instinctive close range shooting and

when you want to make an actual

Precision shot that's when you use the

Aperture and the front post kind of a

clever system um I'm curious how

effective it would be with practice I

did a little bit of shooting with it I

like the system I had a little trouble

making reasonable hits with the gutter

sights maybe that's just something to

live with and

accept anyway um the bottom the lower

assembly is pretty simple we have all of

our Fire Control components down here um

being a an open bolt subgun this just

has a very simple sear type fire control

group uh it does have two more captive

pins here that are used to retain all of

the Fire Control parts so you can pop

these two pins and all the guts come out

that's pretty much it there is one other

neat mechanism I want to point out this

which is the secondary safety sort of

sear not not necessarily in the same

sense as you'd think of a safety sear in

other guns but let me put this back

together and show you what that sear

does all right guns back assembled now

the classic negligent discharge or

accidental discharge mechanism on an

open bolt submachine gun is the idea

that you would have a loaded magazine in

the gun and then you leave the bolt

closed and this is a very safe

configuration in theory because of

course the chamber's empty there's no

way anything can get in there however if

you drop the gun on its butt stock the

bolt is very heavy and inertia will tend

to pull the bolt back a little bit and

if it's a heavy enough gun and you drop

it from a high enough distance and it

hits right on the butt stock what can

happen is the bolt comes far enough back

like this that it passes the magazine

and then it comes all the way forward so

it would do something like that and fire

around because of course it's a an open

bolt gun so as soon as the round goes

into the chamber it's going to fire uh

that's typically how accidents happen

with submachine guns well Walther uh put

in an an extra secondary sear so that as

soon as the bolt hits this position and

you can hear it just click there when it

gets there

right right there the bolt locks in

place the trigger does nothing at this

point that is just a safety to ensure

that if you drop the gun hard enough for

the bolt to come this far back it gets

grabbed and locked there and in order to

fire the gun you have to pull the Bel

bolt all the way back to its proper

position and then pull the trigger very

clever little safety avoids what is by

far the most common uh safety issue on a

submachine gun like

this so thanks for watching guys I hope

you enjoyed the video we uh I've had

some people asking me to do a video on a

Walther MPL or mpk for a while and it

was really cool to actually get a chance

to handle one so thanks to Alex at the

firearm blog for providing the gun

really appreciate it if you guys enjoy

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