The Walther MPL is a gun that just doesn’t seem to get much recognition despite it being a very well made firearm. It was cost effective relative to competitors, and it is both ergonomic and easy to keep on target. Maintenance is also easy, and in this field strip we show you how to break an MPL into its component groups for cleaning.

Transcript …

– [Voiceover] Hey guys, it’s Alex C. with TFBTV and for today’s field strip we’re going to do a Walther MPL.

Now there are two versions of this gun, there’s an MPL and an MPK, the K having a shorter barrel, shorter forend, but that’s pretty much the only difference, actually.

I’ve always thought these guns looked really cool.

They have that weird kind of retro, futuristic look.

Maybe a dieselpunk look.

But yeah, they’re very cool looking guns.

They actually handle quite well, too.

They feel very good in the hand, very natural.

They’ve got a paddle magazine release, features that a more modern submachine gun would have.

Unfortunately, they were kind of a commercial failure.

There were very limited sales of the MPLs and MPKs.

They’re not a very prolific submachine gun around the world.

Some weird nuances, they go from safe to full auto and then to single shot, which is strange.

They also have a strange sighting system.

They’ve got a gutter sight on top with a peep sight below.

And then a front sight to match.

It’s got a weird gutter sight on top and then a post.

Also, they’ve got a very nice wire folding stock.

Wire folding stocks are never that great, but this is one of the better ones I’ve come across in my days.

They’ve also got a kind of strange safety mechanism where you can lock the bolt part way open and it will not fire.

And then of course these are open bolts so you draw the bolt all the way to the rear to get ready to fire.

So to start the disassembly process, push this pin through the receiver.

It’s a little tricky, one of the trickier push pins that you’ll mess with because you kind of have to press the inner little spring bit forward, it’s not a natural push pin like an HK product.

Then you can separate your upper and lower receiver groups.

Now grab your upper receiver and you’re going to pull the bolt to the rear and then pull it all the way back.

And you can see it’s not technically a telescoping bolt, but it’s kind of got the same principle.

It’s got a lot of mass located above the bolt face and forward.

The recoil spring and guide rod pop right out.

And there’s just a simple clip retention system.

Now you can remove the barrel just like you would an Uzi by pressing the little tab and then unscrewing the barrel nut.

Very easy to remove the barrel for cleaning.

And this is a feature that’s lost on modern submachine guns, I wish that more guns featured this, but that’s all that it takes to field strip a Walther MPL.

They’re very simple, not quite as simple as an Uzi, but very simple nonetheless.

If you watch our Uzi field strip video, you’ll see some similarities.

They’re of course both open bolt guns, but that makes you wonder, why did the Uzi succeed and this fail? This came out in ’63, next year development began on Project 64 which brought us the best submachine gun ever made, that’s the Heckler & Koch MP5 and unfortunately it killed the MPL sales numbers.

Anyways, at this point, I’d like to thank you guys for watching and of course Ventura Munitions for providing the ammunition that we use to make our shooting videos possible.

If you guys support them, check out their website, link in the description, it’d mean a lot to us as they give us a lot of ammo that allows us to do our shooting videos, as I said.

Hope to see you next time, guys.