The Walther MPL is a gun that we have showed lots of love on TFBTV, mostly because it is in our opinions an underrated SMG. This open bolt 9mm from West Germany was introduced in the early 60s and could have been a very prolific little SMG… and then the MP5 came along. That said, how will it perform on the course?

Transcript …

(gun firing) – A daily dose of vitamin F, for full-auto, is always a good thing.

Alright, so now that we got the mag dump out of the way let’s get on with the show here.

Today’s run and gun is going to feature the Walther MPL, a gun that I’ve actually talked quite a lot about over the past year or so.

I did a Friday field trip on it a while back, so I thought I’d show it some love on the run and gun course.

These guns are really cool they go from safe to full-auto and then to single shot, so that’s one of the strange things about the MPL.

It’s a very well constructed gun.

It’s very simple.

It is a blow back operated open bullet submachine gun, not unlike the Uzi, but it has some cool things like a nice wire folding stock that’s quite nice, they’re very simple.

Here’s it fully disassembled actually for cleaning, you can remove the barrel which is also very nice, just like an Uzi.

You know, one of the first videos we ever did for TFB TV was the MPL and I thought I would show you guys basically kind of a redux here on the run and gun courses.

Which is my favorite series actually.

It’s a little self indulgent, but I hope you guys enjoy what we do there.

So as usual, with a semi or fully automatic firearm, we’re going to load three mags with 10 rounds each to allow for two magazine changes, starting at 70 yards and advancing onto the target.

So let’s see how the MPL stacks up against other guns we’ve used for this.

Alright here we go with the Walther MPL submachine gun.

First it’s gonna be semi-auto.

(gun clicks) (gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) (gun clicking) (gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) Alright that actually went pretty smoothly.

Let’s go talk about it.

Alright guys so that wasn’t the best run I’ve ever done, but remember this is an open bolt submachine gun.

So, it’s 70 to 75 yards when you pull the trigger.

(gun clicks) It actually sends the gun off axis pretty good, so the fact that I was able to land as many shots as I did at that distance was okay.

It got a little tighter as I moved closer and more into what I would consider I guess room to room submachine gun fighting range.

You know this is a very well built gun.

The MP5 and your later close-able submachine guns are obviously light years ahead, but still, for it’s time this was a fantastic gun and I’m gonna argue it didn’t really fall into obsolescence until the MP5 really started catching on and gathering steam, but just to see if it really outclassed this gun, let’s see how it shines on full-auto.

Alright folks, now time to switch it to auto.

(gun clicks) Not sure about this one.

(gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) (gunshots firing) (gun clicks) You know that actually went a little better than I would’ve thought.

Let’s go take a look.

You know guys, it might just be that I’m getting a little bit more used to this gun and using the sights especially, but that felt pretty darn good.

I’m warming up to the MPL, I’ve always liked it, however I never really considered it a serious competitor.

to even the Uzi, maybe it’s just because I’ve shot the Uzi, I dunno, probably 25,000, 30,000 rounds or through them in total.

You know I’m really warming up to the MPL.

I’ve always liked it, like I said, but I really think with enough training I could get the hang of this gun.

On full-auto it’s very controllable.

It’s a very gentle recoil and pulse.

It doesn’t have the smoothness of an MP5.

It just kind of, just wanders a little bit, which isn’t bad, it’s something you can train around.

It’s got a few nuances I don’t like, but I’ll put the totals hits versus misses on semi right here.

So all in all, not too bad.

Let’s go back to the room and finish this one up.

So 26 hits out of 30 is not too bad, especially for an early 60’s vintage open bolt submachine gun.

Really to me, what holds it back, is in fact the crude sights.

You have a very, very small aperture and it’s kinda hard to focus on that, especially when it’s a nice sunny day.

When you have low light conditions, it’s actually not bad at all.

So I think I could do better with it, especially if I shot it a whole lot more, but until that time, I think this run and gun showed that even though this is open bolt it’s still quite capable.

I think I could improve if I shot it a lot more, like I said, I would like to have some more magazines and stuff so I don’t have to painstakingly load the very hard to find mags.

But, until next time I hope you enjoyed this run and gun.

Big thanks to you for watching and big thanks to Venturamunitions for providing the ammo for this and most of our shooting videos.

We hope to see you next time.

(gunshots firing)