#H&KMP7

After our respective first forays into the Firearms Radio Network, Daniel Watters and I both were asked to return to the program for a Handgun Radio segment. Our topic for this week was machine pistols, their history, their relationship with PDWs, and the possibilities for their future. We cover the earliest documented machine pistol the Steyr-Hahn M.12/P.16, touch on the shadowy Russian Stechkin APS and the tiniest machine pistol, the Trejo, discuss short-barreled M1 and M2 Carbine conversions like the Enforcer, hash out the small caliber high velocity machine pistol concept as most successfully embodied in the H&K MP7, and answer the question: “What, exactly, is a PDW?”

I was a teenager in the 1990s, and I remember a computer game called S.W.A.T. came out. Former LAPD Chief and S.W.A.T. team creator Daryl Gates’ name was on the cover of the box, and the game was my first introduction to the MP5. It’s a gun that I still have yet to shoot, but in this post we’ll be talking about it’s big brother, the MP7 in 4.6x30mm, released in 2001.