Favorite subgun?

[Bud]

I have fired a whole bunch of different submachine guns, mostly in the military. Wait, only one as a cop and that was the S&W 76 in 9mm. That was about 1974 or so. It was pretty neat.

In Vietnam I was in an assualt helicopter company. We had two platoons of 'slicks" the troop carriers and one platoon of 'guns' the Charley model Hueys. Morale in my unit was sky high the entire time I was in it. I arrived in January 1966 and stayed until September 1968. That was three extensions. This was common. Most people extended at least once and a whole bunch of us extended a lot. That made for really, really tight relationships and as we matured (crew chiefs and door gunners "GIBs" or guys in the back were on average 18 when we arrived in country) and Warrant Officer pilots were probably 20-24 years old) we really became cowboys.

In VN, Army Aviation was full of "Terry and the Pirates" types. We all swaggered and did really strange things most of that revolving around weapons or designing our own ordnance. (That's for a different story). One of the things that developed and really was never stopped was that you were allowed to have "personal" weapons, that is, whatever you scounged up, you were allowed to carry in the aircraft as your "E and E" weapon.

At first, the most popular were M2 carbines (extra points for having a folding stock version) grease guns, (the M3 submachine gun), and Thompson submachine guns. PFC (later SGT) Gary Wetzel , a door gunner from our 1st platoon slicks had an M1A1 Thompson that he had been carrying for a year and a half when he was shot down in a landing zone on January 8, 1968 and he earned the Medal of Honor. He didn't use the Thompson to earn the Medal though.

About the winter of 1967-68 the first XM 177s started showing up which were the first versions of the CAR 15 which waaaayyyy later became the M4. All the pilots had to have one of those because there were maximum way cool but the enlisted guys didn't want them because they had atendency to jam really easy.

As time went on, exotics started showing up. These included some MP 38s and MP 44s, some of the Russian/Chinese burp guns. You can gain maximum way cool if you walked through the company area (we lived in squad tents in a rubber tree plantation) carrying something thast no one had ever seen before like an MP-38.

But the really cool kids carried the French MAT 49:



or the Swedish K:



The MAT was actually a BS gun. It was very hard to load the magazines for some reason and it tended to over heat if you ripped through a couple of magazines real fast. But it was neat to have because the magazine and magazine well folded forward beloew the barrel so that when you were carrying it, it looked realy neat and you were always being asked to show how that thing worked.

But, the ultimate cool was the Swedish K. Great rate of fire, you could not hear individual shots, it worked no matter how long ago you had cleaned it and most of all, the SF guys all had them. If you had a Swedish K, you were a somebody, you were a contender, you know, an operator.

We had this "test fire" pit which was composed of an artillery round metal shipping tube dug in to the ground at an angle. Under ground, there were a bunch of sandbags that soaked up the rounds being fired as a "test". This was supposed to be used to test fire the M60 door guns after they were repaired. The test fire pit was located right behind the gun shack on the flight line where door guns were cleaned every night. There was one behind each flight platoon.
One afternoon, a crew chief who shall remain nameless (it was me) decided that he just had to test fire his Swedish K. After loading up a magazine with some German WW2 9mm parabellum,  I stuuck the barrel into the artillery tube and let her rip.

Everything was going fine for about the first ten rounds but then weeks/months of firing 7.62 into it had eroded the ground underneath and suddenly the tube fell down exposing the open end that was previously buried and I of course couldn't get the damn trigger stopped before I put five rounds through the tailboom of my Huey.

This was lile one of those moments that we have all experienced like when you trip on something and stumble or slip on the ice and fall flat and you suddenly straighten up and look around to see if anyone noticed.

Every one was pretty use to firing at the test fire pit so nobody was looking as I stood the tube back up and casually strolled over to my aircraft and saw the five entry and five exit holes right below the tail rotor driveshaft tunnel.

It was obvious that there was only sheet metal damage so I covered the holes with little pieces of 100 mph tape (milspec duct tape) and spray painted them the same color as the aircraft.

Next morning, after a gun mission where we had to fire our guns, we landed for refueling and while topping off the tank I suddenly discovered (by ripping off the ten pieces of tape) that we must have received ground fire because we took five hits from the left side.

I really wish I could have brought that Swedish K home

[RevDisk]

The Swedish K is the AK of the subgun world.  Reliable as a brick.

Oh, one of the worst moments of my life involved submachine guns.  Some guys found a couple crates of WWII Thompsons in their original packing.  Absolutely mint and in perfect shape.  Naturally, the brass ordered them destroyed.  Run over by a Bradley...   Lot of folks were openly crying, including myself.

 

[FMJ]

The K--first read about it in The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

[LouisCQ1971]

My Father had a rather extensive Class III collection when I was younger.

So for classic subguns...

I gotta go with either the Uzi, Fixed wood or folder.

Swedish K, or a Skorpion, that weapon was badass with a supressor.

As far as modern...

MP5SDA2

Kriss Super V really, really fun gun to shoot.

[Penguin]

We had this "test fire" pit which was composed of an artillery round metal shipping tube dug in to the ground at an angle. Under ground, there were a bunch of sandbags that soaked up the rounds being fired as a "test". This was supposed to be used to test fire the M60 door guns after they were repaired. The test fire pit was located right behind the gun shack on the flight line where door guns were cleaned every night. There was one behind each flight platoon.
One afternoon, a crew chief who shall remain nameless (it was me) decided that he just had to test fire his Swedish K. After loading up a magazine with some German WW2 9mm parabellum,  I stuuck the barrel into the artillery tube and let her rip.

Everything was going fine for about the first ten rounds but then weeks/months of firing 7.62 into it had eroded the ground underneath and suddenly the tube fell down exposing the open end that was previously buried and I of course couldn't get the damn trigger stopped before I put five rounds through the tailboom of my Huey.

This was lile one of those moments that we have all experienced like when you trip on something and stumble or slip on the ice and fall flat and you suddenly straighten up and look around to see if anyone noticed.

Every one was pretty use to firing at the test fire pit so nobody was looking as I stood the tube back up and casually strolled over to my aircraft and saw the five entry and five exit holes right below the tail rotor driveshaft tunnel.

It was obvious that there was only sheet metal damage so I covered the holes with little pieces of 100 mph tape (milspec duct tape) and spray painted them the same color as the aircraft.

Next morning, after a gun mission where we had to fire our guns, we landed for refueling and while topping off the tank I suddenly discovered (by ripping off the ten pieces of tape) that we must have received ground fire because we took five hits from the left side.

I really wish I could have brought that Swedish K home

  Thanks for the story that was great.

As far as my favorite sub guns go I have only fired one that was full auto, the MP5. I really liked that. great shooting gun manufactured by a stupid company. I do have a semi-auto thompson and sterling though. I like both of those and would love to shoot the full auto models some day. I have really taken a liking to my sterling. Any one have any idea how much a full auto one runs these days?

I know if you have to ask you can't aford it.

[D4N]

Well, I don't have much experience with FA guns.
I only fired Sa. Vz.58 (7.62x39) in FA, which is by our army issued as "samopal"=SMG. Maybe wrong translation of russian term avtamat.
I've also shot semi auto version of infamous Sa. Vz.61 Škorpion locally marketed as Scarabeus. It didn't impressed me much.
I guess you get bigger punch in same packing with Mac-10 or Micro-Uzi as Skorpion is available in .32ACP only (9mm versions 9mak & 9x19 never left prototype stage).
Here is the list of my favorite SMGs, which I at least got my hands on.
Sa.Vz. 24/26 -Uzi predecessor. Best SMG in 7.62TT, forget on Spagin or Sudajev
Beretta M12s - Real cool, looks like  Sci-fi Blaster gun  
Beretta M38/42- Pitty that one I had i hand was deactivated . Very reliable AFAIK. Popular among German SS in WW2.
Thompson M1A1 - Great cool factor, but i wouldn't like to drag that heavy chunk of steel around the battlefield.

I also had PPS-41 (Spagin) & PPS-43 (Sudajev) in hand, and I wonder why they're so popular among US gun community. Because of price?? The Sa. Vz. 24/26 is costs peanuts too.    

[PvtPyle]

I think I have shot just about every subgun you can get your hands on, or at least all of the ones the SF can get for training. As much as I hate the nazi bastages my fav is the MP-5SD. Next would be a tie between the PPsH-41 and the MP-40. I have a Mac with the Calico drum and an Uzi. They are ok, but not in the same league.

[Harm]

So did get to go shooting today.  And I got to try another SMG I've never played with previously.  The one I fired was labeled 76/45.  It's a Stemple built gun.  A US version of the Swedish K.  And after putting a few magazines down range I know why Bud liked it.  Man thats a sweet gun!  Loved it!

[Diomed]

Don't the Sten or the Sterling feel weird due to their location of the detachable box mag?  OR are these guns designed in mind to cancel out such imbalances?

You really don't notice the weight much with the standard magazines, at least when firing from the shoulder. Shooting one-handed Bullseye-style you do feel the effect some.

And one really finds it unbalanced with frankenmags. Fifty rounds is a noticable tendency to tilt. Seventy-five and you're starting to fight to keep the gun level, and using the elbow of your off arm to rest the mag is a really good idea.

I also had PPS-41 (Spagin) & PPS-43 (Sudajev) in hand, and I wonder why they're so popular among US gun community. Because of price??

Examples of those guns that can be owned by citizens are generally quite expensive, so it's not price of the guns so much as it is price of the ammo and infatuation with the caliber. Personally I've only shot the Shpagin but it was quite fun. Very easy to control.

[DMGNUT]

My favorite? The one I can not only legally own, but just as important... afford to own.
So for me it's the M-11 with the Lage MAX-11 rate reducing upper. Mine is the same as the one shown on the main page of the site below (except I have a "can" and a C-more sight on mine).
http://www.max-11.com/
They have weekly subgun matches at Rio Salado (Mesa, AZ), and these things regularly kick butt on the much higher dollar MP5s, UZIs, and 9mm converted ARs.
Talk all you want about the other newest and latest stuff, but if you can't make it part of your preparedness plans, it's just something in your fading memory.

[Skeptic49]

From previous posts:

"'Don't the Sten or the Sterling feel weird due to their location of the detachable box mag?  OR are these guns designed in mind to cancel out such imbalances?'
You really don't notice the weight much with the standard magazines, at least when firing from the shoulder. Shooting one-handed Bullseye-style you do feel the effect some."

The side feed magazine served a logical function in an Army that prided itself on using any cover available, the Brits learned Low Prone the hard way in South Africa against the Boers.  Cross reference the top feed magazine on the BREN.  The Australians went so far as to use top feed on their Owen SMGs.  The Owen was a bulkier gun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten_gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_submachine_gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bren_gun

Geoff
Who would prefer a locked breech weapon in the 2 Kg. weight range.

[Khorne]

A P90 on full auto is fun and if I was rich, I'd get one to shoot P-dogs. 
Against people however, I'd take an AKS 74U. 

[Slayer-72]

i've never actually shot one, but i've taken to loking the new Vector super V. i dont know how reliable it is, but i mean, who cant love .45 at 1100 RPM and still look like your shooting  9mm?

[FMJ]

Are the Kriss and the Vector the same thing?  Granted it has an interesting recoil dampening mechanism, but it's still hideous.

[Diomed]

Are the Kriss and the Vector the same thing? 

One would assume so. I don't know where Vector came into it, they make Uzis.

[FMJ]

In the video game Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, the Kriss Super V is called the Vector, but IDK why.

[Stryker]

It looks like TDI is now calling the gun the KRISS Vector and the operating system KRISS Super V.
http://www.kriss-tdi.com/products/technology-overview.html

Regardless of the name, I still want one.   

[Diomed]

It looks like TDI is now calling the gun the KRISS Vector and the operating system KRISS Super V.
http://www.kriss-tdi.com/products/technology-overview.html

The first instance of a manufacturer changing the name of their product to match a video game?

Makes sense from a sales perspective, I have to admit.

[Stryker]

I think the name change happened before the new Call of Duty came out, but I could be wrong.

[hedonistic]

Having shot the colt, a few HK MP5s, an UZI, Thompson, Rising, and owned a SWD M11/9 I'd pick the HK for the real world, light accurate dependable, last choice would be the Thompson it was a west hurly and jammed every 4-5 rounds. For fun I'd like a American 180 something about 275 rounds of .22 lr on tap, it I could own any it would be a Norell triggerpack