The MP5k/ MP5k PDW history and modernization since the GSG9 (Feat. James Williamson/Teufelshund Tac)

Welcome to Ninehole Reviews. Today we delve into Heckler & Koch's smallest and lightest iteration of the MP5, the MP5 and the SP5 Kurz, and subsequently the H&K USA derivation of the MP5K These are all purpose-driven compact models. We consulted with US-based H&K expert James Williamson of Teufelshund Tactical on the philosophy, historical development and applications of both the K and PDW models. Finally, we modernized an M-LOK compatible SP5K with categories that the original 1990s MP5K PDW failed to achieve due to limitations in firearms technology of its day. While the full-sized MP5 is universally applicable to both elite and regular end-users, the MP5K and the PDW are unequivocally synonymous with a covert professional. But there's a significant amount of ground to cover before we look at our interpretation. So mach schnell! Let's get on with it! There was first the German MP5 Kurz to begin with. The origins of the clandestine MP5K itself is also shrouded in rumours. While the official origin story of the MP5K was a requirement for much more low-profile use, some rumours suggest a dignitary protection requirement from a South American H&K sales rep. Whether the project originated from the elite West German counter-terror unit or a random South American contact that is nowhere to be seen nowadays. You be the judge. However in 1976, Heckler & Koch developed the first versions of the MP5K. Originally offered the MP5K A1 version with a flat top and only a blade front sight. The MP5K with a standard MP5 front sight and a castle nut rear sight. Most famously, the MP5K was even deployable in a concealment operational briefcase. The way that this is intended to be used is you pick it up, hold it against your body, and you can actually use your core, your torso, as an index for accurately shooting this thing. We're good to go. Go ahead and dump all the brass out. The MP5K was decisively made to drop the full-size MP5's weight and dimensions to fly it as lightweight and compact as possible. From the MP5A3 to the MP5K, the barrel length decreased by 50%, the overall length decreased by 39%, and the weight dropped by 30%, which the lighter internals contributed to a higher rate of fire as well. The MP5K was exceedingly popular with western counter-terrorism units. But how exactly did they use it? Who exactly used it? Introducing James Williamson from Teufelshund Tactical, one of the most knowledgeable H&K historians in the United States. The historical information I have from H&K says that the MP5K originated, again, from GSG-9, from their specific requirement. Now, their specific requirement came out of the fact that they were happy with the MP5, but they wanted one that was just a little bit more compact for some specific niche roles they had. Dignitary protection type roles, kind of clandestine roles as well, where they would need to be able to very rapidly deploy a submachine gun from under the seat of a car, from a glove box, from some kind of bag or other discreet carry type situation, or maybe tucked underneath a jacket. The most noticeable difference, other than the size itself, is its signature vertical broom handle grip, named the broom handle, to date back to the pre-World War II Mauser broom handle pistol. Not surprising that H&K would create a broom handle kind of throwback look, considering that the founding members and most of the staff at the time had actually been Mauser employees during the war. If you've ever had a chance to shoot it this way, using what we call a push-pull technique, where with your firing hand, you thrust the weapon out, you push the weapon out. With your support hand, you pull back on the weapon, and that's what stabilizes your fire. And actually shooting in fully automatic burst is more controllable than individual shots that are going to recoil every single time. So the push-pull technique that James was just describing for MP5Ks in specific is an actual H&K International Training Division doctrine. And this doctrine should not be confused with what we see nowadays taught in a lot of private courses, a more shotgun and tactical AR carbine-oriented push-pull technique. In that technique, you would push with your support hand and pull with your firing hand, especially with shotgunners, to accommodate the recoil management with a pump shotgun. Now, by pushing with your firing hand and pulling with your support hand, it actually makes more sense with a stockless and slingless K, which it was designed to run with, also because you don't risk pushing your hand in front of the muzzle and firing upon your own hand. So we took this out to the range. I did have to run it sling-supported because, of course, I am still injured in my right arm. So I'm firing a little slower, but you can still see that it sort of works. But of course, if we had a fully automatic one, I think it would work even better. This is what we're looking at about a zone-sized target. We'll shoot it at 10 meters. Pushing with your firing hand and pulling with your support hand. Definitely not as easy on semi, but doable. It's not bad. So effective was this that because of the broom handle, it was termed the room broom for its effectiveness to clean up MCQB operations. The first time I ever got to run one of these in that kind of low-profile thing, we simply took bungee slings that we got from Home Depot, crimped off the two open ends around the end of the end cap, and made sure that it was short enough in length that at full extension, that's where I got my tension. And that's the same thing that these operators would do with more of a traditional sling, is they would put on all their gear. If they were wearing black kit or whatnot, they would put all that on and then have a teammate come behind them. They would extend the weapon out against the tension of the sling and the push-pull technique, and that teammate would then tighten the sling down so that at full extension, the sling was at its tightest point and would give them extra rigidity. A little Jurassic Park moment for you. Oh yeah. Along with all the other black garb they wore, they would wear a respirator or a gas mask, or what we saw with other specifically European law enforcement military operations units was a clear ballistic face shield that would also come down and get in the way of a stock. And so by using a sling technique, you could have that canister or that face shield on, you could present the weapon up and in front of and look through your sights and still have that sling and that push-pull technique control. And again, at the close range CQB type distances we're talking about, it's still incredibly effective. There's no question that having a stock will make it more stable, especially for a much longer shot, but for what these guys were doing with room clearing direct action type missions, they found it very effective. But where does the MP5K PDW fall in? Why did H&K develop a personal defense weapon from an already existing PDW? Okay, so now we have to fast forward to the end of the 1980s. A new requirement came out of US Special Operations Command, and specifically Army Special Operations Command, and it was kind of twofold. The first group was their aviation personnel. So think 160th, the Night Stalkers. And instead of calling this new concept a submachine gun, even though it was, they termed it instead a PDW or personal defense weapon. So out of this became the MP5K PDW, okay? Personal defense weapon because now I'm arming this personnel who's not a frontline operator with something that is more capable to defend himself with than just a handgun alone. What they were able to do was to take a standard MP5K and they would then extend the barrel so that it would now have the ability to have a similar direct thread and three lug barrel as we saw on the MP5 Navy. Had the action three bolt on the inside, had a tritium front sight post, the rear doctor drum if you wanted, and now you had the ability to option any of the trigger groups you wanted. You could use, they wanted some type of retractable stock. So the program manager for H&K at the time went out and found a US company called Chote and they designed a side folding stock. And now you have the ability where you didn't really increase the length of the weapon. It did increase in width, but you now still have something that's very compact to have on your body if it was tied up against the sling or shoved in between the seats or somewhere else in a bag. Very, very compact. And you can see in these early promotional photos associated with the product release, this is actually the program manager for H&K at the time. He's dressed as a downed pilot. He's doing his escape and evasion with his new MP5K PDW. The second focus area was within special operations command, the actual special operator. And those guys were doing direct action missions who just wanted something more compact than a full size MP5 and the ability to use low light things with the tritium front sight or mounting an optic to it and specifically a suppressor or those same type of personnel who were assigned to high level dignitary protection. Instead of just being armed with a handgun, they were trying to find something that gave them more capability in that scenario. So if I have something that's more compact here, like before the MP5K, I could find some way to carry it on my body. But I want to have a stock now because I want to be able to deliver more accurate fire at distance than using a push-pull technique. H&K worked with a well-known tactical nylon company at the time and created a new carry system. On the weak side, it had two pouches that would carry two 30-round magazines for spare ammunition. And then on the right side, you would load the weapon with 15-round magazines so that the magazine wouldn't stick out when the operator wanted to deploy the weapon. He'd reach up underneath his jacket, thumb the snap, release, and then he would be able to extend the weapon out using, again, a push-pull technique to fire it. And additionally, in order to deploy the stock, they came up with a lanyard system that was connected to the carry system and the other end connected to the stock of the weapon so that as you push the weapon out, that lanyard would tug on the stock. MP5K PDW, it would actually leverage the stock around as you came out and locked into position. So now in one motion of popping that thumb release and then a separate motion of pushing the weapon out to fire in whichever configuration you're using, your stock would also extend as well. Over the years, the places I've seen it specifically have been less on the special operations side for CQB-type operations and more for the low-profile kind of dignitary protection or just concealability type thing missions. You know, within the military, the places I really started to see them was in like NCIS and the Army and Air Force version of that where they were having to do those type of mission sets. In its 1990s form, the SP5K PDW is highly reliable as an MP5-based design, but it's only a marginal improvement over the full-size MP5A3 as much of this was limited by its technology of the day. The Choate stock increases its weight from 4.4 pounds to 5.6 pounds. A 27% weight increase, which is barely lighter than an MP5A3 with its collapsible stock. The MP5K PDW is also thick. When folded, the stock and receiver measures 2.8 inches as opposed to the MP5A3's 1.97 inch along with the optic-unfriendly charging handle. Because of how close it is to this, this now means that on the K, you have a more difficult issue of charging the weapon and releasing it. If you have an optic mounted there, then you do want a full-size MP5 because the charging handle mounts just a little bit further forward. The tritium-lit iron sights were the best bet, but you still suffer with your sight radius and you're still forced to use lighter internals with a less controllable rate of fire. There was no good place for a light to be mounted. To be fair, there has been a lot of advancement in light and laser technology since then. Now, while the original 1990s MP5K PDW was indeed limited by the technology of its time and failed to preserve many characteristics that the MP5K set out to accomplish, by today, in 2021, we have the technology. Introducing the Niner Modernized MP5K-SP5K PDW. Very soft shooting now. I don't know if this is different from when we shot it before. Like you said, I don't know if it's broken in, but much, much flatter. All accessories on our modernized MP5K PDW were unavailable in the 1990s tech. We deliberately chose them to best enhance the performance of the MP5K's base model. Having a solid base system is key. The MP5's delayed blowback mechanism means that we already have an accurate, reliable, and low-recoil impulse foundation to work with. The idea was to increase the performance and capability of the SP5K with the lightest, most compact, and quick deployable method in mind. Man, this thing slaps, man. Perhaps the most prominent addition would be the BNT collapsing stock. This Swiss-engineered telescoping stock is able to preserve the compact submachine gun with minimal increases in thickness and in equally fast deployment as a Cho-8 stock. The low-profile claw mount with ACSS Holosun Micro Red Dot Sight is also a deliberate choice. Much like an EOTech Dot and Donut reticle, the ACSS reticle gives you a fast CQB sight acquisition, but also with a finer dot for longer engagement. Without the massively oversized EOTech Sight Body, we switched the rear sights back out to the Castle rear sights for two specific reasons. For it to cover up the least amount of sight picture with a low-profile ACSS Holosun ring, and also simply because a Castle rear sight is actually easier to use with a stock collapsed. We switched the handguard out from the old-school broom handle to the Midwest Industries M-LOK handguard, and outfitted it with the Slate Black Industries SVGN panels. We specifically chose M-LOK because of the slim profile, carefully considering that the stubby grip will clear tight-fitting bags. The Midwest Industries handguard has its unique one-o'clock mounting position that is able to tuck our ultra-low-profile Arisaka 300 series light on an Arisaka side mount as close to the front sight as possible. Now this M-LOK configuration directly cuts down the thickness of the firearm without disrupting the charging handle operations on the left side of the handguard. While many North American shooters may prefer to mount their pressure switches on the 12 o'clock position, but with a charging handle, while easy to clear jams, it's certainly limiting with mounting locations. Arisaka light mounts, now available at slateblackindustries.com The five o'clock position is optimum to mount pressure pads to MP5s. One of the fringe benefits of using a light with an extremely concentrated hotspot is that you can use that hotspot to aim in CQB conditions. Our modernized MP5K PDW project effectively conceals in one of our choice cases a VanQuest Gopher 15, but having a packable weapon in an inconspicuous bag where the bag is used for an actual bag rather than just a weapons case is an operational advantage. If this is not a concern, the modernized MP5K PDW format still fits in even smaller civilian bags for easier carry. We shot the PDW with NATO spec PMC 124 grain 9x19 ammunition. This thing is very accurate. At 25 yards, it scored a 2.4 inch 100% group and a stunning 1.2 inch majority group. As a PDW, we shot it at 100 yards and it showed 11.75 inches of a 100% group, pretty decent 8.35 majority group. Interesting note, there was an approximate 14 inch bullet drop, meaning that if you aimed at the IPSC's target's head, it would land in the upper thoracic area. Let's do this. H&K mag ran clean, no issues. And of course, the recoil test with Josh. So pulling the trigger about as fast as I can pull the trigger, trying to hold the gun, there's not like any real significant recoil impulse to it. It's an MP5 shooting 9mm. However, on such a short package, you do still get more deviation than the longer packages. That's for sure. Now, some of that is counteracted by the addition of the SVG, which lets me get my hand just a little bit further out than the more traditional magwell hold that you would see on this style platform historically. So I can get out just a little bit further, do a little bit more control and overall, very nice center mass group. I don't know if it was evident on the video, but I was really having to drive my head down on the B&T stock here and even camp the gun slightly in order to set that dot in front of my eye. What the MP5K is for, it's less so to be set up to be shot every day on the range and more so as something that you might be concealing on or about your person or in your vehicle. And so the size, the weight, the length, the height and the snag points carry a higher level of significance than say maybe a standard AR or a standard AK or standard PCC that I might be shooting at a match, for example, where I want all of these other elements, such as the grip position and the optic height to be optimized. There are, however, some downsides to the modernized platform that stem from the base MP5K problems. So reloading the MP5. When doing so with an optic, especially with the K model where everything is so compact, it actually presents some interesting issues. My initial inclination with respect to performing the reload is to simply come up with my index finger and knuckle and pull back to rack the bolt. The problem is, I'm then impinged upon with the optic and I can't really get the bolt into this upward lock position and if I do, I'm basically like crushing my finger in that particular position. Makes everything else kind of suck. So in talking with some of the viewers, one of the suggestions was, I believe it was by Norwegian police forces, was in this position, rotate the hand up and around and grab with the pinky finger, allowing you to more easily lock the charging handle into the open position, go through, perform your reload, and then as you come up, since the quote-unquote HK slap, and again, doctrinally, whether that's how you should load it or not is besides the point, but you really just don't even have the option here again because the optic is preventing you from being able to do so. So instead, regain, present out, hook the thumb over the top of the charging handle and allow it to drive back forward into place with a simple roll of the thumb. Operationally, the full-sized MP5 is more flexible to suppress without needing to switch out the locking pieces. What they found when they went to the MP5 KPDW, now that you put a stock on it and the recoil impulse is different when it's up against your shoulder versus out in your hands and flexing, and then you put a suppressor on it, you're going to change that impulse, you're going to change that rate of fire. Putting a suppressor on any gun is going to increase the rate of fire with more blowback, and it is a blowback-operated weapon, so more impulse is going back to the bolt group. So now instead of that 900 rate of fire, you can creep up even higher. And there were some people shooting these guns that found that they were having feeding-related issues because again, the bolt in the eight-step cycle of operation is moving so fast that we're not able to kick one round out before the next one goes in. So in that case, H&K recommends their 80-degree locking piece, or it's actually called the number 28, usually on the markings, and that's for the MP5K PDW when using a stock and suppressor shooting full-auto, that kind of work. That's what James was talking about. When you look at the two different locking shoulders, it has different angles. Turn it to the right. Good, right there. The MP5K base model's modularity is actually a strength in the case of a concealable PDW. Simply put, you can strip everything down and decrease snag points and weight. Our modernization upgrades are deliberate choices to fulfill a compact PDW requirement while accommodating for an illumination and optic-ready system. James's go-bag gun is a flush barrel SP5K with no optic, slick top, tritium sights, and a BNT stock. An even more compact package that retains the performance of the MP5K base. At the end of the day, while the MP5K and the MP5K PDW are certainly not as flexible with ammunition as a full-size MP5, the Kutz was aimed at the professional who knew to switch out locking pieces when suppressing, could take advantage of sling techniques, and extra training. While the MP5K PDW was limited in the 90s, with our current development, it continues this lineage to provide the seasoned professional who keeps to the shadows. Thanks for tuning in. Take care, and we'll see you on the range. with 9 whole reviews updates per every email with less than 33% marketing content. Subscribe today on SlateBlackIndustries.com It's been like two. One victor, two facts. Where can one hope?