Machine pistol - Forgotten Weapons

Polish PM63 Rak at the Range

June 8, 2019 Ian McCollum 18

Whether it is described as a machine pistol, a submachine gun, or a personal defense weapon, the PM63 Rak is really not the best examples of this sort of thing to actually shoot. The open-bolt/slide […]

PM63 Rak: An Interesting Polish SMG/PDW Hybrid

June 7, 2019 Ian McCollum 29

The PM-63 Rak is a pretty interesting Polish Cold War machine pistol or personal defense weapon. It fires from an open bolt, but uses a slide like a pistol rather than a bolt in an […]

Shooting the H&K MP7

March 30, 2019 Ian McCollum 37

Thanks to H&K and Trijicon, I have a chance to do some shooting with an MP7A1 PWD today. The MP7 is unusual for a gun of its size and configuration in having a fully locked […]

Shooting the Stechkin: How Does It Measure Up?

January 12, 2019 Ian McCollum 24

I have been curious to try shooting a Stechkin machine pistol for a while, and now thanks to Movie Armaments Group in Toronto, I have a chance to! I hate to be a downer, but […]

Stechkin APS: The Soviet Machine Pistol

January 11, 2019 Ian McCollum 19

The APS is a machine pistol developed by Igor Stechkin in the late 1940s and adopted by the Soviet Union in 1951, basically at the same time as the Makarov pistol. The Stechkin and Makarov […]

H&K VP-70M on the Range: How Useful is the Burst Fire?

December 1, 2018 Ian McCollum 72

After looking at the history and mechanics of the VP-70 yesterday, we are heading out to the range to try it out (and thanks to Trijicon for generously offering use of their range!). I am […]

H&K VP-70M: Polymer Framed Cutting Edge Machine Pistol from 1973

November 30, 2018 Ian McCollum 47

The VP-70 was designed by Heckler & Koch cofounder Alex Seidel, and introduced in 1973. It was made with the idea of being a gun easily mass produced for arming a civilian resistance in case […]

Shooting the Czech vz61 Skorpion: Machine Pistol or PDW?

November 5, 2017 Ian McCollum 31

In the US, the commonly accessible version of the vz.61 Skorpion is the stock-less semiauto pistol – and in that configuration the gun is really nothing like the intentions of its designers. The Skorpion was […]

Czech vz61 Skorpion: History and Mechanics

November 4, 2017 Ian McCollum 53

The Czech vz.61 Skorpion is a rather unusual sort of firearm; a machine pistol designed from scratch instead of being converted from an existing handgun design, and chambered for the seemingly out of place .32ACP […]

Leaders in Machine Pistols: the Bestigui Hermanos MM31

October 22, 2017 Ian McCollum 14

Beistigui Hermanos is probably the least known of the Spanish machine pistol manufacturers, despite being the first to actually make such pistols. Beistigui was founded in 1910 in Eibar, and was one of the initial […]