TPM Outfitters
H&K MP5SD Clone
Trigger Time On The Alpha Predator
In 1990 I was a hard-charging young Army Aviator suffering from a toxic overdose of both testosterone and patriotism. There wasn’t a great deal to do around Mother Rucker for a young stud with a weekend to kill. However, rumors abounded about a cool new movie called Navy SEALs.
Sexiest machinegun alive — The use of the MP5SD by the British SAS in 1980 during
Operation Nimrod sold a lot of submachine guns. The knife is a Gerber Mk II.
Screen Envy
In the first few minutes we realized the Good Guys (a captured American helicopter crew) were very good and the Bad Guys (a mob of bloodthirsty Islamic terrorists) were very bad — then the windows blew out, and holy heck broke loose.
The SEALs sported black balaclavas and superfluous black eye shadow. There wasn’t much point but it looked undeniably awesome. What was truly compelling, however, were their sound-suppressed German submachine guns.
The guns chattered like typewriters. They sounded like crack-addled beavers in a furniture factory. Enraptured, I leapt to my feet, held aloft a defiant fist, and shouted, “As God is my witness, someday I will make one of those magnificent firearms my own!”
I didn’t actually do it, but I did kind of think it. Now, some 29 years later I have finally added an MP5SD to my personal collection — and here is what it is really like.
Genesis
The My gun came from Heckler & Koch MP5 was the fourth iteration of the roller-locked HK family. This 9mm stuttergun followed versions running 7.62x51mm, 7.62x39mm and 5.56x45mm. The gun’s original designation was the HK54.
Work began on the gun in 1964, and it first saw service with West German border guards two years later. There have been more than one hundred variants and it remains in production today. Licensed copies have been made in Greece, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkey and the U.K. Numerous small companies in the U.S. currently produce clones.
The MP5 is lyrically complicated. The Sten and Grease Gun showed us you could make a reliable full-auto submachine gun with half a dozen parts and a little judicious mechanical slop. By contrast, the MP5’s entrails look like those of a sewing machine. The design stemmed originally from the German MG42 belt-fed machinegun.
The MG42 changed the way the world made guns. Here we saw a hard-use military weapon crafted via industrial stampings. The guys who built the MG42 had never before built a gun. As a result, they approached the project without a lot of preconceptions.
In 1980, the British SAS took down the Iranian embassy at Prince’s Gate in London on live international television packing MP5s. Afterwards everybody with a badge wanted a pair of black fatigues in his closet and an MP5 in the trunk of his squad car. HK could not have purchased better advertising.
The MP5SD sound suppressor is removable and encapsulates a ported barrel
dropping standard velocity ammunition to subsonic speeds.
Tactical Particulars
The basic MP5 is designed around a pressed steel receiver formed from sheet stock. The end result is fairly rugged and can be churned out in quantity. The dichotomous bit is despite these humble industrial origins, the MP5 is actually a remarkable feat of precision engineering.
The action is recoil-operated but roller-delayed. During firing, a pair of industrial roller bearings cam into recesses machined into the breech face to delay the bolt opening just long enough for pressures to drop to safe levels. The end result was a reliable and easy-to-build gun.
The HK scope mount is as complicated as the U.S. tax code but it works.
The diopter rear sight on the MP5 is as complicated as everything else about the gun.
A Wee Spot Of Physics
The speed of sound in dry air at 68 degrees Fahrenheit is 1,125 feet per second or about 767 miles per hour. Sir Isaac Newton first calculated the speed of sound back in the 17th century, missing the actual number by a mere 15 percent. Anything travelling faster than this mystical speed creates a shockwave — this means noise.
Supersonic aircraft traveling at low altitude will make bystanders get religion. The same effect in bullets is simply annoying. The MP5SD uses a ported barrel to drop the velocity of standard 9mm ammo into the subsonic range.
Through my gun, 115-gr. ball ammo averaged 1,013 fps while 124-gr. bullets ran at 892 fps and 147-gr. projectiles registered 793 fps. The heavy bullets were markedly quieter despite their all being subsonic.
Despite its meticulous design and rarefied execution, the MP5SD is actually
built for mass production. The receiver is a sheet steel pressing.
The semi-auto fire control module on the TPM Outfitters MP5SD is clipped and
pinned per BATFE rules. This bit of window dressing makes the gun look factory original.
Trigger Time
Unfortunately, the inimitable clackety-clack sound I heard back in the movie theater was the product of some clever Foley editor’s vivid imagination. Centerfire pistol rounds are invariably noisy. However, my precious bride sat ensconced inside in her favorite chair reading some moldy bit of English literature not 30 meters from where I was hammering away and didn’t even notice. While the gun is not quite comfortable to the unprotected ear up close, it does not sound much like a firearm.
The MP5SD weighs 7.8 lbs. loaded and is beautifully controllable. The rate of fire is a spunky 800 rounds per minute but an experienced trigger finger can drop bursts into a standard silhouette out to 50 meters all day long. Like most suppressed firearms, the smoky gas blowing back into your face will all but asphyxiate you.
The manual of arms is, like the gun, unduly complicated. Lock the bolt to the rear using the non-reciprocating charging handle located at the gun’s left front and extract the empty magazine. Insert a fresh magazine slightly baseplate forward and rock it back until it catches. Then slap the charging handle to drop the bolt over the fresh magazine. The whole process takes a little longer than the same chore on an M4 but you look like a movie star doing it.
It is tough to mount optics. The original HK claw mount will mar the host receiver, weighs a ton, and is more complicated than the space shuttle. It does, however, function beautifully.
The MP5SD is both accurate and controllable. The gun’s smooth operation and
utter lack of recoil make it a tactical favorite.
How To Get One
An original transferable MP5SD is the financial equivalent of a nice new car. I don’t mean some low-end Ford Fungus. A transferable full-auto MP5SD will set you back as much as a decent airplane. There is, however, an alternative.
The MP5SD falls prey to inane American gun control laws. As the sound suppressor is removable and the barrel is less than 16″ the gun requires two separate $200 tax stamps. Even if you welded the suppressor to the gun it is still too short. If you want a buttstock, you’re stuck with two stamps.
My gun came from TPM Outfitters in Texas. They do great work and offer a wide array of MP5 variations. While this semi-auto gun was still stupid expensive, it only cost a fraction of what a transferable machine gun might. Fortunately, I also had access to a registered trigger pack, properly modified to the fit gun, for the full auto work.
Denouement
Now I can scurry about my rural Mississippi farm thinking I am as cool as Charlie Sheen in his prime. Never mind Charlie Sheen’s life is currently the chemical formula for chaos, and I am a 53-year-old gray-haired gun writer with diagnosable maturity issues. In my mind I am a flinty-eyed Navy SEAL saving the world.
The gun is not as quiet as I had imagined, but it is still nonetheless utterly awesome. I could use it to ring steel targets until I died of starvation. If you, like me, found the MP5SD to be a foundational entry on your bucket list, then the good folks at TPM Outfitters can hook you up.
