Posted on 04/17/2010 5:48:48 AM PDT by marktwain
Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- When the private ownership of handguns was banned in the UK in the late 1990s, a friend of mine, who also just happens to be a lawyer, paid me a visit. He arrived with more than his holiday clothing; he also came with a couple of boxes of handguns.
“Take these and hold on to them,” he said to me. “They’re claiming political asylum.” The boxes contained all of his handgun collection, and he left them with me with strict instructions not to sell them unless he gave permission.
If he had left the guns in England, he would have been forced to hand them in to the police, and he would eventually have been paid the full market price for them. He preferred, however, to bring them to the Land of the Free, where they would be guaranteed to have a good home, and could be kept well-fed with the best ammo.
As an aside to this, the police in the UK were also taking in holsters, magazine pouches, and every other type of shooting accessory, so he and most of the shooting fraternity there were handing in tattered old holsters, of a type that couldn’t even be sold for ninety-nine cents in this country, and receiving the full retail value for them. Many shooters who were resentful of the government’s decision to ban handguns made quite a bit of money out of this!
That was over ten years ago, and the handguns have languished in my safe ever since then, with only a rare outing. However, I recently saw in the USCCA forum a letter from someone who was asking if an ex-police 9mm HK P7 M8 PSP (Police Service Pistol, or, as it’s called by its owners, the ‘pneumatic squeeze pistol’) would be a worthwhile buy. That letter made me think, so I went to the safe and took out one of the pistols my lawyer friend (known to all his friends as ‘Shyster’) had left with me.
It was a Heckler & Koch P7 M13, the high-capacity version of the M8. It had been given a coating of electroless nickel, and had been fitted with a set of Tritium night sights. There were three 13-round magazines with it, so I decided to see just how well it would perform at my local range, the Scottsdale Gun Club.
Before taking it to the range, I stripped it and made sure that everything was clean and lightly oiled, and then did a few dry fire exercises. To prepare the M13 for firing, the grip has to be squeezed, which takes about ten pounds of pressure. However, once it is cocked, the firing pin indicator protrudes from the rear of the frame, and only about three pounds of pressure is needed to keep it cocked. In fact, the grip can be kept depressed by the pressure of just one finger. If you decide not to shoot, simply release your grip, and the gun is immediately on safe.
The trigger is a dream: light, yet positive in its action. This particular model’s trigger broke at around three pounds pressure. A trigger stop had been fitted to stop any over-travel, and this worked perfectly, allowing me to keep a quarter balanced on the front sight while I pressed the trigger.
At the range, I loaded the magazines with a mixture of rounds which included military hardball and a variety of hollow point rounds. I even loaded one magazine with alternating hardball and hollow point, throwing in a couple of old handloads just to see if the M13 would digest them. I needn’t have worried. The slide strips rounds from the magazine at a perfect feeding angle, almost in a straight line from magazine to feed ramp, and the M13 fired everything without missing a beat.
Next, I rolled a combat target out to ten yards, and fired a few double taps. The necessity to keep the grip squeezed seemed to make my shooting better than it normally is, because the bullet holes were far closer together than when I shoot my P35 Browning.
The 4-inch barrel of the M13 is fixed to the frame, which gives it far greater inherent accuracy than could be had from a pistol with a Browning or SIG-style barrel linkage. At twenty five yards, I had no difficulty in keeping my shots in the ten ring of the target, with just under half of them blowing out the center ‘X’.
The first models of the P7 had a European-style magazine release, in the heel of the pistol’s butt. Later models, designed with the US market in mind, were fitted with an excellent ambidextrous release using a small paddle on each side of the rear of the trigger guard. This was simple to use, and magazines were ejected all the way, every time.
The M13 is certainly no handgun for anyone with small hands. Because of the heavy-duty recoil spring, people with not much in the way of upper body strength will find pulling back the slide a little difficult. There is no slide lock on the pistol, so if the slide is locked back, the grip must be squeezed to release it.
Like German cars, the HK P7 M13 does perhaps suffer from a little Teutonic over-engineering, but at the same time, the M13 does stand as a monument to ‘Vorsprung Durch Technik’ — ‘Progress through technology’. It’s well made, it’s a jewel of engineering, and if you are lucky enough to own one — hang on to it, as prices are rapidly rising.
Now … how can I persuade the Shyster to sell me his M13?
Believe it or not, somewhere on this earth there are two 45 auto prototype P-7 M-13s.
I can’t imagine how big of a grip such a pistol would have to have.
take your safety out. It isn’t difficult to do.
Ohhhh hell noooooooo.......:o)
Tried one that uncle sugar loaned me once, yet that and beretta 93R were not that good of a tool IMO. Now a Glock 18.....that is a sweet rig for EDC !
You get flooded out like we did last few days ?
I've been saying that every state that passes a law pertaining to firearms should include that in the bill. If full autos and suppressors, including all other accessories like AP, tracer and incendiary ammo, AND M203 launchers aren't included in the bill, then it's basically useless. If they want to use the "old laws" argument about the Second Amendment, then we'll use the old laws argument about rapid-fire printing presses, telephones, satellite communication and the internet, and they'll all have to go away.
I have been a basic/combat instructor since '91, and I can tell you that is NOT for a finger rest. A solid grip with the offhand index finger wrapped around the grip below the trigger guard is much more effective. The most commonly told story that I have heard is that it is to brace the gun against a forward block, like the chain-links in a fence.
Rained last night, but nothing big.
The bills I read all seem to specifically deem machineguns illegal.
Personally, I don't see anything wrong with people owning grenades, mortars, claymores, machineguns..... etc.
these HK semi auto finger pointers were popular in my crowd back in their day 30 years ago
the P70Z may have been the most user unfriendly semi-autopistol ever made in Germany
nowadays most semi-autopistols are blockier like Glocks...sadly just from a arms fashion point of view
after 99 years there is still only one in my view that stands at the top...in whatever form...it all goes back to Moses Browning...no one has beat that feel yet
for my taste anyhow
except in smaller ankle holster calibers where I do like Bond type pistols like older Steyrs, Sigs and Walthers
Big rain here......headed east down I 40 now....on to Wardaddy’s arena !
I like the KISS principal regarding every day carry firearms.....carried a SW Model 13, round butt 3 inch barrel for a few decades due it’s simplicity and reliability. Now I just stuff a Glock with a empty chamber and full magazine into my waistband, cavalry-meskin mode with a spare mag or 3 in a IWB pouch.
Combat Tupperware is reliable, dehorned / melted pretty good from the factory so I stick with that now....
A Elishewitz Phantom folder and a E2DL Surefire round out my self defense goodies these days.....may add more for road trips but I figure the ballistic coefficient of a 4x4 truck doing 70 is better that a pistol pill any day....let the insurance company clean up the oooops !
I like skinny guns too, like 1911s or my CZ-52.
But I like high cap double-stack mag “blocky” guns even better.
For me, more bullets beats slimness.
What a pitiful country the English live in....
well over $2,000 for factory nickel (they made them) with three magazines
Believe it or not, somewhere on this earth there are two 45 auto prototype P-7 M-13s.
I can’t imagine how big of a grip such a pistol would have to have.
Only six ever made, and the manufacturer owns them all.
It was fashionable for a while well before ‘91.
Neither do I, and I wouldn't care if my next-door neighbor or across the street owned one or all of them. I'd only have a problem if something is pointed towards my home.
All I know is I’d like one
A Rat Legislator in Ca is trying to ban Open Carry. I only heard the story once on the radio thew other day.
One of his points was that someone could grab the gun out of the Holster of the person carrying it and use it to shoot people. The irony is that the Open Carry Law currently prohibits the gun from being loaded. You can have the magazine on you, but not in the gun.
This is in reaction to Starbucks not declaring itself a Gun Free Zone. I guess the Libtard Coffee Party folks are in fear of their lives when confronting a Law Abiding Citizen exercising their God Given Constitutional Rights while ordering a Grande Mocha.
If there’s one thing the Germans do know how to do well, its make guns.
Magazine safety[disconnect] Uh, gee, what's that? Mine is supposed to have one of those thingies?? I'm not sure. I guess someone snuck into my house and stole mine.
While that indeed should be the case, understand that on the scale of things the feds get wound up about, post-’86 full-auto is very close to the top of the list. While some states are looking for a fight over sovereignty, they don’t want it to be _that_ fight.
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