Targeting the perfect bullet: Is small and fast better than large and slow? (H&K's new MP7-PDW)

The folding stock on the MP7 permits shoulder firing for better accuracy. The handgun is also ambidextrous, with all controls, including the M16- style cocking handle, safety/selector lever, magazine release, and bolt-catch release accessible by the user’s right and left hand.

A new handgun has reignited the debate over which type of bullet is best: small and fast, or big, heavy, and therefore, slower. The MP7 personal defense weapon (PDW) seems to embody the small and fast paradigm. De-vised by Heckler & Koch Inc., (www.heck-lerkoch- usa.com), it fires a 4.6 30-mm round (equivalent to .18 caliber) weighing about 26 grains. It leaves the muzzle at 2,461 fps and has a maximum effective range of 200 m, according to H&K. But the arms maker also manufacturers a submachine gun, the UMP45, that falls firmly in the other school. The gun fires 230-grain .45-cal-iber bullets that leave the muzzle at 853 fps. Each side has points in its favor. But is one bullet really best?

Some weapon experts insist bigger bullets are better because they are more likely to hit a vital or-gan, the central nervous system, or a large bone, and bring an opponent to a halt. They also say the greater mass of the bullet lets it carry more kinetic energy and momentum, other factors in downing an opponent. Just comparing cross sections, a .45-caliber round creates a 0.16-in^2 hole, while the .18 caliber round leaves just a 0.025-in^2 hole.

The difference becomes greater with soft and hollow-point rounds that expand inside the target. “That’s why police in the U.S. use controlled expan-sion ammo,” says Neil Burchel, leader of the Army’s Medium Machine Gun team within TACOM, Rock Island, Ill. “They dump all their energy in the target and don’t overpenetrate or harm people on the other side of the target.” A .45 hollow-point can expand to 0.5 in^2 , whilePDW rounds don’t expand at all. This means a .45 round destroys up to 20 times as much tissue as a .18 PDW bullet.

Frangible rounds that burst apart inside the target provide the ultimate stopping power and tissue destruction, but are outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

The main reason for faster, therefore lighter, bul-lets is to overcome body armor, which has become commonplace in modern armies. “A Kevlar vest will stop most older small-arms rounds,” says Burchel. “But you can take an ice pick and drive it right through the vest. Turns out, the smaller and faster the round is, the better its chances of defeating Kevlar, ti-tanium sheets, or even homogenous armor on tanks. That’s why modern antitank rounds are long-rod penetrators. They are very thin, travel extremely fast, and go through tank armor like it’s butter.”

The MP7 round, for example, was designed in conjunction with the weapon to defeat the NATO’s Crisat test target, 20 layers of Kevlar covered with 1.6-mm titanium plate. Crisat simulates Soviet-style body armor. And indeed, the MP7 4.6-mm steel-ball round goes through a Crisat target at 100 m, and defeats two such targets at 50 m. H&K provides other types of ammo for the MP7, including blanks, tracers, frangibles, and low-cost training rounds.

Another factor in going to lighter bullets is to reduce recoil and make the entire gun lighter and less bulky, which should make the weapon more accurate. After all, it doesn’t matter what kind of bullets are fired if they don’t hit the target.

Recoil on the MP7 is 50% that of a 9-mm NATO round, and the folding stock allows shoulder-firing it like a rifle, which also improves accuracy. And the weapon sports a 7-in. barrel, longer than those on most other handguns. Longer barrels translate into more accurate, consistent shooting. The gun is also lighter and easier to carry in a holster than other handguns and pistols, so a person is more likely to carry it while doing other duties.

In the end, it’s the target and situation that deter-mines the best bullet or gun. Will action be at close quarters or will targets be hundreds of meters away? Will dedicated warriors fire weapons or will ancillary sup-port staff with little weapons training? And are targets wearing flak jackets and helmets or ordinary clothing?

“If you are shooting at a soft target, such as Taliban who don’t wear bullet-proof vests, small, high-velocity rounds will give you over-penetration,” says Burchell. “You may put a tiny hole in the per-son, but if you don’t strike something vital, that person will con-tinue fighting.

“There have forever been arguments among firearm enthusiasts about whether a 9-mm round is better than a .45,” says Burchell. “Newer rounds that are smaller but faster, it seems, will continue that debate.”

H&K’s MP7 handgun is mostly polyamide composites with 15% glass fibers, making the gun lighter than steel and corrosion resistant. It can fire 950 4.6-mm rounds/min.

There is a place for all of them. I like the .25acp and I like the .45 long Colt. I think I would like the .454 Casull if I could afford one.

I would rather have an FN FAL than an M16 but either one will do just fine. If I had to carry a lot of ammo, I would go with the M16.

I probably generally prefer the larger heavier calibers but there is a lot of nonsense spread about their effectiveness, and a lot of it by people who should know better.

I recall once when my dog treed a coon and I shot him twice with a .45acp before he fell out of the tree. Despite having been hit twice in the center of the thorax, the coon fought my dog for several minutes before expiring.

On the other hand I have seen my Daddy kill hogs with a single shot from a .22 short many times. They would invariably drop as if pole-axed. He knew just where to shoot them.

I want one. I have a Constitutional right to own one (at my cost and responsibility) - and so do you. ...and other than a little whining, we're letting that right slip by.

The new breed of firearms - HK MP7, FN P90, etc. - demonstrate a point which is under-addressed by the gun-rights community. Firearms technology is moving forward, and we're firmly stuck in the past. The AR-15 and Glock 17 are basically the last great advancements in civilian firearm technology, created around 1960 and 1980 respectively. (Yes, other firearms have been created, but are practically just refinements of those evolutionary steps.)

Developments such as the MP7 and P90 mark the next evolutionary step in firearms: armor-piercing short-barreled select-fire firearms midway between rifles and pistols. Not much bigger than a handgun, sporting the stability of a shoulder-mounted rifle, and having large magazine capacities (40 rounds or more), these can defeat most body armor without the bulk of full-blown rifle rounds (the most compact being the larger M16/M4). Where these new weapons lack the decisive punch of larger caliber (.30 or more), they arguably make up for it via full-auto and large magazine capacities: if you can't make a big hole, make lots of little ones with comparable effect.

The advantage of these weapons is exemplified by the firearms failure experienced during the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery. There, two well-armored perps casually took hundreds (thousands?) of medium- and large-caliber hits without apparent harm, police eventually raided a local gun store for deeper-penetrating rifles, and the incident stopped only by a lucky hit injuring one perp, and the other perp apparently giving up from boredom and offing himself. One MP7 could have penetrated that armor and stopped the incident early on. Some may argue that rifles would be better, but police would rather have compact pistol-like weapons than bulky rifles.

Of course, a well-armored police force (note the increasing militarization of all levels of law enforcement) does not want civilians to own weapons of such penetrative power. While rifles are indeed still capable of armor penetration, criminals prefer easily concealable arms. As such, the federal government has effectively banned civilian ownership of competing firepower - and did so way back in 1934.

Prohibitions on short-barreled rifles, armor-piercing (hard metal) handgun bullets, and machineguns have been around for a long time. Such prohibitions did their job of significantly reducing the firepower available to criminals and (er, um, ah) freedom fighters, in relation to the significant evolutionary advancements in body armor. Thanks to these prohibitions, citizens (good and bad) are unable to own the next evolutionary step in weapons with the capability of penetrating body armor.

The Founding Fathers wrote the 2nd Amendment for a reason: when there is a significant inequality in the balance of power between government and citizens, bad things inevitably follow (as exemplified by Europe's centuries-long tendancy to kill citizens at a rate far exceeding criminal homicides in the USA). Due to national laws transgressing the 2nd Amendment, citizens are stuck with 1950's technology arms, while would-be tyrants snap up the latest compact high-volume deep-penetrating weapons. This does not bode well for the future of freedom in this nation. The balance of power must be maintained, for the peace and freedom of our people.

The MP7 (aka HK PDW) is a remarkable advancement in firearms technology. Arguments over caliber must address the ability to deliver controlled full-auto fire (i.e.: one big hole vs. multiple little ones). Do not underestimate the seriousness of your inability to own one.

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