It’s Friday and time for our shoot the shit topic. This week, we’d like to present you with some of our ideas on the SMG. There are as many opinions floating around as Carter has little liver pills. What we’re presenting below is simply our opinion and a bit of food for thought.
You’ll frequently hear individuals talk about hitting steel at 300 yards etc., etc, etc. Hats off to these folks.
There are a number of SMGs to choose from on the market; most are chambered in pistol calibers, principally the 9mm – we’ll talk about the FNH P90, HK MP7 later in the article. These platforms are ideally suited for CQC / CQB, vehicle mounted activities like security details, flight crew use, maritime security or maritime assaults; for example, submarine escape trunks have 21 inch diameter hatches so swimming out can get a little funky with anything bigger than a small pack. All of these weapon systems have common elements; a high volume of fire, very compact and light, low recoil, are easy to control and have large magazine capacities; for example, the FN P90 has a 50 round magazine. They also have a common shortfall, in almost all cases penetration of hardened barriers is very limited. They are great short range firearms; for example, a 9mm SMG zeroed at 50 yards firing a 124gr FMJ NATO round, will allow a shooter the same hold from 25 yards to 100 yds, but from 125 yards to 150 yards he’ll need to hold 8 to 15 inches higher. However, at 200 yds. your hold would look something like the figure below…
So, unless you are putting down area fire, about the only thing you’re going to accomplish is make a lot of noise and run through ammo that you may need to get the hell out of Dodge.
Yeah, if you are “highly” skilled and watch a lot of You Tube you’ll hit steel but lets be honest, you won’t be very effective. At 300 yards? I don’t know folks…
So, what you’re after with a pistol caliber SMG is compactness, volume of fire, low recoil and good weapon control. That in our opinion is the proper role for this platform.
To bridge the gap between the 9mm SMG and the M4 and its shorter variants, KRISS offers its Vector in hotter rounds like the 10mm and 357 SIG. FN’s P90 with it’s 5.7×28 round has a published effective range of 200 yards but its real advantage is penetration. With the FNH SS190 round you can start tackling hardened barriers and body armor at longer ranges.
The HK MP7 fires a 4.6mm x 30 round with a maximum magazine capacity of 40 rounds. Like the FNH SS190 round, HK’s 4.6 will defeat hardened barriers and Kevlar layers out to 200 yards.
Marketing labels these two sub machine guns as a PDW or Personal Defense Weapons but they all fill the same requirements; compactness, high volume of fire, low recoil and are very controllable.
None of these platforms are designed to shoot tight groups at 300 yds. and were never intended to substitute your carbine!
As with all shoot the shit topics, we encourage reader participation whether you know what you’re talking about or not, you can make unsupported comments, use uncensored profanity, insult anyone you wish or change the subject altogether. Keep in mind that this opportunity if free of charge so you won’t have to pay some jackass who studied psychology because they wanted to understand themselves $150 / hour.
OK, enough fun for the day! Have a great weekend, be safe, be happy and do spend some quality time with your buds and family.
FOG HORN 