What is the practical use of machine pistols like the Glock 18 or CZ75

Theohazard
Quote:
Originally Posted by dogtown tom
At my Glock Armorers class the Instructor shot down this myth pretty quick with a video of him shooting a G18 one handed......at 15yds all rounds were inside a standard B-27 target.
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The G18 is difficult enough to control two-handed. I'd be willing to bet he was using a compensated G18C. Glock "C" models in full-auto are a heck of a lot easier to control than the regular un-ported models.
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Nope it wasn't a compensated model.
If you look at the videos in the links I posted above you'll see plenty of uncompensated 17, 18 & 19's being shot full auto accurately and under control.

The Hickok45 video is most telling to me. He has little difficulty in controlling a full auto Glock.
 
Having seen examples of lousy trigger control from officers carrying revolvers back in the day, I would be concerned enough to write to my Senators and Congressman if a local PD were to issue full auto weapons to patrol officers.

As for the videos, sure, expert marksmen can do it well, but look at the dust signature from the rounds impacting between the firing line and the target area. Each one of those off-course rounds would be a potential lawsuit.
 
After watching the videos, here's my observation.

I didn't see any one-handed shooting that would really qualify as "controlled". The closest was Hickok45 who did some one-handed mag dumps at perhaps 5 yards and ended up with all the hits going into what looked like a 3-5 foot circle. That might be "controlled" for a machine pistol, but it's not what anyone would consider "controlled" for normal pistol shooting. Later in the video he unloaded around 20 rounds on a watermelon from a few yards away, shooting one-handed, and got only a few hits. Shooting semi-auto, one-handed, from that distance and in the same amount of time, he would have likely made about the same number of hits and still had rounds left in the magazine afterwards.

There was very little full-auto shooting that could be assessed for accuracy. Hickok45's shots on the close range paper target were about the only situation where it was easy to see multiple hits being made at a known range while shooting full-auto.

Most of the full-auto shooting done at any significant range (more than 5 yards or so), even in the video with the shoulder stock attached amounted to making a single hit (usually with the first round) and then spraying the rest of the rounds in the burst without making any additional hits.

Hickok45 did the best, I think at one point he dumped a couple of mags at a tombstone target at around 10 yards and kept a little over half the hits on the target. At a little longer range he fired 4 bursts--each of 2 or 3 rounds--and made 4 hits. Which is the same number of hits he would have almost certainly made had he fired 4 times with a semi-auto pistol at the same range.
 
You don't have to be a large or strong person to effectively shoot a machine pistol. It's not easy, but with some technique and practice, it very possible.

The technique to employ a tight grip on the pistol, lean forward into the pistol, tense up the dominant arm and lock out the dominant arm.

This is the important part: then place your nondominant hand on top of your dominat hand (like you would a normal two handed shooting grip) and pull back really hard on the pistol with your nondominant hand. Then lean in.

You are effectively locking the gun and making the gun an extension of your arm. So the recoil pushes your gun, arm, and entire body back, instead of recoil pushing the gun up.

If you don't do this, no amount of human strength will prevent the gun from rising.

Also, for safety's sake, when loading a machine pistol, DO NOT load it like a semi auto pistol. Do not load it where the gun is below your head and close to your body, like a speed load. If the gun runs away (probably due to operator error), it will muzzle climb and shoot you in the head. The rate of fire is so high on a machine pistol, that you won't have time to take your finger off.
 
I see a lot of comments on controllability and accuracy but for me it is unrealistic to make those comparisons. A G18 may look like a G17, but that is it. A very different animal.

A F-A G18 will never be as controllable nor as accurate, shot after shot, as a G17, but a G17 could never lay down the suppressive fire of a G18. Horses for courses...

Nor is it (the G18) something designed to be shot well one-handed. Even shooting a G17 is typically taught two-handed for the most part because everyone acknowledges that is how you'll get the best from the gun. So, taking all that into account, I think those that shot the G18 did so relatively well given that no full auto, fired unsupported, is supposed to be a tack-driver.

If the job is to suppress assailants, clear a room, take on multiple targets or simply carve a path, yet be something that can disappear under a jacket, the G18 seems well suited.

Of course, all the scenarios above are very specific, and for very specific users and none of them scream "discriminate fire", but there are surely some situations that might leave the user thinking "thank you, Santa, for this fun-switch!"...

But for police forces? I struggle to imagine legitimate uses.
 
Having seen examples of lousy trigger control from officers carrying revolvers back in the day
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Say WUHH?? :confused:

Everyone knows that cops used to carry revolvers because they didn't do that and never needed more than six shots! :p

All jokes aside, machine pistols do have their place. Otherwise, military and police around the world wouldn't buy or have them. They are effective anti-ambush weapons for breaking contact with the enemy for one. True, most police officers shouldn't be armed with them, but for units like SWAT and the SAS, they have the training to utilize them properly and with extreme prejudice.
 
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