MP-5 vs MP-4 (.22)

MP-5 vs MP-5(.22)

by BD

Firearm designs come and go but some few lucky ones get attached to images in our minds and become icons. The Winchester 94 to cowboys, the M1 Garand to Doughboys, the S&W k-frame to patrol officers and the Heckler and Koch

MP-5 to SWAT teams. In 1980, television brought images of SAS Commandos storming the Iranian Embassy in London with MP-5 submachine guns.

The raid was successful and Hollywood fell in love with the distinctive lines of the sexy little gun and all the cool guys in the movies had to have one. For me it was Die Hard in 1988. Hans Gruber and the bad guys carried MP-5s until Bruce Willis took one away and turned it to the MP-5’s true purpose of killing terrorists.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder and the MP-5, for Americans, was the gun you could not get your hands on. The reasons for the absence of the MP-5 on the civilian market have been debated endlessly in online forums, ranging from H&K is too great a snob to let civilians buy their submachine gun, to the ATF gave H&K the run around on the features that had to be removed until H&K just gave up.

Whatever reason you subscribe to, a real MP-5 usually sells for more than $12K and requires registration under the National Firearms Act (NFA). Copies of the MP-5 from foreign-licensed manufacturers have come on the market recently, as have copies built by specialty shops using various parts and receivers; all expensive and of inconsistent and unknown quality. For most of us, the MP-5 continues to be a dream built from unobtainium.

Thankfully, there is a solution licensed by H&K, built by Walther, and brought to us in the USA by Umarex.  It is the HK MP5 A5:

 

I bought my MP5 A5 for $369.00 two years ago and have had thousands of rounds worth of fun with the rifle killing paper terrorists and the occasional invading piece of fruit.  It has no perceptible recoil and enough cool-factor for any Call of Duty aficionado. It has become my go-to anytime a friend or relative wants to take their child shooting for the first time.  My only complaint is that the rounds must be disappearing somewhere between loading and inserting the magazines because 25 rounds can’t possibly go that fast. 

As much as I love this rifle, there has always been a nagging question: How close is it to the real thing?

To answer the question once and for all I simply asked the Lead Bunker editorial board to buy me an HK MP5.  Yes, they are still laughing.

But they did borrow an actual HK MP5/10 to test against.  This is a 10mm select fire version of the MP5 and came with a retractable stock to match my .22 caliber A5. 

So how do they compare?  First the stats:

	A5	MP5/10
Operation	Blowback	Roller-delayed Blowback
Caliber	.22 L.R.	10 mm
Barrel Length	16.1"	8.9"
Capacity	25 rds	30 rds
Overall Length	26.8–33.8"	19.3-27"
Front Sight	Interchangeable Posts	Interchangeable Posts
Rear Sight	Diopter Drum Sight	Diopter Drum Sight
Weight (with mag)	5.9 lbs	6.3 lbs

The A5 had to make some concessions to the regulatory environment causing the most obvious difference to be the .22 has twice the barrel length.  That is to maintain its status as a rifle in the eyes of the BATF.  The .22 does not require a particularly thick barrel and the extra eight inches of pencil thin steel sticking out past the front sight looked ridiculous.  While often maligned by Internet commandos, the nonfunctional faux suppressor creates a far better look than the basic barrel would have shown.

Similarities

Here are the two models together:

Other than the suppressor on the A5 and the flashlight hand guard on the 5/10, they are strikingly similar in appearance.  The A5 uses a curved magazine true to the original 9mm version, while the 10mm and .40 versions switched to a straight magazine, generally considered a better magazine for ease of use.  Walther kept the same grip, selector, slap-down bolt release, and excellent sights.  They are even within half a pound of each other. 

The magazine releases are the same.

As are the excellent sights, including the selectable rear peep sight:

                              

These sights provide four different sizes of rear peep sights.  The concept is, the larger the rear sight, the faster the target acquisition, but the less precise the aim.  Closer shots call for more speed and less accuracy as the target is closer, larger, and a greater threat.  When time allows for a longer more precise shot, the user would turn the turret and use a smaller aperture. 

Handling the two guns I was amazed just how similar they were.  The heft was about the same.  You would expect the A5 to be more front heavy with the 16-inch barrel and faux suppressor, but the .22 barrel has so much less steel than the 10mm, the two came out about even.  The MP-5/10 came to target faster – a function of the shorter barrel.  All controls were in the same places gun to gun, and even the triggers felt similar. 

Interchangeability

Looking at the two they appeared so similar I expected the accessories would even interchange, but I was in for some surprises.  The forends seemed to be identical except for the flashlight built into the 10mm. While the forend of the A5 fit perfectly onto the MP-5/10, the flashlight hit the faux suppressor of the A5 and prevented it from fitting correctly.  This was especially interesting because I had several times contemplated buying this exact hand guard with built in flashlight for my A5.  Glad I was able to test it before I bought it. 

The extendable shoulder stocks looked like a perfect match – as long as they were on the guns. 

Once off their differences became apparent:

Once I saw the stocks off the respective guns I knew they would not transfer and sure enough they did not. 

While Bruce Willis only needed iron sights (on the rare occasion he used the sights at all), Aimpoint created a claw mount for the MP-5 series and their excellent red dot sight became the go to optic for SWAT teams and Special Operations teams using the MP-5 series of sub guns.

Here is the traditional Aimpoint with the claw mount:

I had every expectation of a perfect fit when we went from the MP-5/10 to the A 5, but this is as close as the mount got:

It is hard to see but the notches on the top strap of the A5 are just slightly bigger than on the MP-5/10, preventing the claw mount from getting purchase on the indentations of the receiver.

It is hard to imagine a reason why Walther would have purposely made these a different size to prevent using the claw mount in order to mount an optic.  Instead, I bought a three-inch section of 1913 rail with four small gripping arms for $10 from Amazon and mounted a cheap red dot.  Problem solved, but it doesn’t have the same visual panache of the traditional Aimpoint with the claw mount.

Inside

The two guns disassemble the same until you get inside.  For both, lock the charging handle to the rear, remove the magazine, and confirm the gun is unloaded.  Removing a single pin at the rear allows the shoulder stock to slide off the back and the trigger group to swing free.

After that, remove the pin at the front of the trigger group to remove the assembly.  That is as far as you can go with the A5.  It is cleaned from the muzzle end of the barrel or with a barrel snake and wiped down as well as possible in the small spaces allowed.  Any further disassembly of the A5 results in voiding the warranty so I won’t include pictures. 

Like most .22 clones of larger guns the A5 is blowback operated.  The bolt rides on rails inside the upper receiver and is a job to remove and even worse to get realigned for reassembly.  Or so I have heard. 

The MP-5/10 still needs the mainspring removed and the bolt assembly. While the MP-5 series is also blowback-operated, it uses the excellent roller block bolt assembly to help delay and slow the bolt, preventing the sharp recoil of a heavy bolt slamming the spring into the users shoulder and then slamming forward.  This is essentially the same bolt design used for the entire G3 line of H&K rifles and was originally used to help tame the 7.62 X 51mm recoil. 

Shooting Impressions

Shooting a 10mm from a system designed to tame much more violent recoil makes the MP-5/10 easy to shoot.  Though the 10mm is a serious pistol cartridge, it is still a pistol cartridge and the MP-5 platform is basically a big pistol with an 8.5 inch barrel, long sight radius and three points of contact.  The result is a pleasant-shooting, accurate pistol.  In fact, the MP-5/10 was so accurate we quickly became bored on the 50-yard range we had available.  If we had a 300-yard range we would have walked the targets down and tried 300-yard shots with every expectation of making them.

We got so bored making large 20 round groups we began trying to draw smiley faces in the head quadrants of the bottle targets.  Two eyes and a nose were easy, but getting the mouth to line up over the course of six to ten shots was brutal.  I have shot the MP-5 in the past with its large plastic stock that provides perfect eye relief and cheek weld for the iron sights.  The sight picture is harder to achieve with the collapsible stock, but a little practice makes it consistent.  With the Aimpoint installed the cheek weld did not matter and accurate shooting required barely any effort. 

The A5 feels surprisingly similar to the MP-5/10 but makes you think you are firing the same thing with an actual suppressor.  The miniscule amount of recoil is nearly duplicated by the blowback bolt of the .22.  The sound of the .22 compared to the 10mm is a mere crack.  With the similarity in controls, feel, and recoil it is difficult to remember this is a completely different gun rather than a suppressor screwed onto the end of an MP-5. 

The A5 was perfectly accurate on our 50-yard range, making large ragged holes from each magazine.  It was surprisingly ammunition tolerant for a .22, devouring magazines of Federal, Winchester, CCI, and Aquila ammunition.  The only complaint from testers was that, although we carefully counted 25 shells into each magazine while loading, something about the fit of the gun, ease of the trigger, and the feeling of shooting a suppressed rifle after the 10mm made the trigger finger work over-time and the ammunition disappeared.      

Conclusion

While I will probably always want an actual H&K MP-5, the Walther A5 .22 does a surprisingly good job meeting the bill.  The controls ape the real thing while the rifle is reliable and fun to shoot.  I was disappointed that the accessories did not transfer, but more and more accessories are becoming available for the A5 line.  The rail I added to the top of the A5 is far cheaper and infinitely more flexible than a claw mount.  At a cost of approximately 1/10 the price of a kit built MP-5 and ammunition cost of about 10 cents a round, the A5 is an excellent addition to the gun safe.  Shooters love the slap down bolt release and the chance to shoot a rifle they have seen only in movies and video games. 

I am quite happy with my A5 and expect it will always have a spot in the safe.

Parting Shot

Anyone else see a striking similarity between the MP-5/10 and the E-11 Blaster?