Shooting The Walther MPL Subgun

By Bob Owens | 8:18 PM | July 10, 2015

The Walther MP was an all-stamped submachine gun developed in the late 1950s, and available in long (MPL) and short (MPK) versions. It is an open-bolt, blowback design, but uses a somewhat innovative bolt in which most of the mass is located above and in front of the chamber, to reduce bolt travel and receiver length. I found it to be a very pleasant gun to shoot, and I suspect it was largely unsuccessful in large part due to the superior marketing skills of H&K with their MP5 submachine gun.

Bob Owens is the Editor of BearingArms.com. Bob is a graduate of roughly 400 hours of professional firearms training classes, including square range and force-on force work with handguns and carbines. He is a past volunteer instructor with Project Appleseed. He most recently received his Vehicle Close Quarters Combat Instructor certification from Centrifuge Training, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun. He can be found on Twitter at bob_owens.