{"id":1880,"date":"2012-06-26T14:55:13","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T18:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=1880"},"modified":"2019-01-13T20:25:39","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T01:25:39","slug":"hk-mp5-the-best-cqb-weapon-ive-ever-kicked-to-the-curb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=1880","title":{"rendered":"H&K MP5: The Best CQB Weapon I’ve Ever Kicked to the Curb"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

#364<\/p><\/div>\n

I carried a 9mm Heckler & Koch MP5A2 on SWAT operations and patrol from 1990 until 2009.\u00a0 My gun was #364 and she was my assigned weapon the whole time.\u00a0 Together, we went on hundreds of callouts, buy-busts, and warrant services over the years.<\/p>\n

I kept #364 stone stock, except for the Surefire light kit up front.\u00a0 That’s all the technology I needed for close quarters battle.\u00a0 I loved the three point sling, the curved thirty round mags, SEF trigger group, and the left-side charging handle.\u00a0 The adjustable diopter rear sight and front hooded post were simple and fast to employ.<\/p>\n

I could change those 30 round coupled mags in my sleep:\u00a0 Cover! Working parts back, mag off, mag on, working parts forward,\u00a0 Ready!\u00a0 I first saw the “H&K slap” in the movie Die Hard, where the gun is loaded by slapping the charging handle with the left hand.\u00a0 It looked cool then and it looks cool now.\u00a0 It was also taught to us as the proper H&K way to charge the subgun.<\/p>\n

My MP5 functioned flawlessly for all those years.\u00a0 With regular maintenance by our armorers, #364 never failed a function check or real pull of the trigger.\u00a0 Its accuracy was better than mine.\u00a0 After many thousands of rounds downrange, I was supremely confident in our combined lethality.<\/p>\n

The Heckler & Koch MP5 excels at room clearing, the most important function in hostage rescue.\u00a0 It is short at 27″ with the fixed stock, extremely light at 5.5 lbs, and a master of control in full auto fire because of its recoil-operated delayed blowback bolt system.<\/p>\n

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MP5A4 with 3 round burst trigger group<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

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MP5K with EOTech and foregrip<\/p><\/div>\n

Introduced in 1966, the MP5 has been the gold standard in CQB for forty years.\u00a0 MP5’s have been fielded by elite counter-terrorist teams of British 22nd SAS, German GSG9, French GIGN, Navy Seal Team 6 (DEVGRU), Army Delta Force, FBI HRT, and others in the grim business.<\/p>\n

…And my enthusiasm has waned for the H&K MP5 as a daily carry weapon.\u00a0 Something changed.\u00a0 The Los Angeles North Hollywood bank robbery in 1997 was foreshadowing.\u00a0 Body armored, assault rifle-wielding bank robbers were a wake-up call.\u00a0 L.A.P.D.’s patrol division was not prepared.\u00a0 More police incidents have followed with “up-armored” suspects.<\/p>\n

For me, personal experience pulled me away from my beloved submachine gun.\u00a0 Our SWAT team began seizing more AR-15’s and AK-47’s.\u00a0 And then there was the body armor.\u00a0 We also began seeing ballistic vests in the arsenals of criminals.\u00a0 Body armor is not illegal for a citizen to own in Florida, but it is an offense to wear it in the commission of a crime.\u00a0 As if that penalty enhancement is a deterrent.<\/p>\n

Of course, we practiced body armor drills with the subguns, but the lethal targeting areas are small and moving in the real world.\u00a0 My confidence was falling in the pistol caliber submachine gun.\u00a0 I have now gone full circle from a SWAT issued Ruger Mini-14 in 5.56 X 45 mm, to decades with the 9mm MP5 subgun, and currently on to a Rock River LAR-15 in 5.56 X 45mm.<\/p>\n

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Ruger Mini-14<\/p><\/div>\n

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RRA LAR-15<\/p><\/div>\n

Having an option, I chose to take the AR-15 as my primary patrol weapon.\u00a0 5.56 will take down the targets that 9mm won’t.\u00a0 Sadly, #364 went into the hands of a SWAT FNG, who was probably about four years old when it was made.\u00a0 She is still a fine gun.<\/p>\n

It is tough for us old guys to admit when it is time to make changes.\u00a0 Ask my wife.\u00a0 But safety is more important than nostalgia.\u00a0 Most of today’s threats are well within the H&K MP5’s legendary fight-stopping capabilities.\u00a0 For the rest, I needed to feel prepared.<\/p>\n

Find out what eventually became of #364 here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Randall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I carried a 9mm Heckler & Koch MP5A2 on SWAT operations and patrol from 1990 until 2009.\u00a0 My gun was #364 and she was my assigned weapon the whole time.\u00a0 Together, we went on hundreds of callouts, buy-busts, and warrant services over the years. I kept #364 stone stock, except for the Surefire light kit up front.\u00a0 That’s all the technology I needed for close quarters battle.\u00a0 I loved the three point sling, the curved thirty round mags, SEF trigger group, and the left-side charging handle.\u00a0 The adjustable diopter rear sight and front hooded post were simple and fast to employ. I could change those 30 round coupled mags in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,10,48],"tags":[377,379,380,378],"class_list":["post-1880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-firearms","category-street","category-swat","tag-hk-mp5","tag-heckler-koch","tag-police-swat-submachine-gun","tag-submachine-gun"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28xkp-uk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1880"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11338,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880\/revisions\/11338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}