View Full Version : What ammo for in MP5-type guns? JHP's?
Many new MKE AP5 / AP5P owners right now, including me.
My AP5 has ran fine with 124 gr Fiocchi fmj. After about a few mags of that I tried WW 115 gr, Geco 124 gr, and just a few rounds of Tula 115 gr. No problems.
For defensive ammo I fired about 10 rds each of Hornady 124 gr +p xtp and Rem Golden Sabre 124 gr +P. No problems.
I've also ran 50 rds of Fiocchi 147 gr JHP (Not xtp) and that ran fine.
Underwood Lehigh 68 gr +p was a no-go. Out of 5 rounds had two stoppages. One was ruined with the bullet shoved into the case.
I have some Freedom munitions 147 gr fmj with brass and steel cases but haven't tried them yet.
Would anyone else like offer experiences with ammo for MP5-style guns? Especially defensive ammo?
How about lead / coated reloads? LHP?
I'm trying to stock up on 147 gr ammo because I'm thinking suppressors this fall. (No unjacketed through suppressors, I know)
Oh, does the AP5P ("K") fire 147 gr ammo okay with the factory bolt lock piece?
I have both factory MP5s and older MKE imports and both seem to run pretty much everything 100%.
For defensive ammo I've run Golden Sabers for decades but stopped years ago and switched to Hornady. I have shot Hydra Shocks and Ranger over the years with zero problems, but Hornady (whatever the LE stuff is) seems the most consistent for JHP ammo. Every model including the K will fire 147 grain just fine. The lone exception is SD models with ported barrels and integral suppressors.
For range ammo WWB used to be the cheapest "decent" ammo. Speer lawman is pretty good, especially if you need 147 gr ammo for suppressor but still affordable range ammo. Geco 124 is my absolute favorite range ammo when it's available at a good price. Remington, especially UMC is notorious for being underpowered, haven't had it fail in a MP5 (factory or contract) but I've seen it hang in other guns.
I have an older Zenith import in each size. No issues with any 147 or 158 grain that I have tried, including very anemic Freedom Munitions stuff.
Probably anything relatively "mainstream" from bulk pack 115 to 124 NATO to 147/158/165 subs should be fine. The bigger question is what you want to do with it. If it's a toy, buy and shoot the cheapest stuff you can find. If it's for home/self defense, I'd question whether an MP5 clone is really the best tool for the job, but if it is for you, a decent hollow point round of "mainstream" weight is probably the pick.
I have an older Zenith import in each size. No issues with any 147 or 158 grain that I have tried, including very anemic Freedom Munitions stuff.
Probably anything relatively "mainstream" from bulk pack 115 to 124 NATO to 147/158/165 subs should be fine. The bigger question is what you want to do with it. If it's a toy, buy and shoot the cheapest stuff you can find. If it's for home/self defense, I'd question whether an MP5 clone is really the best tool for the job, but if it is for you, a decent hollow point round of "mainstream" weight is probably the pick.
Assuming no QC problems, MKE is technically a HK contract firearm and would be perfectly acceptable in a HD role.
Assuming no QC problems, MKE is technically a HK contract firearm and would be perfectly acceptable in a HD role.
Yea.
I recently got another Beretta CX4 and use it for that purpose.
How do they compare?
Both are very reliable but the CX4 eats Lehigh 68 gr +p bullets and throws them to 2100 fps.
Mag changes are faster with the CX4 but that's not much of a concern.
The CX4 has a passive firing pin safety just like a modern pistol. The MP5 - type weapons do not. Drop safe??
Backup irons are easier with the MP5, as is adding a can if I decide too.
While the CX4 is short, the AP5 and AP5K especially are much easier to move around the house with should clearing be necessary. I certainly prefer the grip and safety selector of the AP5's. Can have folding stocks or braces on MP5 types.
I'd use 147 gr JHP's if I used the AP5 for HD. Perhaps I should load up 147 gr XTP's to try out?
Anyone fire 147 gr XTP's from an MP5 - type gun?
Yea.
I recently got another Beretta CX4 and use it for that purpose.
How do they compare?
Both are very reliable but the CX4 eats Lehigh 68 gr +p bullets and throws them to 2100 fps.
Mag changes are faster with the CX4 but that's not much of a concern.
The CX4 has a passive firing pin safety just like a modern pistol. The MP5 - type weapons do not. Drop safe??
Backup irons are easier with the MP5, as is adding a can if I decide too.
While the CX4 is short, the AP5 and AP5K especially are much easier to move around the house with should clearing be necessary. I certainly prefer the grip and safety selector of the AP5's. Can have folding stocks or braces on MP5 types.
I'd use 147 gr JHP's if I used the AP5 for HD. Perhaps I should load up 147 gr XTP's to try out?
Anyone fire 147 gr XTP's from an MP5 - type gun?
Assuming they didn't monkey around with the specs, any HK contract should be 100% drop safe. That is why that trigger is a little heavy.
I haven't shot Hornady's XTP round yet, but looks like it should be fine. Pretty much every major manufacturer offers a 147 gr JHP round these days.
I'd be careful with any +P rounds out of that Storm, might hammer the crap out of it. Uzi's eat +P just fine, but that Storm has a much lighter bolt / recoil spring setup. I don't even shoot +P out of my MP5, I'd rather shoot a heaver round like 147 gr and not put the wear and tear on it.
Assuming they didn't monkey around with the specs, any HK contract should be 100% drop safe. That is why that trigger is a little heavy.
I haven't shot Hornady's XTP round yet, but looks like it should be fine. Pretty much every major manufacturer offers a 147 gr JHP round these days.
I'd be careful with any +P rounds out of that Storm, might hammer the crap out of it. Uzi's eat +P just fine, but that Storm has a much lighter bolt / recoil spring setup. I don't even shoot +P out of my MP5, I'd rather shoot a heaver round like 147 gr and not put the wear and tear on it.
Thanks for the advice.
IIRC the Manual for the Beretta says +p and +P+ may be used but will accelerate wear on parts or similar.
I have ran every trash ammo and good HD ammo. A lot of Speer and Federal, no problems with any ammo of any type.
PB
I shot duty MP-5s and SDs for a number of years running 115-grain Ball (Winchester White Box and Blazer), M882 GI, Federal Hydra-Shocks, Winchester Special Munition (WSM 147s), and all kinds of other Euro and Asian military and commercial cats and dogs ball (including corrosive-primed).
MP-5s operated even with green-corroded GI Ball that choked Browning Mark IIIs and SIG 226s -- the fluted chamber thing works.
As far as I know they were factory-roller bolts without hot-rod monkeying with different rollers.
I haven't shot Hornady's XTP round yet, but looks like it should be fine. Pretty much every major manufacturer offers a 147 gr JHP round these days.
XTP’s sit on top of all my standard SD reloads. As you would expect, they shoot just fine in my MP5’s.
I haven’t found anything that chokes any of mine.
As far as I know they were factory-roller bolts without hot-rod monkeying with different rollers.
Assuming you know this, but for everyone else, all rollers should be factory. After a long, long...long time larger rollers are used to bring MP5s with worn chamber recesses back into accepted standards of performance.
The only other times people fret about rollers is the clone crowd trying to correct for out of spec manufacturing.
There is the famous NASA MP5 (training gun) that went well over 500,000 rounds and rollers, and other small parts like extractors, were replaced over time before it was retired for performance issues. The MP5 design definitely has redundant extraction features. There are several instances of MP5s that proved to have broken extractor springs that were still cycling because of fluted chambers.
There is the famous NASA MP5 (training gun) that went well over 500,000 rounds and rollers, and other small parts like extractors, were replaced over time before it was retired for performance issues.
Holy cow.
Andy
https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/18978/NASA_MP-5_jpg-2455169.JPG
https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/18978/MP-5_jpg-2455171.JPG
WeaponsMan
Quiet Professionals, Noisy Machinery
https://www.billstclair.com/weaponsman.com/index.html%3Fp=22695
"An MP5 Shot for How Many Rounds? 571,000. Seriously.
Most service-weapon users (meaning, the organizations, more than the men) do a really lousy job of tracking how many rounds go through their weapons. This results in things like some of the crappy-shooting old rifles units have in their arms rooms, and also in a lot of money wasted overhauling guns that aren’t really due for it yet (because maintenance is done “on schedule”), or spending a fortune on periodic inspections (so that maintenance can be done “on condition”). The average line-unit armorer is a supply clerk, trained to rack and un-rack rifles and maintain accountability; he lacks the training and inspectional technology to determine when any firearm needs to be overhauled, absent a truly egregious problem.
And while the Army wants guns to count their own rounds, we’re not there yet. (And they haven’t yet considered the CI implications of round counters on rifles).
The security force at Kennedy Space Center in the 1980s did count rounds through their training weapons, and so they set, as far as anybody knows, the record for the World’s Most Used MP5. The story is told in Frank W. James’s 1996 book, Project 64: The MP5 Submachine Gun Story. (Now, unfortunately, out of print and rather pricey on the secondary market; his 2003 book on the MP5 may or may not have the same content, but it’s out of print, too).
Depending on training demand, Serial Number 316019 fired from 3,000 to 15,000 rounds a month, every month, in its five-and-a-half-year service life, from August, 1984, to January 1990. Peak year was 1988, with a staggering 128,000 rounds going downrange from the HK subgun.
It didn’t make it all the way to its end count of 571,600 rounds with all the original parts, but it did have the original barrel — grossly out of spec, it’s true — and most major parts. The parts that failed are ones that will be familiar to anyone who’s run MP5s, and were all replaced at end-unit armorer level: firing pins and springs, extractors and springs, rollers, roller holders and pins, and various other springs, plus some parts physically damaged in training, like a handguard and a retractible (A3) stock. Some parts, like extractor springs, for example, have a wear-out schedule or recommended replacement point in HK maintenance documents, but KSC ran the guns “on condition” and went far beyond the recommended intervals before replacing these parts.
It was still working, after a fashion, in 1990, but had lost all accuracy and had headspace issues (both are probable results of the worn barrel). HK would have refurbished the gun, but it would have cost nearly as much as buying a new one, so the facility bought new guns instead.
The gun does not appear to have been fired after January 1990, but it was formally withdrawn from service in 1992.
It would be nice to say that the gun wound up going back to Oberndorf for engineers to study, or wound up in a museum in light of its very high round-count, but in fact it wound up initially being cannibalized to keep the Center’s other old MP5s running, and then being destroyed.
It was only a machine, but some of us are sentimental about our machines. We will always believe that it deserved a better end."
Assuming no QC problems, MKE is technically a HK contract firearm and would be perfectly acceptable in a HD role.
Perfectly acceptable in that it has mildly better ballistics than a long slide Glock, a complicated and relatively unintuitive manual of arms, and overall not great light or optic mounting options.
For the vast, vast majority of people, a pistol or AR will offer advantages. There is a reason submachine guns are on life support (at best) in military and LE roles.
Perfectly acceptable in that it has mildly better ballistics than a long slide Glock, a complicated and relatively unintuitive manual of arms, and overall not great light or optic mounting options.
For the vast, vast majority of people, a pistol or AR will offer advantages. There is a reason submachine guns are on life support (at best) in military and LE roles.
Won't catch me saying it beats a M4, but if you can't figure out how to mount lights and optics, that's your fault. Manual of arms is less complicated than a pump shotgun if you actually train with the weapon.
SMGs and PCCs are very, very special application for MIL and LE, but for your average home defender they beat the shit out of any handgun. Three points of contact always beat two points of contact. Platform for slings, optics and lights (not to mention suppressors and mag capacity) make this not even debatable.
Grim.Patriot
07-17-22, 08:39
I run a HK SP5 SBR with a variety of 115gr., 124gr. and 147gr. ball and HP ammo without a hiccup. Shoots fine with all the bullet weights both suppressed and unsuppressed. Though not my first choice, if i were to look to this fine firearm up for personal protection, I’d load it up with Federal 147gr. HST and mount a 3-lug suppressor. Very effective while very quiet.
Won't catch me saying it beats a M4, but if you can't figure out how to mount lights and optics, that's your fault. Manual of arms is less complicated than a pump shotgun if you actually train with the weapon.
SMGs and PCCs are very, very special application for MIL and LE, but for your average home defender they beat the shit out of any handgun. Three points of contact always beat two points of contact. Platform for slings, optics and lights (not to mention suppressors and mag capacity) make this not even debatable.
Opinion only, but I would rather fire a 10-11" 9mm PCC/SBR/SMG in my home sans ear pro than a 9mm pistol, a shotgun or an M4. They are not ear safe, but certainly quieter than the other three alternatives.
I should add that I do not have enough confidence in my only PCC to bump either my G17 or AR out of the bedroom safe.
Andy
Opinion only, but I would rather fire a 10-11" 9mm PCC/SBR/SMG in my home sans ear pro than a 9mm pistol, a shotgun or an M4. They are not ear safe, but certainly quieter than the other three alternatives.
I should add that I do not have enough confidence in my only PCC to bump either my G17 or AR out of the bedroom safe.
Andy
Adding on to that thought, the one thing that made SMGs/PPCs practical all those years was effective suppression. In 1995 suppressors for ARs were still really loud, and usually pretty big. That is what really changed, you can now get a 5.56 platform down to similar size and weight as a MP5 and you can get really decent suppression out of some of your higher end cans.
Adding on to that thought, the one thing that made SMGs/PPCs practical all those years was effective suppression. In 1995 suppressors for ARs were still really loud, and usually pretty big. That is what really changed, you can now get a 5.56 platform down to similar size and weight as a MP5 and you can get really decent suppression out of some of your higher end cans.
Ends up alot longer than unsuppressed MP5K though.
I didn't buy my MKE cause it's a practical HD weapon. I bought it cause its cool and wanted one ever since I saw Die Hard.
I didn't buy my MKE cause it's a practical HD weapon. I bought it cause its cool and wanted one ever since I saw Die Hard.
That's what made me buy my first MP5.
Recently ran some Fiocchi 147 gr fmj (the new style with little flat meplat) and PPU 158 gr fmj from the AP5P.
No problems. About 1000 fps for the 147, 950 fps from the 158 gr. The 147 gr had less recoil.
Also tried the Hornady Critical Duty 135 gr standard pressure. Velocity was around 1100 fps but several malfunctions with it.
All MKE mags. Accuracy excellent with all. (Holosun 503)
I'm going to run more Golden Sabers and XTP's through it. I only ran 20-30 of each before and it worked fine but I need to run more before I'd trust the gun for an HD / travel role.
Edited to ad: Tried more 124 gr XTP's. Nope. FT feed in the middle of the magazine. My AP5P won't feed JHP, at least with MKE mags.
Just wanted to update.
My AP5P, after more breaking in, is feeding JHP's just fine with HK mags. I believe the mags were the difference. The MKE mags feed ball 100%.
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