The SD is nice! Our team has a couple of them too. On top of the integral suppressor the barrel itself is actually ported to help slow down the round even more. When you combine that with subsonic 147 grain ammo its super quiet... only downside is you are getting like .380 ACP ballistics with it. The round is traveling so slow you can actually see the rounds going down range glint in the sunlight if the light is right.
Crappy ballistics but super quiet. The SD though is a bit dated, you can pretty much get about the same sound reduction with current 9mm cans added onto the barrel of a standard MP5 for all practical purposes.
When I went through the police academy in Marion, Oh they let each of us in the class run 1 magazine through one. It was fun to shoot. Wish I could afford the ammo to play with one on a regular basis.
its a great gun, its reliable and the roller delayed blowback operating system is one of the smoothest/softest shooting systems out there.
And before anyone says "Pffffff yea but 9mm doesnt recoil anything anyways"... it makes difference in full auto fire and for that matter in quick semi auto fire.
If you ever shoot a roller delayed blowback gun and then go shoot a direct blowback gun like a CZ Scorpion or something you will definitely feel the difference.
but all that being said and at the risk of sounding like an SMG snob
its an old design and the MP5 itself is simply outclassed by many of the newer designs out there.
This is coming from someone who has carried one for years now and still uses/carries/shoots one regularly.
fixed stock ones are one size fits some with no adjustment options and the adjustable MP5 stocks are basically all the way closed or all the way open.
Apparently HK finally came out with a 4 position stock but they are really expensive (like everything else HK puts out) and none of our agency MP5s has them. All of ours are with the 2 position or the fixed.
The MP5 has no optics mount and u have to get any number of aftermarket claw/bolt on mounts which then give you cheek weld issues and/or make using the iron sights as a back up impossible.
The PTR clones are actually very nice and come with an optics rail on the gun... why HK cant do this is beyond me. PTR puts out very nice MP5 clones built on their tooling and at a grand cheaper too. (if anyone wants to buy a semi auto one or make it a sear host).
The MP5 has no bolt hold open on an empty chamber and the fire controls were desgined for someone with Chewbacca sized fingers.
The magazine can be released two ways, either with the paddle at the rear of the mag (grip the paddle and pull mag out) or with the right side botton... but the button is in an impossible location where you cant hit it with your finger like on an AR15.
The biggest gripe I have with it other than that and the stock is the safety/selector. Again, unless you have wookie sized hands/fingers its about impossible to actuate it with most people's thumb (on the left side) or their trigger finger (on the right side). most people cant reach it.
And so you have to adjust your shooting hands grip. I'm not sure if back in the 60's, 70's 80's 90's etc if it was common practice for operators to just run around with that weapon off safe or something and it wasnt a big deal but that's not how its done these days... its always weapon on safe until you are up on target and ready to fire and then you sweep the safety/selector to where you want it. And then back on safe when you are done shooting and you come off target.
This is super quick on say... an AR15. But the MP5... its slow and cumbersome. I usually just run the MP5 with my grip hand's thumb on the same side of the receiver as the rest of my fingers and sweep the safety down with it and go from there... but not ideal, especially in full auto.
Also the 3 point MP5 sling is stupid.
So yea... great shooter, also highly accurate and soft shooting and very reliable... but it comes up short in modularity, ergonomics and adaptability offered by default in other PCC/s sub guns that are out now in the 21st century.
Where I work we are are slowly phasing in Sig MPX 9mm sub guns... waaay better ergos, and lets you outfit it how you want it to a degree far more than what the MP5 lets you do. They are also cheaper and you can easily adjust it for different shooter sizes or when wearing plates etc.
(they also shoot faster in full auto
)
The full auto in an MP5 is very controllable though, its not to hard with a little practice to be able to literally shoot X number of rounds in a burst, like 1,2,3,4,5 etc when its on the full auto setting.
The burst mode on an MP5 also has no "memory" like on an M4 carbine with its 3 shot burst.