Topic summary
Machine pistols
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Machine pistol.
Criticisms
Machine pistols are considered a special purpose weapon with limited utility. Due to their small size and high rate of fire, machine pistols are difficult to control accurately. As a result, most machine pistols are fitted with a detachable shoulder stock. Some, such as the Heckler & Koch VP70, will fire only in semi-automatic when the stock is removed because the select-fire mechanism is incorporated into the stock. The VP70 introduced a three-round-burst limiter in the same way to improve controllability. The Beretta 93R not only uses a detachable shoulder stock and a three-round-burst limiter, but also a folding forward hand-grip to improve its controllability. The MAC-10 and MAC-11 use suppressors to reduce muzzle rise, while other designs use a combination of burst limiters, forward hand-grips, ported barrels and muzzle brakes.