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PHP MV-9: The First Croatian Pistol (Both Models) (ad-free)
🕑 Added 2023-01-18 12:00:01 +0000 UTCCroatian engineer Marko Vukovic first developed his P38-based pistol in the late 1980s for the Yugoslav Peoples' Army. It was left unadopted at that time, but when Croatia declared independence in 1991 the gun found a new life. The newly formed Croatian armed forces needed quite a lot of small arms. Vukovic brought his pistol design back off the shelf and presented it to the Croatian authorities. They were enthusiastic, and it was adopted as the PHP ("Prvi Hrvatski Pistolj" - First Croatian Pistol) MV-9 and put into production in 1992. This was both a practical win - a reasonably good handgun for the Army, produced domestically, and also a moral victory in showing logistical independence from the old Yugoslavia.
The design was improved in 1994 with a shorter (4 inch / 100mm) barrel and simplified disassembly. A total of approximately 5,000 early pattern and 11,000 late pattern PHP pistols were made, with production ending in 1995. For Vukovic's company IM Metal, the PHP was a valuable introduction into firearms mass production. They would take the lessons learned here and use them to develop the HS-95 pistol, as well as the VHS series of rifles.
Many thanks to HS Produkt for giving me the opportunity to visit and film some of their early prototypes! Not all companies are willing to share their less-successful early designs, but developing good guns can only happen by trying and often failing at first.
Comments
Guido Schriewer
they better would have copycat the dual springs, too. the takedown looks lousy forcing the spring out like that.
Matisse Enzer
So true. And continuing that thought: It is so interesting that Ruger continued entreat design for so many years, even while also selling the P-85/89 series for which disassembly/re-assembly is so incredibly easy. (And to be fair Ruger did, eventually after long time, improve things on the 22 series.)
The Bone Clock
Compared to a Ruger MK3 22/45, that seems to be a relatively simple disassembly/reassembly process. :-)
Forgotten Weapons
Sarco was the importer, but they are all in the secondary market now. So gun shows, GunBroker, etc.
The barbecube
What sites are trustworthy enough to buy things like this from? Especially this it looks really cool lol.
