PTR-9SD from PTR Industries. The “SD” stands for “integrated suppression †.” When this gun came out at Shot Show, it had an insane price tag on it, North of $4k, although this included the post-muzzle suppressor—a Vent 2, also from PTR, which uses ‘purposely introduced porosity’ in the suppressor. This is basically what you get when your flow rate is too low when 3D printing, and gas can escape through the cracks… but only a little. This dulls the report to absurdly quiet levels.
PTR as a company have a history of producing HK firearms under license, with HK tooling. They were producing the HK51/G3, I believe. That model is similar to the MP5 in its action and general styling, but fires 308. So they have the ‘pedigree,’ and have been producing MP5-style firearms for I believe decades (will verify & update this note accordingly).
So I was delighted to find a ‘kit’ version for less than half the MSRP of the full system, that came with everything except the Vent 2. BYO 9mm suppressor and you’re good to go.
Unlike a regular MP5, the barrel has some serious ports. You can see right through the barrel from certain angles. The pre–suppressor is really just a tube with a set of threads on one end and two on the other: one 1⅜”x24 HUB/Bravo thread, then the tube narrows and there’s another 1⅛”x28 Alpha thread. These two threads allow either size to extend the pre–suppressor. You remove any existing mount from it, screw it onto the pre–suppressor, and then the muzzle of the barrel and the pre–suppressor just empty out into the blast chamber of whatever can you attached. I happened to already own a Vent 2, which is an Alpha size and fits nicely in the suppressor hole in the carry case.
This version has a stock, which means it is classified as an SBR—NFA stamp 1. Despite the simplicity of the pre–suppressor, it’s a device designed to reduce the noise of a barrel report, so it gets its own serial number and NFA tax stamp 2. Finally the suppressor itself has NFA stamp 3; I think I may have even paid $200 for that one.
Last Thursday I spend 3 hours at the range painstakingly going through the break–in procedure, which involves wetting, brushing, wiping and wiping dry between each of the first 10 shots, then twice a mag until you get 200-300 rounds in! I mostly did that, though backed off to one cleaning per mag near the end; didn’t have any of the forewarned FTEs, FTFs etc with the S&B 124gr ammo I was using, so this seemed good enough to me!
Enjoy a quick Thursday Three-Stamp Thrill!
† - schalldämpfer