In the 1970s, the German federal police sought a replacement for its existing stock of World War II-era sidearms, and it put out a request to firearm manufacturers to offer solutions. SIG Sauer, Walther and Heckler & Koch all developed contenders, and the design that ultimately won out was the Heckler & Koch P7, one of the most unique police sidearms ever made. Watch our “American Rifleman Television” I Have This Old Gun segment above to see how it works.
“One of the hottest guns on the collector’s market today is the HK P7,” NRA Museum Director Philip Schreier said. “The gun was originally designed in the mid-1970s as a replacement for the German police sidearm that had been used in somewhat ineffectively at Munich in ’72. In fact, the Munich hostage situation, it was the direct impetus to replace that pistol with a new one, and HK came to the forefront with a very interesting gun that met all of the requirements of the purchasing commission.”
The most noticeable feature of the Heckler & Koch P7 is its frontstrap, which is a movable lever with finger grooves. As the P7 had no traditional manual safety, readying the gun to fire required squeezing the frontstrap, which cocked the pistol. A cocked striker indicator at the rear of the slide gave users a visible indicator that the gun was fully cocked.
”The requirements that the Germans put out were a little, I don’t wanna say kooky, but they’re Germans, so they’re very specific on what they want. And one of the things that they wanted was a lightweight gun under two and a half pounds,” NRA Media Editorial Director Mark Keefe said. “And when you have a locked breech gun, or even worse, a blowback, you know, to hit all those things that the German police wanted, this was the best contender.”
To keep the pistol lightweight, instead of adding more slide mass, the P7 used a gas-delayed blowback operating system. Propellant gases from a fired round were bled off the barrel and entered an expansion chamber. Pressure on a gas piston inside the expansion chamber held the slide closed until chamber pressure dropped to a safe level, allowing the slide to cycle and chamber the next round.
“The Heckler & Koch P7 also ends up being imported into the United States by Interarms of Alexandria, Virginia, and ends up being adopted by select law enforcement agencies here in the United States,” American Rifleman Executive Editor Evan Brune said. “And though it doesn’t see the same kind of widespread adoptions as later designs like the Glock do, it still makes enough of an impact that it’s remembered as being a really novel and innovative handgun design from the late 20th century.”
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