I just received this new Uzi from Vector Arms and will be conducting a demo/eval soon... Has anyone ever fired an Uzi? If so, what was your impression?
Vector made good UZIs. I shot quite a few, and in 9mm, 40S&W, and 45 calibers. They are extremely tough to break, and will run like the energizer bunny in 9mm. I've had problems with the 40 S&W and 45 acp conversions due to the magazines- 45acp magazines are horridly expensive, and the 40 S&W magazines were modified 45UZI or even grease gun magazines when I had a lower modified for them. Believe it or not, 40S&W use the same bolt and extractor as 9mm, but they won't fit in the same magazines. The .45 acp extractors completely destroy the brass, and since .45 brass is expensive, that feature really sucks. Above, .45 UZI with promag magazine. Below, UZI grease gun conversion lower with magazines. The ergonomics cannot be beat, even though they were designed before the word even became into existence. I originally built an AR-15 in 9mm for my wife, but she soon figured out that my UZI was better to run in that caliber and I sold all the 9mm AR parts. She basically took it from me, and when she went and bought a CAC9 suppressor for it, we had it registered in her name. The CAC9 was originally designed for the MAC-10, but there are a plethora of adapter parts out there. We had to have the suppressor permanently attached to a short barrel to make it over 16" in length or she would have had to get another stamp for the same gun. What a pain, but at least we can take the whole assembly off easily (one of the very nice features of an UZI) and replace it with another barrel if desired. The downsides to UZIs are that they are heavy for the size- they are solid pieces of metal. The magazines are quite heavy, even when empty. The folding stock, while it looks cool, is kind of a pain when shooting, and I would recommend getting a fixed wood stock and attaching it. The wood stocks are inexpensive and are far more comfortable when shooting for an extended period of time. I don't quite like the sights on the UZI. I wish they would have used the front sight pin from an AR-15, as it would be so much easier to adjust, but they didn't. You would have to make something that looks like a helicoil to make one work, since the UZI front sights are a bit larger (and metric to boot) than an AR pin. The charging handle kind of gets in the way of a complete sight picture, but you can get a side charging handle and get rid of the knob. The cutout of the cocking knob obscures the bottom of the rear aperture for me, making my UZI hit higher, because it looks to me like I am aiming low. A side charging handle fixes this. Overall, the UZI really can't be beat for a 9mm carbine. Parts aren't as plentiful as they used to be, but they are still out there. I'd get a few extractors and another firing pin. You can find complete lowers (not the serialized part when dealing with UZIs) pretty cheap and you will have a complete fire control group at the ready. Not that you would really need it, but you never know. I would spend my money on ammo and more magazines. If you check the boards of UZItalk, they usually sell the military surplus magazines pretty cheap, and in bulk. DSA has magazines, too. These guns were designed to fire full auto, and were designed to do so for a really long time. A civilian semi-auto version should last even longer.
No, unfortunately I don't. I only have these pictures because I used them to sell these items. I still have my share of UZI stuff, but not quite what I used to. I streamlined my collection, so to speak. I often thought about getting one of the pre-bent stainless steel receivers from NoDak-Spud and building another UZI from my spare parts. Then I'd just be back to square one with no extra parts and have to get some. The spiral would continue. I actually thought about selling the last of my UZI stuff and getting a few Mec-Tech carbine conversions for Glock pistols. I would be down to one less platform to have to supply parts for (mostly magazines), work on, and store. But, the robustness of the UZI cannot be beat. If you go to UZItalk.com, look up a guy called M60joe- he makes the side charging handles and has oodles of pictures. He makes them with for one finger or two, or either side instead of flipping a single sided handle over. They usually run in the $60+ range.
