Kellgren’s Old School Room Brooms: The KG9 and 99
In the early 1980s, back when it was still legal to make new full-auto firearms in America for law abiding Americans, a young Swedish engineer by the name of George Kellgren came from the Old World to Miami with a set of designs in his pocket and a gleam in his eye.
In invasion-conscious 1970s Sweden, the military was looking around for replacements for its vaunted Carl Gustav M/45, better known as K-gun. The Swedish K was a weapon for issue to commando types as well as truck drivers, vehicle crews and the like. It was a 7.7-pound (unloaded) 22-inch long 9mm burp gun that could chew out 600 rounds per minute. The only thing was that the gun was heavy, and dated back to World War II. With these increasingly elderly guns looking to be retired, the Swedish Army wanted something better
The local firm of Interdynamic AB of Stockholm put one of their best up and coming designers on the task, a young man named George Kellgren.
Kellgren produced a very efficient little machine pistol designated the MP-9 that operated entirely by elementary blowback. Revolutionary for guns designed in the 1970s, the MP-9 had a polymer frame with steel inserts to cut down weight. Chunky for a pistol at 67-ounces (over four pounds) with a loaded 32-round magazine, it was still lighter than the K-gun it intended to replace by half.
The magazine loaded forward of the grip like the WWII M3 Grease Gun, which it rather resembled. It was just 12.5-inches overall with a 5-inch shrouded barrel and a 10-inch sight radius over fixed sights designed to zero with 124-grain FMJ standard military loads of 9x19mm Luger at 100-meters.
To keep accidental shootings down since it fired from an open-bolt; it used a German Schmeisser-style safety to lock the bolt and a second catch that was integrated into the left-handed cocking handle. The bolt has a fixed firing pin and was the only moving part of the gun. This select fire little gun could let it rip at 1000-rounds per minute. To keep it under control it had a fore grip and a collapsible wire buttstock.
The gun was neat but it didn’t strike a chord with buyers and it never went into production. It’s thought that just 50 or so test prototypes came off the line in Europe.
While the MP-9 didn’t win any contracts with the Swedish military or any other force, the company saw the potential of the design for commercial sales in that great firearms candy store: the US.
