The Magpul Folding Gun is Real, and it’s Coming
It has been teased for decades but it looks like the Magpul and ZEV FDP, in both carbine and pistol format, will be headed to market in 2025. It’s real, and we’ve shot it.
If ever a gun was wish-cast into existence, it is this one.
This strange path, of producing an innocuous-looking box that could transform as if by magic into a PCC, started with Francis Warin’s boxy ARES project in the 1970s – which used a German MP28 magazine, of all things – then quickly moved on to Utah Connor’s “boom box” (complete with collapsing antenna) style Undercover 9 or UC-9, and James Boatman’s companion DEB M-21.
The latter gained everlasting fame in the 1990’s “Robocop 2.”
Connor called his one-of-a-kind weapon the “Undercover 9” or UC-9 back in the day and people have been chasing it for 50 years.
In 2008, Magpul reimagined the UC-9/M-21 in a concept gun that dropped the dated portable boom box disguise and updated the look to that of an extra laptop battery (which was a thing at the time).
Dubbed the FMG-9, it remained vaporware until Magpul succumbed to public demand in 2021 and announced what was then termed the Folding Defensive Pistol-9 and a Folding Defensive Carbine-9, using a ZEV OZ9 operating system inside a Magpul chassis.
While Magpul brought prototypes to the last three SHOT Shows since then, the FDP and FDC have yet to appear, which is something of a bummer.
But 2025 is set to be a year of sweet, sweet fulfillment as the now FDP-C carbine and FDP-P pistol are headed to market.
The full update in my column at Guns.com.
