The Vektor CP-1 was used prominently in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. They had white polymer frames and stainless steel slides. One was used by a Peacekeeper to execute an old man in District 11 and another was used by a Peacekeeper officer to threaten the protagonists in District 12. Other guns in this film with white polymer furniture were the FN F2000 and FN P90.
The FN F2000 is one of the weirdest guns I've ever had the pleasure to try. The recoil on full auto is so weird, it literally pushes the barrel down and that takes some getting used to. The P90 is a surprisingly reliable weapon in my experience (which is, admittedly, not vast with that particular gun), however it is way too small for me to use. I like the G3 (or rather the version I used to carry, the AK4), it's a reasonable sized gun for me.
@michaelmay5453 That's interesting about the F2000. Did you find that once you got used to it, it was more controllable firing in full auto because of that feature?
@@kutter_ttl6786 I didn't spend enough time with it to get used to it. I probably could have though, it's a lot easier to keep it stable by just locking up your muscles than to try to pull it down (which just doesn't work at all). I'm not the guy you should ask on this though, all guns like those are awkward for me, I'm 7'1 so a 1911 or a P226 (which still is my absolute favourite hand gun) are great little firearms I can carry on my ankle. ;)
The Vector was also used prominently in the RDM version of Battlestar Galactica. The presidential security force were armed with the CP-1 to distinguish them from the Colonial military who were armed with FN Five Sevens and revolvers mocked up to look like futuristic sidearms. During the first season the military actors used FN P90s, but switched to the Beretta CX Storm for the rest of the series because of it's prominent use in Stargate SG1. They also switched the revolver mock up to the Five Seven in season 2 because they were difficult to reload due to the shell on the base gun. The production had purchased a mountain for 5.7 blank ammo for the P90s, and ended up using it all for the new sidearm. I think RDM said they had enough to last for the whole series after the switch.
Im a South African. This pistol is still used in small numbers by security firms in South Africa. The drop safety is the least of issues. These guns are known for hammer spring and firing pin breakages. It does not have a conventional coil hammer spring because of the compact design. Parts are not available any more for this gun and most of the times those have to be made up. Not a bad pistol but needed more development
When I was 12 or so I remember visiting my grandparents and finding my grandfathers gun bible reference book and stumbling upon the Vektor CP-1. Maybe because it looks like something out of a sci-fi book but I wanted one so so bad as a kid. Thanks for reminding me Ian.
The last time I saw a photo of this pistol, I was 14 in 2020 and my father (an ex-police officer in South Africa) still lived. I showed this pistol to my father and asked if he ever saw this pistol and he told me that he knew a lot of detectives that used these pistols. I can't remember if it was a good pistol or not, but my father loved the video on the Vektor R4-6.
Yo, Ian. Maybe you wanna check the Voevodin pistol. Is a WW2 design and the 2nd version has a dual stack magazine. 18 cartridges is a little wild for that time.
Lots of security personal in South Africa still carry the CP1; I did for a few years as well. It had quite a few detractors who claimed the accuracy was terrible and cartridges failed to eject resulting on stove pipes. I found if you stuck to the right ammo (114g) and cleaned the weapon it fired reliably. As for accuracy, having used it in anger on more than one occasion thanks to security work in SA, it was as good as any other weapon considering most contacts were within short ranges; if you used the CP1 as a backup personal protection weapon, it worked exactly as advertised. I am one of those who elected to keep the firearm when the recall was announced and I've never regretted that decision.
@@brainkill7034 I get that one aspect of the Vektor pistol was copied from the P7, but speaking as a person who has owned several P7s and absolutely loved every single one of them I do have to point out that aside from the delayed blowback system and fixed barrel the CP-1 is a million miles away from the P7 in every way. From reports, the accuracy of the CP-1 was average at best when compared to other duty-type semiauto firearms. The P7, however is the only handgun I ever owned that rivals the SIG 220 in .45 for the most accurate military/police type sidearm I've personally ever run through the range. I've owned several of both and in fact ended out my career in law enforcement carrying a 220 in .45 as my duty sidearm and a P7 (the original, not the later M8/13) most of the time off duty. Why those two weapons? Because everyone knows,, don't you, that it's marksmanship that wins gunfights, not mag capacity or bullet design. Right? For my hand and abilities they were by far the most accurate handguns I'd ever fired that were suitable for law enforcement carry. When my department finally allowed us to carry personally-owned weapons (of the proper kind) as duty weapons, I simply opened my safe and started shooting my own weapons, and borrowing many others to test. I picked the weapons I could shoot the best, and here I'm not talking about bullseye shooting, but rather running the department's rather tough qualification course as well as our tactical team's grueling and more extensive regimen. With both of those weapons, and particularly with the P7 I'd be confident taking head shots on hostage takers all day long out to around thirty yards. By contrast I've handled but not fired a CP-1. This was the later surplus import of original design and not the one made specifically for export to the USA. Quality-wise it struck me as something like a cheap Stallard Arms piece with a case of Glock envy. The trigger, as noted, was atrocious. While it might have been roughly adequate for close-range work I could tell you that just from the way the thing rattled when I shook it that it wasn't even from the same planet as a P7. There's no way it's ever going to do what a P7 can do. The CP-1 shares only two features with P7, and aside from that comparison is pointless. I'm not saying the P7 was the be-all, end all either. For someone dedicated and disciplined enough to learn and heavily practice the P7's unusual manual of arms, yes it' a thoroughbred in class of its own as a carry weapon. For someone who picked one up at a gun show and treated it like it was just another Glock or SIG, and didn't put in the necessary training, that's begging for an accidental discharge at times of high stress and fast movement. But all that's beyond the scope of comments on this particular video.
Oh is the city being located in South Africa the reason why District 9 MNU personnel also seem to use very similar guns? I just looked it up and they are also from Vektor. I did not realize it was a South African thing. I thought they just chose them because they looked cool.
I recently bought a brand new one here in South Africa for around $260. Shoots great. I like it for the historical provenance. They are available in 9mmK as well.
Ian is not just the best firearms youtuber, he's one of the best youtubers full stop. I'm not a gun owner, I live in a place where gun ownership is illegal, and I have no particular interest in owning guns. What I love is highly nuanced expertise, people passionate about very specific things, and Ian is one of the best examples of that. If Ian's chosen field of expertise was historically overlooked pencils, I'd still watch every minute of his work.
i think that's the best part of youtube, i get to see people just be passionate about things i'm not passionate about and therefore learn about other people. I think that's very neat.
@@DigitalApex Many tiny interests, but none is king. No true goals to speak of, no crowning desires or ambitions. No fulfillment. Very uninspirational.
The design was weird because MNU (the REAL maker of this firearm, as was revealed to me in a dream) was still getting the hang of some... quirky technologies. Apparently the redesign is coming out in three years.
We want a "Whitney Wolverine" for the millennium😊 We'll put an 03 Colt hammer system on it. Cause nobody alive today will know, it's a copy! Ian says wait a minute...I being an owner of the Colt .32 recognized it right away also. Prone to broken firing pin's? My .32's was broken when I bought it for $50. It still has the one I made for it, from a drill bit!😂
I absolutely love these things - they're the rare example of the Y2K Aesthetic applied to firearms - I'd rank the Tactical Tuna, the F2000, as a Y2K design as well. And the CR1, of course. Also, that logo - GO TEAM VENT- er, VEKTOR!
@@jimmyrustler8983 They're a great example of CAD bein' a thing all of a sudden in 90s. (Any great example is any number of graphic design items with text - magazine covers and layouts and print ads - that use like six different typefaces...because change typefaces now simply involve clicking a button with your mouse.)
This is a pistol that I've desperately wanted to add to my collection, fixed version or not. They used to be had pretty cheap, and now they're very hard to come by.
I owned one of these, and it was cool, effective, and reasonably accurate. I wish I still had it, but the recall came and to be honest, I needed the money. I have always liked the quirky and neat.
Thanks to Guns.com for sponsoring this video! If you are a veteran or first responder, make sure to use their ID.me program and if you have a gun you'd like to sell, try them out at www.guns.com/we-buy-guns .
My mag housed 14 instead of 13 😅. Awesome firearm but extremely fussy with regards to ammunition even fmj, youd have failure to feed, cycling issues where the slide would jam and needed a solid smack with the web of your hand to rack the slide. Reloads were a total NO GO in them, PMP and black talon ammunition worked without a glitch, unfortunately I had to donate my CP1 to van A.A shopper. My younger brother managed to purchase a brand new CP1 10 years ago, which has now been given 'safe queen' status till my son decides that he wants to take it as his first firearm in keeping with tradition.
As cool as the idea of supporting service members and first responders I don't think a centralized ID system should be able to br willy nilly accessed by entities. It sounds like a big data breach waiting to happen which is almost a precedent
Back when we still had a Kettner store, I would drop by occasionally. I did miss the day the Persian Mausers came in by the whole crate and sold for a song, but I digress. That day they had the Vector in, brand new. This gun screamed "I'm the future !" Then it was all quiet, never heard from it until later I kept hearing two words "Vector and malfunction"
The design of the CR-1 and CP-1 is really up there with the pinnacle of how the 1980s and 1990s saw the technologoy of the FUTURE YEAR of 2000. All-polymer body designs with sleek aerodynamic curves to match the modern cars coming out at the same time period. Hell, just the fact Vektor spells their company name with a "K" instead of a "C" is extremely 90s. It was too radical a time to be sustainable.
It's interesting how the design world moved from angular plastic in the 1980s to flowing, curvy plastic in the 1990s. I often wonder if there was some advance in moulding technology or computer design in the late 1980s that made it practical. But the same thing happened with cars - the Sierra and Taurus etc. I remember there was a Raleigh BMX bike in the mid-eighties called the Vektar that had a plastic shell, but it was angular in a typical 80s style.
@@TheCrusher72 Yes, but only for the time being. When the financial benefits of suing the automakers start exceeding what the automakers can pay to defend themselves, the lawyers will make a rapid u-turn and smash into the automakers at dragracer speeds.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the resemblance to the HK VP70 yet. Different operating system, but very similar form, both early polymer frame production pistols.
Ugh. I think the CP-1 looks more like a prop for a Batman movie. Or a Nerf toy gun. But then I think the original Glock is a work of sublime beauty. I've used handguns in genuine combat. Pretty is as pretty does.
It's no accident that S&W's first attempt at a polymer duty weapon, the Smegma -- um 'scuse me, I meant the Sigma -- was a blatant, shameless ripoff of the Glock in almost every way except in reliability. And accuracy. And durability. Even then S&W could see their decades-long stranglehold on the USA police market starting to crumble. I still don't think they've made a truly original polymer-framed ANYTHING that didn't "borrow" heavily from other successful designs. If you can't beat 'em, steal 'em.
I grew up in South Africa and know some folks who bought these. I remember the weird safety was something a lot of people made a fuss about at the time.
CAD was alive and well in the late 1970's. Heck, when i was in college in '85 we had a whole lab of mainframe powered CAD stations, where people were trained to eventually get a job at one of the big automobile manufacturers (who provided the computer and CAD stations). I found out, from the people running that lab, that they had had that equipment installed in '79. So you can figure that CAD system had to be several years old, and established tech before one of the big three automakers to gift a college 8 CAD stations and the mainframe computer to run them. So yeah, CAD was not new tech in the 90's. Heck, i worked at a computer store, and we were moving autocad for the PC in '86
@@neutronalchemist3241 Would not surprise me one bit. Today, everything is designed on computers, and then handed off to the CAM systems. Which is good and bad, IMHO. I think that machines are great for dealing with the minutia, but for real innovation, you need a human in the loop. I mean, computers are the very definition of "thinking inside of the box." And that is good, if you want repeatable calculations, but bad for innovation.
5:45 it's pretty interesting that a company with a logo straight out of a Bone movie and a name like Vektor with a K would be designing a pistol inspired mechanically by the pistols James Bond is known to use and made to look as futuristic as possible. The 90s were a golden age.
I guess the main issue with the early firing pin block is that it is disengaged by the hammer. So if the hammer drops for any reason the firing pin block does not do anything to prevent firing. New pattern firing pin block is independent of the hammer so I would consider that much more effective as a safety feature. Then again I'm not really sure how much practical difference there is in the end.
I watched the bug match on Playuer/Utreon. It's a shame, Vector hadn't had the best luck with all of its models but it apparently did a good job here and the more fixed barrel pistols the better.
Thanks again from SA. Love seeing our guns on your show. I almost bought one myself, we could get it very cheap through the security company I was working for at the time.
Sadly, Vektor disappeared from the holding company, Denel's structure many years ago. The flood of Turkish pistols such as Canik and Sarsilmaz, also of course Glock and Taurus, would probably make handgun production in SA no longer economically viable. Vektor's successor, Denel Land Systems no longer makes infantry rifles, only the Mini SS and SS77 machine guns and 20mm anti-material rifles. PMP made an excellent 115gr 9mmP JHP, but their products have disappeared from dealers' shelves.
Seems like a pretty slick little design. Very simple with a couple actually pretty clever little elements, which I always prefer over space-age-advanced. Just seems like it needed a little more time in the oven, and like the timing was off.
The gripe about having to put your finger in the trigger guard to disengage the safety is borderline idiotic. If you're disengaging the safety, it should ONLY be in preparation to fire the weapon, unless there's some reason the safety needs to be off for disassembly (which is the exact opposite of the Vektor's system anyway) and even then, the first step in disassembly is unloading and clearing the weapon.
I remember when these came into the States. I just couldn't get over the safety, the pistol overall left me "Meh," and the fact that I was restricted to 10 round "Clinton Clips" without even a compatible Pre-Ban option meant I didn't seriously consider it.
I've always wished these were good. They're just so cool looking. I guess if one wants a sci-fi looking pistol that is actually worth a darn we're limited to the Beretta 9000.
You forgot to mention the military contract to the Armed Forces of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. These were used extensively during the Second Cylon War, and the following exodus. So say we all!
I take drop safety very seriously. How else am I supposed to safely throw my loaded handguns down flights of stairs? I mean, this gun probably couldn't even be run through the laundry like normal without being unsafe. Completely unacceptable!
South Africa produced them with standard magazines holding 12/13 rounds. But had to manufacture 10 round magazines to import them to the Land of the free? Lol
I saw this gun mid 90s in a gun catalogue and found the design absolutely gorgeous. Now that i see this one again i must say: The CP-1 still looks like a timeless beauty. Thank you Ian!
Designing the safety so you have to put your finger inside the trigger guard does make sense given one of the main rules of gun safety: keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you're ready to fire. If it's right there and you're following that rule, you're only taking the safety off when you're ready to fire.
Well it is kind of a silly thing to get upset about when you consider that the USA issued MILLIONS of M1 Garands and M14s with a safety that worked exactly the same way, and it neither ever developed a reputation as prone to accidental discharge. It is as you've said an extremely sensible and practical way to make a safety.
Worth noting in addition to the SP-1, Lyttelton had extensive experience modifying and upgrading the Galil into the R4/R5/R6 series of rifles with significant improvements, as well as creating the SS-77 GPMG series of machine guns, so they had significant small arms engineering experience even if not with the specific type of handgun they were trying to create.
Hi, thank you for your very good videos. But I guess the proofmarks on the redisign are German proof marks from the Munich proof center. Showing a eagle with N for normal test a Bavarian crest for Munich and a crest with a number showing the year it was done. It is interesting how guns are going around the world. Keep on with your exelent videos.
I am an older person but what's most relevant - a student of history. Always been interested in the way things got before advancements. That said it's hard for me to conceive of anyone not comprehending life before CAD.
WHY do some think it’s such a crazy thing to have the safety in the trigger guard?? Makes a lot of sense in that you don’t take the safety off until you are going to pull the trigger. Just as modern training is to keep your finger pointed and off the trigger until you need to fire. If you have stuck your finger into the guard and need to pull the trigger it’s only logical to have the safety right there so in a rush you forget to thumb a side mounted safety.
I have 5 vektors. All great guns. Only issue was that the upgrade killed the trigger pull. The other vektors are sp1 sp2 generals model sp1 sp1 sport and this cp1
I call these space guns, shooting these were horrible, the trigger pull felt like the trigger was going to break. Too much force required, also it was hard to master the trigger break and reset. The recoil was too much, follow up shots grouped 4/5 inches apart. Magazine butt was weak, if you dropped a loaded mag by mistake, all you bullets went hiding in the ground and the plastic broke. The gas blow back in your face was very noticeable. The safety on the front trigger got a lot of dust and became difficult to disengage with trigger finger. Easy to get stove pipe due to high recoil. All in all a unique gun to collect, but not recommended for personal defense.
I've never fired one but I've handled one and my impression was something best used plinking, shooting up old refrigerators and breaking bottles at the local landfill. I see all these references to the P7 as if the CP-1 has anything in common with it other than the delayed blowback design. I've owned several P7s and fired them extensively. Believe me, comparing the CP-1 to the P7 is like saying a Yugo is similar to a Porche because both have four wheels. Given that the CP-1 has a fixed barrel like the P7 it absolutely blows my mind that the pistol still shoots like absolute kaakaa while the P7 is probably one of the two or three most accurate police/military semiautos in the history of the world. Likewise in the trigger. How do you make a simple hammer-fired single action have such an atrocious trigger as the CP-1? While the P7 trigger is a glass-break clean and crisp 4 pounds or so. Honestly, unless people specifically want to make the CP-1 look terrible it's best not to compare the two at all.
I have a blank fire, civilian version of the CP1 and its pretty amazing how closely it resembles the real thing. The trigger is totally different, being more of a Beretta 92 style, and the hammer is exposed rather than being covered by a cap, but other than that its all there- It even disassembles similar to the live gun, except you pull the safety out rather than pushing it in.
2:56 true story, I was in highschool taking drafting when this was designed. we were forced to use pencile and paper, but I was the only person that understood how to operate the CAD classes comptuers so I was constantly pulled away from my work to help them... and no, the teacher didn't give me any extra credit for it. I almost failed because he was too stupid to run the CAD class. I also had a chance to buy one of these... IDK if I made the right call or not to skip this
One of my few approved books I got sent in my time at Parris Island was a world military weapons book and I was fascinated by the sleek looks of the Vektor guns. I often think the Beretta Storm series was like them acknowledging those same Vektor guns.
The complaint that you have to put your finger in the trigger guard to disengage the safety is silly. Your finger has to be in the trigger guard to shoot the thing, and if you are not going to shoot your finger shouldn't be in the triggerguard, and the gun probably should be on safe. So, when exactly is it "unsafe" to disengage the safety with your trigger finger?
That kind of safety worked pretty well with M1 Garand, M14 and BM59. The only real downside of the one of the Vektor in respect to that of those rifles is that those automatically warned the shooter of them being engaged (since the lever was very close to the trigger) while the Vektor one doesn't, but that's in common with any pistol safety out there.
I just love how futuristic and neat all these South Africa guns look. All of them don't seem great to actually use (if they work at all) and seem doomed to failure but hey. If you're going to fail at least look good doing it.
@@rdrrr I know. The chrome plated version is the baddest looking pistol ever produced. Apparently someone reintroduced a version with a polymer frame in 2017…. just not the same
I have it on good authority that the Vektor CP-1 was actually stolen from Venture industries. Originally it was the Gargantua 1 or GT-1 built by Jonas Venture along with his space station. All Vektor did was change the "V".
If they had designed the endcap with posts on either side of the hammer with accompanying screw mounts on the slide, and a long, small hex socket screw, like 2mm, to fasten the cap to the slide, and clearance between the cap and hammer, they probably could have eliminated the dropping issue.
Cool pistol. I like the idea of an affordable gas-delayed recoil gun. Too bad it turned into an object lesson as to how a drop safety problem can kill a design in the US market. SIG should have taken notes.
CAD actually existed well before the 90s. Any welder who's needed to make an interestingly-shaped repair panel will tell you that Cardboard Aided Design is fundamental to that process.
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The Vektor CP-1 was used prominently in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. They had white polymer frames and stainless steel slides. One was used by a Peacekeeper to execute an old man in District 11 and another was used by a Peacekeeper officer to threaten the protagonists in District 12. Other guns in this film with white polymer furniture were the FN F2000 and FN P90.
They were just painted
The FN F2000 is one of the weirdest guns I've ever had the pleasure to try. The recoil on full auto is so weird, it literally pushes the barrel down and that takes some getting used to. The P90 is a surprisingly reliable weapon in my experience (which is, admittedly, not vast with that particular gun), however it is way too small for me to use.
I like the G3 (or rather the version I used to carry, the AK4), it's a reasonable sized gun for me.
@michaelmay5453 That's interesting about the F2000. Did you find that once you got used to it, it was more controllable firing in full auto because of that feature?
@@kutter_ttl6786 I didn't spend enough time with it to get used to it. I probably could have though, it's a lot easier to keep it stable by just locking up your muscles than to try to pull it down (which just doesn't work at all).
I'm not the guy you should ask on this though, all guns like those are awkward for me, I'm 7'1 so a 1911 or a P226 (which still is my absolute favourite hand gun) are great little firearms I can carry on my ankle. ;)
The Vector was also used prominently in the RDM version of Battlestar Galactica. The presidential security force were armed with the CP-1 to distinguish them from the Colonial military who were armed with FN Five Sevens and revolvers mocked up to look like futuristic sidearms. During the first season the military actors used FN P90s, but switched to the Beretta CX Storm for the rest of the series because of it's prominent use in Stargate SG1. They also switched the revolver mock up to the Five Seven in season 2 because they were difficult to reload due to the shell on the base gun. The production had purchased a mountain for 5.7 blank ammo for the P90s, and ended up using it all for the new sidearm. I think RDM said they had enough to last for the whole series after the switch.
Im a South African. This pistol is still used in small numbers by security firms in South Africa. The drop safety is the least of issues. These guns are known for hammer spring and firing pin breakages. It does not have a conventional coil hammer spring because of the compact design. Parts are not available any more for this gun and most of the times those have to be made up.
Not a bad pistol but needed more development
A matter of fact (that very few folks know of) Nobleteq in Centurion bought all Vector's spares and last I heard, they still have spares for the CP1.
No its a bad pistol,what u described is a bad pistol
You must be smoking crack or PCP or something man. 😂 @@heiliger_sturm
The CP-1 did achieve a measure of popularity on the civilian market in the Twelve Colonies.
Is that a Battlestar reference?
@@dakchang63 So say we all.
When I was 12 or so I remember visiting my grandparents and finding my grandfathers gun bible reference book and stumbling upon the Vektor CP-1. Maybe because it looks like something out of a sci-fi book but I wanted one so so bad as a kid. Thanks for reminding me Ian.
The last time I saw a photo of this pistol, I was 14 in 2020 and my father (an ex-police officer in South Africa) still lived. I showed this pistol to my father and asked if he ever saw this pistol and he told me that he knew a lot of detectives that used these pistols. I can't remember if it was a good pistol or not, but my father loved the video on the Vektor R4-6.
Sorry you lost him.
This is screaming for an Elbonian Police force contract
Yo, Ian. Maybe you wanna check the Voevodin pistol.
Is a WW2 design and the 2nd version has a dual stack magazine.
18 cartridges is a little wild for that time.
Lots of security personal in South Africa still carry the CP1; I did for a few years as well. It had quite a few detractors who claimed the accuracy was terrible and cartridges failed to eject resulting on stove pipes. I found if you stuck to the right ammo (114g) and cleaned the weapon it fired reliably. As for accuracy, having used it in anger on more than one occasion thanks to security work in SA, it was as good as any other weapon considering most contacts were within short ranges; if you used the CP1 as a backup personal protection weapon, it worked exactly as advertised. I am one of those who elected to keep the firearm when the recall was announced and I've never regretted that decision.
As an HK P7 owner, I can understand why you don’t regret that decision. Thank you for sharing.
@@brainkill7034 I get that one aspect of the Vektor pistol was copied from the P7, but speaking as a person who has owned several P7s and absolutely loved every single one of them I do have to point out that aside from the delayed blowback system and fixed barrel the CP-1 is a million miles away from the P7 in every way. From reports, the accuracy of the CP-1 was average at best when compared to other duty-type semiauto firearms. The P7, however is the only handgun I ever owned that rivals the SIG 220 in .45 for the most accurate military/police type sidearm I've personally ever run through the range. I've owned several of both and in fact ended out my career in law enforcement carrying a 220 in .45 as my duty sidearm and a P7 (the original, not the later M8/13) most of the time off duty. Why those two weapons?
Because everyone knows,, don't you, that it's marksmanship that wins gunfights, not mag capacity or bullet design. Right? For my hand and abilities they were by far the most accurate handguns I'd ever fired that were suitable for law enforcement carry. When my department finally allowed us to carry personally-owned weapons (of the proper kind) as duty weapons, I simply opened my safe and started shooting my own weapons, and borrowing many others to test. I picked the weapons I could shoot the best, and here I'm not talking about bullseye shooting, but rather running the department's rather tough qualification course as well as our tactical team's grueling and more extensive regimen. With both of those weapons, and particularly with the P7 I'd be confident taking head shots on hostage takers all day long out to around thirty yards.
By contrast I've handled but not fired a CP-1. This was the later surplus import of original design and not the one made specifically for export to the USA. Quality-wise it struck me as something like a cheap Stallard Arms piece with a case of Glock envy. The trigger, as noted, was atrocious. While it might have been roughly adequate for close-range work I could tell you that just from the way the thing rattled when I shook it that it wasn't even from the same planet as a P7. There's no way it's ever going to do what a P7 can do. The CP-1 shares only two features with P7, and aside from that comparison is pointless.
I'm not saying the P7 was the be-all, end all either. For someone dedicated and disciplined enough to learn and heavily practice the P7's unusual manual of arms, yes it' a thoroughbred in class of its own as a carry weapon. For someone who picked one up at a gun show and treated it like it was just another Glock or SIG, and didn't put in the necessary training, that's begging for an accidental discharge at times of high stress and fast movement. But all that's beyond the scope of comments on this particular video.
Oh is the city being located in South Africa the reason why District 9 MNU personnel also seem to use very similar guns? I just looked it up and they are also from Vektor. I did not realize it was a South African thing. I thought they just chose them because they looked cool.
I recently bought a brand new one here in South Africa for around $260. Shoots great. I like it for the historical provenance. They are available in 9mmK as well.
I want one, you lucky duck!
Sweet man. Looks well built and robust internally.
Where from exactly?
@@rudifokkens4889check your local shops. I've seen quite a few available brand new.
Ian is not just the best firearms youtuber, he's one of the best youtubers full stop. I'm not a gun owner, I live in a place where gun ownership is illegal, and I have no particular interest in owning guns. What I love is highly nuanced expertise, people passionate about very specific things, and Ian is one of the best examples of that. If Ian's chosen field of expertise was historically overlooked pencils, I'd still watch every minute of his work.
i think that's the best part of youtube, i get to see people just be passionate about things i'm not passionate about and therefore learn about other people. I think that's very neat.
this is the attitude of someone with no genuine interests or identity to them at all, a very grey human
@@neo-filthyfrank1347 The term you're looking for is NPC
@@DigitalApex Many tiny interests, but none is king. No true goals to speak of, no crowning desires or ambitions. No fulfillment. Very uninspirational.
The design was weird because MNU (the REAL maker of this firearm, as was revealed to me in a dream) was still getting the hang of some... quirky technologies. Apparently the redesign is coming out in three years.
@@warwickben YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN SUSPENDED
District 10, yeah buddy! TWU/TMDWU/MNU
"Christopher's revenge: This time is personal"...
@@randomwarehouse4702 Um ok then lol
We want a "Whitney Wolverine" for the millennium😊 We'll put an 03 Colt hammer system on it. Cause nobody alive today will know, it's a copy! Ian says wait a minute...I being an owner of the Colt .32 recognized it right away also. Prone to broken firing pin's? My .32's was broken when I bought it for $50. It still has the one I made for it, from a drill bit!😂
I absolutely love these things - they're the rare example of the Y2K Aesthetic applied to firearms - I'd rank the Tactical Tuna, the F2000, as a Y2K design as well. And the CR1, of course.
Also, that logo - GO TEAM VENT- er, VEKTOR!
They all have that SEGA console aesthetic about them.
@@jimmyrustler8983 They're a great example of CAD bein' a thing all of a sudden in 90s.
(Any great example is any number of graphic design items with text - magazine covers and layouts and print ads - that use like six different typefaces...because change typefaces now simply involve clicking a button with your mouse.)
CR-21, not the "CR1".
@@paleoph6168 Aye. Whoops.
Dean! Hank! Let’s go your fathers in renal failure again. 😅
I believe these are the Peacekeepers’ sidearms in The Hunger Games movies. You get a pretty good look at one in the second movie.
Dysfunctional governments apparently love their guards being equipped with malfunction prone weaponry
pretty disappointing that, after all the energy spent in designing, the Police did chose a copy of the Astra A-75 weighting 1 kg.
Sheeesh. Lol. Astra is decent manufacturer. Heavy as heck.
From all the forgotten weapons, the CP-1 should be forgotten the most
This is a pistol that I've desperately wanted to add to my collection, fixed version or not. They used to be had pretty cheap, and now they're very hard to come by.
They used CP1's as props in the Battlestar Galactica reboot from a few years back. Always thought that was cool.
I owned one of these, and it was cool, effective, and reasonably accurate. I wish I still had it, but the recall came and to be honest, I needed the money. I have always liked the quirky and neat.
Thanks to Guns.com for sponsoring this video! If you are a veteran or first responder, make sure to use their ID.me program and if you have a gun you'd like to sell, try them out at www.guns.com/we-buy-guns .
Hey Ian
This gun kind looks like VP70
Ian, can you make a video of South Africa's ADP MKII pistol?
My mag housed 14 instead of 13 😅. Awesome firearm but extremely fussy with regards to ammunition even fmj, youd have failure to feed, cycling issues where the slide would jam and needed a solid smack with the web of your hand to rack the slide. Reloads were a total NO GO in them, PMP and black talon ammunition worked without a glitch, unfortunately I had to donate my CP1 to van A.A shopper. My younger brother managed to purchase a brand new CP1 10 years ago, which has now been given 'safe queen' status till my son decides that he wants to take it as his first firearm in keeping with tradition.
As cool as the idea of supporting service members and first responders I don't think a centralized ID system should be able to br willy nilly accessed by entities.
It sounds like a big data breach waiting to happen which is almost a precedent
They also gave the “Peace keepers” the storm troopers of the hunger game universe this handgun as their handgun load out.
Back when we still had a Kettner store, I would drop by occasionally. I did miss the day the Persian Mausers came in by the whole crate and sold for a song, but I digress. That day they had the Vector in, brand new. This gun screamed "I'm the future !"
Then it was all quiet, never heard from it until later I kept hearing two words "Vector and malfunction"
The design of the CR-1 and CP-1 is really up there with the pinnacle of how the 1980s and 1990s saw the technologoy of the FUTURE YEAR of 2000. All-polymer body designs with sleek aerodynamic curves to match the modern cars coming out at the same time period.
Hell, just the fact Vektor spells their company name with a "K" instead of a "C" is extremely 90s.
It was too radical a time to be sustainable.
It's interesting how the design world moved from angular plastic in the 1980s to flowing, curvy plastic in the 1990s. I often wonder if there was some advance in moulding technology or computer design in the late 1980s that made it practical. But the same thing happened with cars - the Sierra and Taurus etc. I remember there was a Raleigh BMX bike in the mid-eighties called the Vektar that had a plastic shell, but it was angular in a typical 80s style.
Vektor is the Afrikaans spelling of Vector, nothing fancy there.
Any more 90s and it would be called the "Vektor X-TREEM"
I’m just imagining the designers back then snorting coke and listening to Def Leppard while making this.
Love the South African guns.
Thank you Ian for making these!
'Imagine if someone ran into you and you could sue the auto manufacturer.' WELP
Self-driving is definitely going to put this option on the books.
@@andrewsuryali8540 The lawyers have long headed that one off at the pass, my dude...
@@TheCrusher72 Yes, but only for the time being. When the financial benefits of suing the automakers start exceeding what the automakers can pay to defend themselves, the lawyers will make a rapid u-turn and smash into the automakers at dragracer speeds.
@@andrewsuryali8540 that hasn’t really happened in the 150 years that cars have been made, though …
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the resemblance to the HK VP70 yet. Different operating system, but very similar form, both early polymer frame production pistols.
That is whet I thought as well.
A very solidly futuristic and cool-looking gun indeed.
Probably unpopular opinion I think it looks like a toy.
@@Rando_Shyte
You can carry it in plain sight then, and nobody is going to be alarmed. On the other hand, you cannot threaten someone with it.
Ugh. I think the CP-1 looks more like a prop for a Batman movie. Or a Nerf toy gun. But then I think the original Glock is a work of sublime beauty. I've used handguns in genuine combat. Pretty is as pretty does.
When even a South African pistol with a nasty recall was a better attempt at a polymer automatic than anything Smith & Wesson was making at the time.
It's no accident that S&W's first attempt at a polymer duty weapon, the Smegma -- um 'scuse me, I meant the Sigma -- was a blatant, shameless ripoff of the Glock in almost every way except in reliability. And accuracy. And durability. Even then S&W could see their decades-long stranglehold on the USA police market starting to crumble. I still don't think they've made a truly original polymer-framed ANYTHING that didn't "borrow" heavily from other successful designs. If you can't beat 'em, steal 'em.
I really like the safety on this one, i think they were really on to something there.
I grew up in South Africa and know some folks who bought these. I remember the weird safety was something a lot of people made a fuss about at the time.
CAD was alive and well in the late 1970's. Heck, when i was in college in '85 we had a whole lab of mainframe powered CAD stations, where people were trained to eventually get a job at one of the big automobile manufacturers (who provided the computer and CAD stations). I found out, from the people running that lab, that they had had that equipment installed in '79. So you can figure that CAD system had to be several years old, and established tech before one of the big three automakers to gift a college 8 CAD stations and the mainframe computer to run them.
So yeah, CAD was not new tech in the 90's. Heck, i worked at a computer store, and we were moving autocad for the PC in '86
I think the 92 series (1976) had been the first CAD designed gun at Beretta.
@@neutronalchemist3241 Would not surprise me one bit. Today, everything is designed on computers, and then handed off to the CAM systems.
Which is good and bad, IMHO. I think that machines are great for dealing with the minutia, but for real innovation, you need a human in the loop.
I mean, computers are the very definition of "thinking inside of the box." And that is good, if you want repeatable calculations, but bad for innovation.
5:45 it's pretty interesting that a company with a logo straight out of a Bone movie and a name like Vektor with a K would be designing a pistol inspired mechanically by the pistols James Bond is known to use and made to look as futuristic as possible.
The 90s were a golden age.
As noted in an earlier comment the spelling of Vektor is just the Afrikaans way of spelling it and not an advertising gimmick.
I guess the main issue with the early firing pin block is that it is disengaged by the hammer. So if the hammer drops for any reason the firing pin block does not do anything to prevent firing. New pattern firing pin block is independent of the hammer so I would consider that much more effective as a safety feature. Then again I'm not really sure how much practical difference there is in the end.
Next video: Ian gets a look at a plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.
Well, he already did a railgun.
Edit: sorry, coilgun!
Further discussion: Is the T-800 a Fudd for wielding a Winchester 1887 and a 1911 in Judgement Day?
Having rounded, snag-free edges on a small, concealable pistol makes a lot of practical sense too.
Yep very useful for civilian concealed carry!
I watched the bug match on Playuer/Utreon.
It's a shame, Vector hadn't had the best luck with all of its models but it apparently did a good job here and the more fixed barrel pistols the better.
Looks like a glue gun...
of course he's got another one hidden under the table, the miracles just never end.
The multiplication of the sidearms miracle - circa 2023
Val Kilmer’s character Perry carried one in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Robert Downey Jr’s character threw it in a lake
Battlestar Galactica fans rejoice!
This gun would be a good laser blaster model
Every time I see a South African flag, it’s either going to be the most legendary firearm to never be put into production or something weird
Owned one. The barrel also had a smoothed square type of rifling which I haven't seen on other pistols.
Yes, I owned one too and always thought the rifling was odd.
Thanks again from SA. Love seeing our guns on your show. I almost bought one myself, we could get it very cheap through the security company I was working for at the time.
Lot more nuance to this story than I knew. Thanks Ian!!
Sadly, Vektor disappeared from the holding company, Denel's structure many years ago. The flood of Turkish pistols such as Canik and Sarsilmaz, also of course Glock and Taurus, would probably make handgun production in SA no longer economically viable. Vektor's successor, Denel Land Systems no longer makes infantry rifles, only the Mini SS and SS77 machine guns and 20mm anti-material rifles. PMP made an excellent 115gr 9mmP JHP, but their products have disappeared from dealers' shelves.
Unfortunately a corrupt govt has plundered the once thriving defence industry including PMP😢
My opinion on the regime's incompetence and criminal corruption would be unprintable.@@vvr881
I love the way this pistol looks. If it were ever to be remade, I'd definitely buy one.
Great review 👍👍
Looks like a Taurus Spectrum. Great video. The Vektor CP-1 was the first gun I saw offered in green, definitely appeared futuristic.
Seems like a pretty slick little design. Very simple with a couple actually pretty clever little elements, which I always prefer over space-age-advanced. Just seems like it needed a little more time in the oven, and like the timing was off.
The gripe about having to put your finger in the trigger guard to disengage the safety is borderline idiotic. If you're disengaging the safety, it should ONLY be in preparation to fire the weapon, unless there's some reason the safety needs to be off for disassembly (which is the exact opposite of the Vektor's system anyway) and even then, the first step in disassembly is unloading and clearing the weapon.
I remember when these came into the States. I just couldn't get over the safety, the pistol overall left me "Meh," and the fact that I was restricted to 10 round "Clinton Clips" without even a compatible Pre-Ban option meant I didn't seriously consider it.
I swear you did this pistol 10 years ago
I've always wished these were good. They're just so cool looking. I guess if one wants a sci-fi looking pistol that is actually worth a darn we're limited to the Beretta 9000.
You forgot to mention the military contract to the Armed Forces of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. These were used extensively during the Second Cylon War, and the following exodus. So say we all!
I take drop safety very seriously. How else am I supposed to safely throw my loaded handguns down flights of stairs? I mean, this gun probably couldn't even be run through the laundry like normal without being unsafe. Completely unacceptable!
South Africa produced them with standard magazines holding 12/13 rounds. But had to manufacture 10 round magazines to import them to the Land of the free? Lol
I saw this gun mid 90s in a gun catalogue and found the design absolutely gorgeous.
Now that i see this one again i must say: The CP-1 still looks like a timeless beauty.
Thank you Ian!
That's pretty compact for a 13 round 9mm
Shame about the hollow points though
Designing the safety so you have to put your finger inside the trigger guard does make sense given one of the main rules of gun safety: keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you're ready to fire. If it's right there and you're following that rule, you're only taking the safety off when you're ready to fire.
Yes exactly.
Well it is kind of a silly thing to get upset about when you consider that the USA issued MILLIONS of M1 Garands and M14s with a safety that worked exactly the same way, and it neither ever developed a reputation as prone to accidental discharge. It is as you've said an extremely sensible and practical way to make a safety.
I would be really tempted to draw a batman face on the hammer shroud. The rear sight makes the ears. Like a Pez dispenser, but, y'know, different.
Worth noting in addition to the SP-1, Lyttelton had extensive experience modifying and upgrading the Galil into the R4/R5/R6 series of rifles with significant improvements, as well as creating the SS-77 GPMG series of machine guns, so they had significant small arms engineering experience even if not with the specific type of handgun they were trying to create.
Even if South African guns aren't always the best, they damn sure look the best.
Hopefully you can do the Vektor R4 if you haven’t already. All the way from the Republic🇿🇦✋🏿
It's funny that you bring up the "suing the car manufacturer" because that is exactly one of the current big issues around self-driving cars.
"Whether that's of course a cool new gun, or something else perhaps more responsible." :) :D
Hi, thank you for your very good videos. But I guess the proofmarks on the redisign are German proof marks from the Munich proof center. Showing a eagle with N for normal test a Bavarian crest for Munich and a crest with a number showing the year it was done. It is interesting how guns are going around the world. Keep on with your exelent videos.
I am an older person but what's most relevant - a student of history. Always been interested in the way things got before advancements. That said it's hard for me to conceive of anyone not comprehending life before CAD.
"If you're a shooter, then maybe get the earlier one. Just be sure not to drop it" I love Ian's subtle humour. 😂
Its real battle testing came in sci-fi. Battlestar galactica along side early 5.7s
WHY do some think it’s such a crazy thing to have the safety in the trigger guard?? Makes a lot of sense in that you don’t take the safety off until you are going to pull the trigger. Just as modern training is to keep your finger pointed and off the trigger until you need to fire. If you have stuck your finger into the guard and need to pull the trigger it’s only logical to have the safety right there so in a rush you forget to thumb a side mounted safety.
Did anybody clean it 🤔 It has come with South African dirt also!😂
I have 5 vektors. All great guns. Only issue was that the upgrade killed the trigger pull. The other vektors are sp1 sp2 generals model sp1 sp1 sport and this cp1
ALMOST bought one of these 22 years ago. Kinda sad I didn’t
I call these space guns, shooting these were horrible, the trigger pull felt like the trigger was going to break. Too much force required, also it was hard to master the trigger break and reset. The recoil was too much, follow up shots grouped 4/5 inches apart. Magazine butt was weak, if you dropped a loaded mag by mistake, all you bullets went hiding in the ground and the plastic broke. The gas blow back in your face was very noticeable. The safety on the front trigger got a lot of dust and became difficult to disengage with trigger finger. Easy to get stove pipe due to high recoil. All in all a unique gun to collect, but not recommended for personal defense.
I've never fired one but I've handled one and my impression was something best used plinking, shooting up old refrigerators and breaking bottles at the local landfill. I see all these references to the P7 as if the CP-1 has anything in common with it other than the delayed blowback design. I've owned several P7s and fired them extensively. Believe me, comparing the CP-1 to the P7 is like saying a Yugo is similar to a Porche because both have four wheels. Given that the CP-1 has a fixed barrel like the P7 it absolutely blows my mind that the pistol still shoots like absolute kaakaa while the P7 is probably one of the two or three most accurate police/military semiautos in the history of the world. Likewise in the trigger. How do you make a simple hammer-fired single action have such an atrocious trigger as the CP-1? While the P7 trigger is a glass-break clean and crisp 4 pounds or so.
Honestly, unless people specifically want to make the CP-1 look terrible it's best not to compare the two at all.
I have a blank fire, civilian version of the CP1 and its pretty amazing how closely it resembles the real thing. The trigger is totally different, being more of a Beretta 92 style, and the hammer is exposed rather than being covered by a cap, but other than that its all there- It even disassembles similar to the live gun, except you pull the safety out rather than pushing it in.
Reminds me of a modern hk vp-7
2:56 true story, I was in highschool taking drafting when this was designed. we were forced to use pencile and paper, but I was the only person that understood how to operate the CAD classes comptuers so I was constantly pulled away from my work to help them... and no, the teacher didn't give me any extra credit for it. I almost failed because he was too stupid to run the CAD class.
I also had a chance to buy one of these... IDK if I made the right call or not to skip this
It looks a bit like the Whitney wolverine.
That's a cool pistol, I would love to get one.
"whats our vector Victor?"
It looks like The Venture Brothers logo to me.
Go team Venture! ✌️
One of my few approved books I got sent in my time at Parris Island was a world military weapons book and I was fascinated by the sleek looks of the Vektor guns. I often think the Beretta Storm series was like them acknowledging those same Vektor guns.
Approved book at the island? Never heard of that
Ian! That pistol is FILTHY!!!
Let's get one thing straight, there's nothing "more responsible" than buying a new gun!
When I was younger I always thought that this was the pistol from Resident Evil... Until I saw a Video about the HK VP...
Nicer firearm than I expected. Good design.
The complaint that you have to put your finger in the trigger guard to disengage the safety is silly. Your finger has to be in the trigger guard to shoot the thing, and if you are not going to shoot your finger shouldn't be in the triggerguard, and the gun probably should be on safe. So, when exactly is it "unsafe" to disengage the safety with your trigger finger?
That kind of safety worked pretty well with M1 Garand, M14 and BM59.
The only real downside of the one of the Vektor in respect to that of those rifles is that those automatically warned the shooter of them being engaged (since the lever was very close to the trigger) while the Vektor one doesn't, but that's in common with any pistol safety out there.
Go Team Venture ✌🤣🤣
I just love how futuristic and neat all these South Africa guns look. All of them don't seem great to actually use (if they work at all) and seem doomed to failure but hey. If you're going to fail at least look good doing it.
Ever see a Whitney Wolverine? Most futuristic looking pistol ever. I want one bad
@@rdrrr I know. The chrome plated version is the baddest looking pistol ever produced. Apparently someone reintroduced a version with a polymer frame in 2017…. just not the same
I have it on good authority that the Vektor CP-1 was actually stolen from Venture industries. Originally it was the Gargantua 1 or GT-1 built by Jonas Venture along with his space station. All Vektor did was change the "V".
Looks very similar to the Ruger LC9s/EC9
Russia has a pistol with the same name SR-1 Vektor
Looks just like the Seburo M5 from Masamune Shirows mangas
Back in the day I thought about getting one of these. Glad I chose to stay with my S&W mod 28-2 with a 4" barrel for the time we had left in the UK.
Given the way it uses the safety to take off the slide, would this not make for the perfect Jet Li manoeuvre victim?
If they had designed the endcap with posts on either side of the hammer with accompanying screw mounts on the slide, and a long, small hex socket screw, like 2mm, to fasten the cap to the slide, and clearance between the cap and hammer, they probably could have eliminated the dropping issue.
Cool pistol. I like the idea of an affordable gas-delayed recoil gun. Too bad it turned into an object lesson as to how a drop safety problem can kill a design in the US market. SIG should have taken notes.
The gun has german proofmarks too! 😊
CAD actually existed well before the 90s. Any welder who's needed to make an interestingly-shaped repair panel will tell you that Cardboard Aided Design is fundamental to that process.
Beretta Cx4 storm, fn57, and the vektor cp-1 are all used as futuristic weapons in Battlestar Galactica 😅