Is there a polygon or vetices limit for V_models?

I found a hardKore (see the K?) mp44 model on the internet and am trying to use it for game related purposes.

65,000 + polygons.

So far i've got it down to 7318 faces and 9903 vertices

On compile it throws this error

writing d:\steam\steamapps\SourceMods\testmod\models/weapons\v_mp44.vvd:
vertices 1177296 bytes (24527 vertices)
tangents 392432 bytes (24527 vertices)
total 1569792 bytes
---------------------
Generating optimized mesh "d:\steam\steamapps\SourceMods\testmod\models/weapons\
v_mp44.sw.vtx":
ERROR: short conversion out of range 53232
ERROR: Aborted Processing on 'weapons\v_mp44.mdl'
D:\mymod>

edit: just realised it's got to be countring the hand polygons as well. Dumb de dumb!