Makarov pistol

Shortly after the Second World War, the Soviet Union reactivated its plans to replace the TT pistols and Nagant M1895 revolvers. The adoption of the future AK assault rifle relegated the pistol to a light, handy self-defense weapon. The TT was unsuited for such a role, as it was heavy and bulky. Also, the Tokarev pistols omitted a safety and magazines were deemed too easy to lose. As a result, in December 1945, two separate contests for a new service pistol were created, respectively for a 7.62mm and 9mm pistol. It was later judged that the new 9.2×18mm cartridge, designed by B. V. Semin, was the best round suited for the intended role. The lower pressures of the cartridge allowed practical straight blowback operation (reducing the cost and complexity of the weapon), while retaining low recoil and good stopping power.

Several engineers took part in the contest, including Korovin, Baryshev, Voyevodin, Simonov, Rakov, Klimov, Lobanov, Sevryugin, and Makarov. Special emphasis was placed on safety, user-friendliness, accuracy, weight, and dimensions. After stringent handling, reliability, and other tests, Makarov's design, influenced by the German Walther PP,^[6][7] stood out from the others through its sheer simplicity, excellent reliability, quick disassembly, and robustness. During April 1948, Makarov's pistol experienced 20 times fewer malfunctions than the competing Baryshev and Sevryugin counterparts, and had fewer parts. The pistol was therefore selected in 1949 for further development and optimization for mass production. Tooling was set up in the Izhevsk plant for production. After many significant design changes and tweaks, the gun was formally adopted as the "9mm Pistolet Makarova", or "PM" in December 1951.

As the new standard issue sidearm of the USSR, the PM was issued to non-commissioned officers, police, special forces, and tank and air crews. It remained in wide front-line service with Soviet military and police until and beyond the end of the USSR in 1991. Variants of the pistol remain in production in Russia, China, and Bulgaria. In the U.S., surplus Soviet and East German military Makarovs are listed as eligible curio and relic items by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, because the countries of manufacture, the USSR and the GDR, no longer exist.^[8]

In 2003, the Makarov PM was formally replaced by the

Although various pistols had been introduced in Russian service to replace the Makarov, none have been able to entirely supplant it; the MP-443 Grach/PYa is technically the Russian military's standard sidearm but suffers from quality control and reliability issues. In September 2019, Rostec announced its Udav pistol went into mass production as the Makarov replacement. The Udav fires 9×21mm Gyurza rounds which are claimed to pierce 1.4 mm of titanium or 4 mm of steel at a 100 meters.^{[11][12][13][14]}

Design

The PM is a medium-size, straight-blowback-action, all-steel construction, frame-fixed barrel handgun. In blowback designs, the only force holding the slide closed is that of the recoil spring; upon firing, the barrel and slide do not have to unlock, as do locked-breech-design pistols. Blowback designs are simple and more accurate than designs using a recoiling, tilting, or articulated barrel, but they are limited practically by the weight of the slide. The 9×18mm cartridge is a practical cartridge in blowback-operated pistols; producing a respectable level of energy from a gun of moderate weight and size. The PM is heavy for its size by modern US commercial handgun standards, largely because in a blowback pistol, the heavy slide provides greater inertia to delay opening of the breech until internal pressures have fallen to a safe level. Other, more powerful cartridges have been used in blowback pistol designs, but the Makarov is widely regarded as particularly well balanced in its design elements.^[15]

The general layout and field-strip procedure of the Makarov pistol is similar to that of the PP.^[15] However, designer N. Makarov and his team drastically simplified the construction of the pistol, improving reliability and reducing the part count to 27, not including the magazine. This allowed considerable ease of manufacture and servicing. All of the individual parts of the PM have been optimised for mass production, robustness and interchangeability, partially thanks to captured German tooling, technology, and machinery.

The chrome-lined, four-groove, 9.27mm caliber barrel is pressed and pinned to the frame through a precision-machined ring. The 7 kg recoil spring wraps around and is guided by the barrel. The spring-loaded trigger guard is pivoted down and swung to either side on the frame, allowing removal of the slide. The front sight is integrally machined into the slide, and a 3–4 mm wide textured strip is engraved on top of the slide in order to prevent aim-disturbing glare. The rear sight is dovetailed into the slide and multiple heights are available to adjust the impact point. The extractor is of an external spring-loaded type, and features a prominent flange preventing loss if a case should rupture. The breech face is deeply recessed in order to aid in extraction and ejection reliability. The stamped sheet steel slide-lock lever has a tail serving the purpose of ejector. The one-piece, wraparound bakelite or plastic grip is reinforced with steel inserts and has a detent inside the screw bushing preventing unscrewing during firing. The sheet-metal mainspring housed inside the grip panel powers the hammer in both the main and rebound stroke, the trigger and the disconnector, while its lower end is the heel and spring of the magazine catch. The sear spring also serves another function, powering the slide lock lever. Makarov pistol parts seldom break with normal usage, and are easily serviced using few tools.^[15]

The PM has a free-floating triangular

The Makarov pistol was manufactured in several communist countries during the Cold War and afterwards; apart from the USSR itself, they were East Germany, Bulgaria, China, and post-reunification Germany, which also found itself with several thousand ex-GDR Makarov pistols.

The most widely known variant, the PMM (Pistolet Makarova Modernizirovannyy or Modernised Makarov pistol), was a redesign of the original gun. In 1990, a group of engineers reworked the original design, primarily by increasing the load for the cartridge. The result is a significant increase in

Baikal is a brand developed by Izhevsk Mechanical Plant around which a series of shotgun products were designed from 1962. After the collapse of the USSR, commercial gun manufacture was greatly expanded under the Baikal brand.

During the 1990s, Baikal marketed various Makarov-derived handguns in the United States under the IJ-70 model. Included were handguns in both standard and high-capacity frames. They were available in .380 ACP in addition to the standard 9 mm Makarov round. Some minor modifications were made to facilitate importation into the United States, including the replacement of the rear fixed sight with an adjustable sight (only these Russian models marketed abroad feature an adjustable sight). A sporting version is the Baikal-442.^[19] The importation of these commercial models into the U.S. was later further restricted with the U.S. Government's importation ban on Russian firearms.

The Baikal IZH-79-8 is a modified version of the standard Makarov pistol, with an 8 mm barrel, modified to allow it to fire gas cartridges. These guns proved popular after the fall of the USSR, and were used in Eastern Europe for personal protection. However, unlike most gas firing guns, the body is made of standard Makarov-specification steel.^{[citation needed]}

Users

•  Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan^[20]
•  Albania^[21]
•  Algeria^[22]
•  Angola^[20]
•  Armenia^[20]
•  Azerbaijan^[20]
•  Belarus^[20]
•  Bulgaria: Copy pistols were produced since 1960. Arsenal 10 produced them between 1970 and 2007. Can be recognized by means of the digit "10" enclosed within a circle stamped into the left side of the frame, straight hammer serrations, slim star grip grip panels w/star and lanyard ring.^[20]
•  Burundi: Burundian rebels^[23]
•  China: Adopted by the People's Liberation Army in 1959 as the Type 59. Produced locally with minor cosmetic differences (i.e. the width of the slide's sight rail and configuration of the safety lever). The military version was produced from 1959 to 1960 in Factory 626, and featured a characteristic shield embossed with 5 stars on the grip shell. Civilian Type 59s were produced by Norinco for the export market.^[24]
• Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
•  Cuba: Made under license.^[20]
•  Donetsk People's Republic: Used by pro-Russian militas in 2014.^[25]
•  Eritrea^[20]
•  Ethiopia^[20]
•  Georgia^[20]
•  Grenada^[26]
•  India: Used by pilots of the Indian Air Force.^[27]
•  Indonesia:^[28] Especially used by the TNI-AU officers in the 60s.^{[citation needed]}
•  Iraq^[20]
•  Kazakhstan^[20]
•  Kyrgyzstan^[20]
•  Laos^[20]
•  Libya: Copy pistols produced with parts sourced from Eastern Europe.^[29]
• Lugansk People's Republic
•  North Macedonia^[20]
•  Mali: People's Movement for the Liberation of Azawad^[30]
•  Malta^[20]
•  Moldova^[20]
•  Mongolia^[20]
•  Mozambique^[20]
•  Nicaragua^[20]
•  North Korea^[31]
•  Romania: Used by the Romanian Police
•  Russia^[32]
•  Sierra Leone: 90+ Type 59 pistols acquired from 2001^[33]
•  Somalia^[20]
•  Syria: Used by police units.^[20]
•  Tajikistan^[20]
•  Turkmenistan^[20]
•  Ukraine Used alongside the Fort 12 ^[20]
•  Uzbekistan^[20]
•  Vietnam: Made copies as the K59.^[34] Industry name known as SN9.^[35]
•  Zimbabwe: Used by the Zimbabwe National Army.^{[citation needed]}

Former users

•  East Germany: Copy pistols were produced. Known locally as "Pistole-M".^[36] Can be recognised through the plain dark grip shells, higher polish bluing, and early features (undrilled safety lever, round safety detent holes...). Special training cutaways with serial number prefix "SM" were also produced.^[37]
•  Soviet Union^[32]

See also

• 9×18mm Makarov
• Izhevsk Mechanical Plant
• List of Russian weaponry
• Makarych
• MP-448 Skyph
• Stechkin automatic pistol

References

Bibliography

• Datig, Fred A. (1988). The History and Development of Imperial and Soviet Russian Military Small Arms and Ammunition 1700–1986. Glenview, IL: Handgun Press.
  OCLC 19742826
  .
• Kokalis, Peter (2001). Weapons Tests and Evaluations: The Best of Soldier of Fortune. Boulder, Col.: Paladin Press. pp. 99–102.
  OCLC 49695650
  .
• Leroy Thompson, Soviet Pistols – Tokarev, Makarov, Stechkin and others, Weapon series 84, Osprey Publishing Ltd, Oxford 2015.
  ISBN 9781472853486

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
PM (category)

• Pistol Makarov 9 mm – Manufacturer, History, Technical Data, Classification, Handling, Ammunition, Manuals Archived 2019-01-26 at the Wayback Machine
• Makarov Pictorial
• Technical data, instructional images and diagrams of the Makarov pistol (in Russian)