From the history of the creation of pistols Makarov and Stechkin

Today, our country boasts a large number of modern models of pistols, differing in caliber, operating principle and other tactical and technical parameters. However, those rifle models are still of particular interest. weaponsthat have served the security forces for decades. These are the legendary “veterans” - Makarov’s pistol and Stechkin’s automatic pistol.

The Makarov system pistol (aka PM, the legendary Makar, Makarov pistol) has been widely used for many years in the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies of the Soviet Union and countries of Eastern Europe. Currently, PM is gradually replacing the modern Yarygin pistol. Nevertheless, many years of experience using the Makar in a variety of conditions showed that it still remains a formidable and well-aimed weapon in the hands of a professional.

The Stechkin or APS automatic pistol, along with the PM, is the “visiting card” of the Soviet arms industry. Despite the fact that it was adopted more than sixty years ago, this gun continues to be a favorite among special forces soldiers to this day.

How the PM and APS pistols appeared and why some myths about them are unfair, will tell military historian Andrei Ulanov, a guest of TacticMedia.

Comments

[Strashila]

Makarov and Stechkin, these are not only pistols, but also brands. which effective managers cannot use.
The fact that for 30 years they really couldn’t offer anything speaks for itself.

[major147]

I was wearing APS constantly. Once in the 90s he specifically bailed out with his own look!

[Mordvin 3]

And Makar initially had a slightly different handle. Where better. IMHO. After that I hide ...

[Vovanya]

They don’t win wars with pistols, they start them (shot in Sarajevo).

[Paul Siebert]

Hitler shot himself with "Walter PP" - the prototype of the PM.
So the pistols also put an end to the war!

[Sergey Averchenkov]

"and well-aimed weapons." Maybe I'm a really bad short-barreled shooter, but according to my feelings ... you can get into the door from a Makar from 10 meters.

[Ros 56]

Who like, and who could put a couple of bullets in the keyhole.

[Sergey Averchenkov]

Maybe so, I do not insist.

[Ingenegr]

Not really bad, but disgusting. The standard for the 1st category in exercise PB-3 is 30 shots at target N4 at a distance of 25 m - 280 points. Size "10" - 10 cm, "9" - 20 cm. Until recently, this exercise was fired exclusively from the PM, and the count of the first-class athletes went to many thousands. Thousands of people have had and have the title of Candidate Master of Sports and Master of Sports (285 and 290 points respectively) At the CS "Dynamo" competition (3 sighting shots + 10 credits), results for 90 and above points have always been the norm.

[Sergey Averchenkov]

Mass weapons should be designed for the average shooter. What do you tell me about the CCM? Although I may be much worse than the average ... but in fact with AK, SKS, any other gun, everything is fine with me. Apparently not fate.

[dgonni]

My second was makar. The first Kalash. So there you go! From my full-time staff, I never even shot at good. From the partner’s trunk elementary. Although he shot well from both his and mine.

[beeper]

Andrey Ulanov completely correctly described his story- "a short excursion into the history of Makarov and Stechkin pistols", and it is-small, and from the point of view of the IPSC arrow, and not from the engineering one!
I watched this video a long time ago, at the time of its release on YouTube, Andrei also has his own account on YouTube - "Maybe we bang?" - there, just in his fresh videos, there is a conversation about the Makarov pistol.
In principle, as a shooter, not a designer, he did not mention the design highlights of the PM (and said even less about Stechkin), as well as, in general, he did not even reveal the history of the creation of these famous Soviet pistols, so, just a little walked frivolously ... you could tell a lot of interesting things to your listeners (at least about how NF Makarov, then his young ward in the design bureau, a novice gunsmith designer I.Ya. Stechkin, was not easy to cope with " round-nosed "tumbling pistol cartridge 9x18 mm, when working out a reliable feed into the chamber of the barrel, respectively, from a single-row and double-row magazine, as it was necessary to look and find, completely unobvious, ways to solve this difficult and" tricky "technical problem - new generations are now learning from these examples Russian designers-gunsmiths!
it was necessary to draw the attention of the listeners to the self-cocking mechanism of the PM and APS trigger - both with their own "zest"! for example representatives sect of witnesses to copying "Walter" by Makarov, just like the sect of witnesses to copying Kalashnikov "Sturmgewer" Tokarev rifle "SVT", and the similar appearance of the AK assault rifle, which has gone into production, and the general concept of a "suspended heavy bolt carrier with a light bolt" are inherited, as well as the 30-round box magazine used on AK, from the Sudeevsky assault rifle AC-44 and the design precepts of the untimely deceased military engineer Alexei Ivanovich Sudaev!) " ) are mostly based on the "similar" appearance (although, in my opinion, outwardly our "Makarov" looks more like the German "Sauer", only with Walter's trigger guard-shutter lock, and not with Sauer's separate slider-lock? ), but they miss some fundamental differences in the internal structure — the Makarov samovzvod, and the USM as a whole, completely different from the Walter one in design — this is an independent development of Nikolai Fedorovich, the same with the design of the USM APS Igor Yakovlevich, which allowed to reduce, although not enough, too high a rate of automatic shooting!), if at least a little preparation for the shooting of video, but alas.

[beeper]

By the way, in Bolotin's book "Soviet Small Arms" (a lifetime edition and reprint in Soviet times!) Is also set out (partly with hints, after which I had "long-playing" questions that I was looking for, and even tried to come up with myself in the conditions of our Soviet "military secrets", reliable answers! ) the history of the creation of the PM and APS (although in the illustration to the pistol section, the prototype of the Stechkin pistol with the location of the return spring under the barrel, with a very recognizable design, in common with the serial sample of the APS, was Bolotin for some reason designated as a Voevodin pistol, but these are only copyright , Bolotinsky, costs that seem to be tiny "flowers" in comparison with, quite utterly out of the ordinary, "berries" of the posthumous, "improved and supplemented", commercial "reprint" of this famous Soviet book ).
I personally liked the story of the Makarov pistol most of all, told in one of the recent (late 90s-early XNUMXs) episodes of the "Shock Force" cycle of the NTV channel!
It was there that I heard the phrase (whoever looks at that release will certainly understand what the design "trick" was, which determined the deserved triumph of Nikolai Fedorovich Makarov and the competitive winner-author's prototype-"concept" of the future PM-the result of tremendous common labor and tireless creative search for thousands of Soviet gunsmiths -designers, technologists, production managers and ordinary workers, testers and military representatives, .... many and many caring creators of the defense industry of the USSR, who fruitfully worked on the "raw" initial sample of weapons (which embodied, while still in "uncut form ", a brilliant nugget-idea and the main technical solutions of its Author!), persistently and persistently bringing it to the state of a sparkling diamond-combat, super reliable, mastered in mass production, literally won the fading respect of its users "Pistol Makarov" as we know him now!), Which finally answered the question that interested me in all the Soviet and post-Soviet years that have passed after reading Bolotin's book and a thematic article in the Soviet magazine Military Knowledge.

[beeper]

The reliable Makarov magazine latch never limited me - the magazine got out in one motion (with your index finger you cling to the front ledge of the magazine lid and pull it out of the handle, and with a big one you press the latch and-voila, the process hardly takes a second if you work it out " to automatism "and" to speed "- of course, when the pistol grip with one hand, and the second free!), since before the PM I already had well-developed skills with such latches in the lower part of the handle (I had very little to do with TT, and not from the very beginning, so there was no habit of using the "button").
I didn’t shoot from Stechkin, but I brought it from Makarov!
I consider the PM the best Soviet pistol, due to the structurally motionless ("tightly" fixed in the frame of the pistol) barrel, conditioned cartridges of one batch of release, "Makarov" is guaranteed to get where you aim - there is no probability of accidental deflection of the bullet due to some perturbations during barrel rollback (which exists in short-travel systems).

It was necessary, during the Soviet Union, to shoot from the army and from the police (they were usually less worn out, so their descent was tighter and, according to the sensations, "rough", not as "developed" as the well-worn army models ) "Makarovs" - never let down, not a single misfire, not a single delay (the Designer provides for large "openings", gaps in the guides, and organized constructive "sinuses" for the dirt (and powder soot) that inevitably gets inside so that it does not interfere with the functioning mechanisms and cartridge feed!)!

In my engineer’s design view, with the conceptual rejection of the requirement to provide automatic firing in bursts, the Stechkin pistol, during its creation, could be significantly simplified and facilitated, even with the same barrel length and magazine capacity!
Could have turned out to be really balanced (in terms of weight and dimensions, simplicity of the device and manufacturability-low cost in large-scale and mass production (and not expensive "individually selective" manual assembly and fitting of each APS pistol by a highly qualified fitter-assembler, one specific worker - from the beginning of assembly to delivery of the finished "Stechkin" OTK-literally exclusive pistols, precious in cost, were obtained!) production, ease of use and firepower) an army pistol suitable for lightly arming crews of combat and support vehicles (of all types), machine gunners, grenade launchers, snipers, sappers, aircraft controllers and artillery spotters ...
But, apparently, the captured Mauser automatic pistol and its automatic Spanish clone Astra too dominated Artkom and high-ranking customers at that time (or rushed about "in confusion" - after all, even unnecessarily overcomplicated weak Hungarian self-loading pistols Frommer tested themselves, as possible prototype??!)??!

[Mordvin 3]

And Comrade Makarov also came up with a canning machine.

[beeper]

Quote: mordvin xnumx

And Comrade Makarov also came up with a canning machine.

And also, in partnership with comrade N.M. Afanasyev, our famous AM-23 air gun!
And he applied his talent to the creation of the Fagot ATGM and Konkurs ATGM!
During the war, Nikolai Fedorovich ensured the release of PCA at the plant in Vyatskiye Polyany, first as a shift foreman, and then as a leading designer!

[John22]

The same goes for AK. And then only MTK is praised. Workers and technologists brought to mind their plan.

[beeper]

Mikhail Timofeevich did not completely deny in his oral and written memoirs, but warmly recalled (even surnamely) the help of his colleagues at the NIIPSMVO, gunsmiths-Kovrovites and Izhevsk people in finalizing the design and putting the AK machine into production!
Indeed, even in order to "bring to mind", it would seem, the simplest detail - the bolt drummer, not only Kalashnikov himself, but many and many gunsmiths and testers, had to pretty much break their brains, analyzing, and do a huge number of experiments-tests of design options and its manufacturing technology ...
It was the same with the Makarov pistol when putting it into production and trial operation of the first batches! Even externally, for example, the initial configuration of the pistol frame, there were changes.
Not to mention, I am listing offhand, about the abolished function of automatic ramming (which turned out to be a prerequisite for random shots! I hope that these "lessons of the first PM" were taken into account in the new Kozlov pistol "Boa constrictor" ?! ) cartridge into the chamber when changing the empty magazine and the bolt, which is on the slide delay, about the introduction of the "release of the trigger" function (with the same purpose of protecting against accidental shots), the door (in the frame on the right) for removing the trigger was removed, an additional slider was added fastening the mainspring to the pistol frame (which made it possible to more rationally distribute the working loads in the area of ​​the weakened, screw hole, its cross-section), the design was changed and the technology of manufacturing a two-feather flat mainspring was developed, ...
To refine the manufacturability of the design of absolutely all the details and manufacturing technology that provides the specified strength and durability, optimal cost / effectiveness in large-scale and mass production of PM, in general, the Huge and Mega-Cost Work was carried out, possible only with a socialist planned organization of labor!
Yes, a lot of things, a priori unattainable by one person, even a very talented one, was done by thousands of modest and inconspicuous workers of the "defense industry" so that the initial PM-winner of the post-war competition turned into that high-quality, super-reliable and excellent Soviet "Makarov Pistol" that we knew in the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s, at the peak of the power of our Soviet Motherland, before the beginning of "perestroika" perturbations, including the introduction of Gorbachev's "state acceptance" instead of thoughtful, competent and responsible-demanding military representatives!

[Undecim]

Today, our country boasts a large number of modern models of pistols
Can it boast of a large number of models, besides modern ones?
And in service with the PM 1951. Paradox.

[tolancop]

Quote: pishchak

... Yes, a lot of things, a priori unattainable by one person, even a very talented one, was done by thousands of modest and inconspicuous workers of the "defense industry", so that the initial PM-winner of the post-war competition turned into that high-quality, super-reliable and excellent Soviet "Makarov Pistol" we knew at the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s, at the peak of the power of our Soviet Motherland, before the beginning of "perestroika" perturbations, including the introduction of Gorbachev's "state acceptance" instead of thoughtful, competent and responsible-demanding military representatives! ...

1. There are a lot of materials regarding the quality of PM. They wrote people who actually used the gun. To summarize, the highest quality pistols were made until the mid 70's ...
2. As far as I know, the introduction of state acceptance did not lead to the abolition of the institution of military representatives. In any case, I had to hand over products to military representatives just in the heyday of state acceptance.
3. Regarding the combat qualities of the PM, there are polar opinions: from full satisfaction to complete rejection. I believe that there is no contradiction in this: PM, like any tool, is optimal for a certain job. .... In addition, PM was used successfully and for other purposes .... to open a bottle of beer, for example. OBKhSS employees used the PM to check the weights in stores instead of the reference weights - since the weight of the PM was known to a gram and was always at hand. Maybe they used it somehow ...