PP-2000. Better than “Stechkin”, worse than “Ksyukha”
Pilots practice shooting from the PP-2000, 2023. “The still life is complemented by a Lebedev pistol and a NAS-IR vest. The collimator, laser target and PBS are only at the shooting range; the PP-2000 comes on board without all this.
It began to be developed in the late 1990s as part of the Baksanets R&D project; gunsmiths from Izhevsk, Kovrov, Klimovsk and Tula took part in the work. Our hero is from Tula, created by the Tula Instrument Design Bureau (KBP) named after Shipunov. The development of the submachine gun was led by gunsmiths - academicians Vasily Gryazev and Arkady Shipunov. The patent for the submachine gun was received in 2001, and the first sample was demonstrated at the Interpolitex-2004 exhibition. Serial production started in 2006.
In his best.
In the USSR, the topic of submachine guns was essentially shelved for some time. The last and most significant one that comes to mind is OCD “Bouquet”. Our comrades from the armies of the Warsaw Pact countries had several very successful examples of submachine guns; they were used by fighters who could do without a machine gun, and their compactness weapons and was in first place. Well, they wanted something like this for the Soviet Army.
But then the AKS-74U appeared, and the issue of weapons for vehicle crews was removed, and there were essentially no other customers for submachine guns in the Land of the Soviets. Police special forces in every major city and the State Police in helmets and bulletproof vests with machine guns at the ready will come later. There were KGB special forces, but, in general, they made do with what was available.
Incomplete disassembly of PP-2000. There's not much to break here. Lightweight, compact, reliable. Also pictured is a standard flashlight and two 20-round magazines.
And then in the 90s, customers appeared who needed a weapon chambered for a cartridge that was not as powerful as the “automatic” 5.45 and 7.62, and at the same time automatic. And our designers were blown away...
True, the domestic arms market, in fact completely isolated for a long time, and the absence of R&D on submachine guns for a significant period often led to the fact that our designers reinvented the wheel... Well, the “Uzi”, or more precisely, the Sa vz. 23, definitely reinvented a couple of times.
Plus, the lack of experience with “police” submachine guns led to the fact that designs were often “given birth” that were more suitable for bandits than for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Subcompacts, compacts, folding designs... The rest of the world has generally come to the conclusion that a police “machine gun” chambered for a pistol cartridge is ideally full-size, with a full-sized butt, heavy enough to “eat up” the recoil of a pistol cartridge, but still lighter than a classic assault rifle or a carbine on its base.
Early samples of PP-2000. An ingenious solution with a stock from a 44-round magazine in all its glory. There is no developed trigger guard - there is no front handle yet, but there is still a cover that covers the cocking handle.
In general, we also came to the same conclusions, albeit after almost 20 years of our journey. We're talking about Bison. First, however, some kind of monster with an auger magazine appeared, but this is a completely different story. story. It’s not just a matter of the flight of design ideas. The customer also did not always understand what he wanted and in what ways.
A law enforcement officer demonstrates shooting from a PP-2000 with two hands and without a stock.
But let's return to our hero.
This is actually an interesting design.
It seems simple, like from the fronts of World War II, a submachine gun with automatic blowback action, but with its own interesting features.
Firstly, it is a low-lying trunk. The weight of the PP-2000 is comparable to the weight of a pistol, but the weapon does not try to “jump out” even when fired from it without a stock and held with one hand. The pistol hand is the neck for the magazine, like many compact submachine guns; a massive trigger guard is connected to it using a jumper, which serves as a front handle and allows you to quite comfortably hold the weapon with both hands. ... Well, that's all.
Next about not so pleasant things.
Interpolitech-2013, soldiers of the 604 TsSN “Vityaz” of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia demonstrate working in pairs from behind a ballistic shield. The “Shchitovik” is armed with a PP-2000, and the PP-2000 turned out to be a very good option for just such work.
As it was developed and brought to production, the PP-2000 got rid of a number of “pleasant” design features. For example, initially it was intended to use only ... a high-capacity magazine, which was inserted into a groove behind and below the receiver, as a butt. Fortunately, a full-fledged stock, a folding frame stock, and later even a telescopic stock appeared. At first there was also no developed trigger guard, which serves as a front handle; how one should hold a submachine gun with both hands is not very clear.
But some features remain.
Yeah, there was such a thing - OTs-126, a civilian, self-loading carbine based on the PP-2000. Didn't take off...
This, for example, is the angle of the pistol grip, namely that it is negative. Yes, not much, it’s almost invisible to the eye, but it’s there. That is, if we take the handle located exactly 90 degrees to the receiver as zero, then ordinary handles for the same machine guns have a positive slope. For example, the handle for AK assault rifles from the manufacturer Magpul (model MOE SL MAG682) has an inclination of 17 degrees, and the PP-2000 has a negative one. Simply put, the handle is “bent” in the other direction.
People who regularly shoot weapons say that over time you get used to it, but at first it is very unusual and uncomfortable. And the fact that the PP-2000, like any weapon, “bounces” when firing only aggravates the situation, especially when held with one hand. And nothing can be done about this, since the pistol grip is, as we remember, also the magazine well. That is, without redoing the entire structure, the ergonomics in this place cannot be corrected. We are designing weapons here, not studying anatomy...
A still from a story on the Zvezda TV channel about self-defense weapons for pilots. The appearance of the PP-2000 among the troops was presented as something incredibly positive... Well, at least something is better than nothing, you can’t argue with that.
On top there is a cocking handle, made with the bolt in one piece, which, when firing, moves along with the bolt. On some prototypes it was covered with a casing, but it later disappeared. Not a problem, of course, but still a rather large moving part that is not covered by anything.
A video message from General Surovikin, recorded during a controversial period in the recent history of our Motherland. The general has a PP-2000 on his leg.
In general, the sum of the characteristics turned out to be a good weapon. In terms of its mechanics, it is a classic submachine gun, reliable and lightweight, and its weight and dimensions have allowed it to become a rather interesting niche weapon. Where you need something more powerful than a pistol, but at the same time in the same weight category and with the ability to be held with one hand, that is, essentially a high-quality subcompact submachine gun. Areas of its application are, for example, working with a ballistic shield, personal security, and working in tight spaces.
Mi-17 co-pilot with PP-2000 in the cockpit of his car, 2023.
And this could have ended there, but February 2022 happened.
Problems popped up like mushrooms after rain. Most of them were already known for a long time, and were even somehow solved, but everything is somehow wrong: it’s not right, the tests haven’t ended yet, etc.
One of these problems was the virtual absence of personal defense weapons (PDW) among our pilots. There are already not enough “Stechkins” and “Ksyukhs” for everyone, there is de facto no replacement for them, and from the PM they can only carry out “Roskomnadzor” so that the enemy does not get it alive.
And against the backdrop of these introductory events, in 2023, PP-2000s began to appear in photos of helicopter pilots. In the summer of 2023, there was information that several helicopter regiments had received the PP-2000 as a self-defense weapon for pilots. Before this, PP-2000s were seen only by pilots aviation Rosgvardia. And immediately there were shouts of joy that this was our dear, domestic PWD.
But there This term primarily means something not chambered for a pistol cartridge, but for an “intermediate” cartridge. It is immediately clear that this measure is in many ways frankly forced.
It is unclear where the RF Ministry of Defense got such a number of these subcompacts at once and why they didn’t look for something else in the bins of the Motherland or in other departments. But it’s an “interesting” time; it’s good that they didn’t hand out sapper blades and didn’t call them PWD.
The most famous photo of PP-2000, Izhevsk, 2010.
It is interesting that in the USSR there was a project of simply a reference PWD - AO-46. Our Heckler & Koch MP7, but only appeared 30 years earlier. But this, as usual, is a completely different story.
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