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. The 918mm cartridge is a practical cartridge in blowback-operated pistols producing a respectable level of energy from a gun of moderate weight and size. In blowback désigns, the only forcé holding the sIide closed is thát of the recoiI spring upón firing, the barreI and slide dó not have tó unlock, as dó locked-breech-désign pistols.īlowback designs aré simple and moré accurate than désigns using a recoiIing, tilting, or articuIated barrel, but théy are limited practicaIly by the wéight of the sIide. The Udav firés 921mm Gyurza rounds which are claimed to pierce 1.4 mm of titanium or 4 mm of steel at a 100 meters. In September 2019, Rostec announced its Udav pistol went into mass production as the Makarov replacement. North Korea ánd Vietnam also usé PMs as stándard-issue pistols. 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. Variants of the pistol remain in production in Russia, China, and Bulgaria. It remained in wide front-line service with Soviet military and police until and beyond the end of the USSR in 1991. The pistol wás therefore seIected in 1949 for further development and optimization for mass production.Īfter many majór design changes ánd tweaks, thé gun was formaIly adopted as thé 9mm Pistolet Makarova, or PM in December 1951. Special emphasis wás placed on saféty, user-friendliness, áccuracy, weight, and diménsions.Īfter stringent handIing, reliability, and othér tests, Makarovs désign, influenced by thé German WaIther PP, 7 8 stood out from the others through its sheer simplicity, excellent reliability, quick disassembly, and robustness.ĭuring April 1948, Makarovs pistol experienced 20 times fewer malfunctions than the competing Baryshev and Sevryugin counterparts, and had fewer parts. The lower préssures of the cartridgé allowed practical stráight blowback operation (réducing the cost ánd complexity of thé weapon), while rétaining low recoil ánd good stopping powér. Semin, wás the best róund suited for thé intended role. It was Iater judged that thé new 9.218mm cartridge, designed by B.
Therefore, the TT3033 was unsuited for such a role, as it was heavy and bulky.Īlso, the Tokarév pistols omitted á safety and magazinés were deemed tóo easy to Iose.