Makarov PM

The Makarov PM (Pistolet Makarova) was designed to replace the TT-33 and the Nagant M1895 revolver in Soviet service. After the war the adoption of the assault rifle had reduced the pistol to a compact self-defence weapon, and the Tokarev was judged too heavy, too bulky and unsafe for that role, with no manual safety and magazines that released accidentally. Two design contests were opened in December 1945, and Boris Semin's new 9x18mm cartridge was chosen as the best fit: its modest pressure allowed a simple straight-blowback action while retaining useful stopping power. Nikolay Makarov, then a recent graduate of the Tula Mechanical Institute, submitted a design influenced by the Walther PP that recorded twenty times fewer malfunctions than its competitors in the April 1948 trials. It was adopted in December 1951. More than five million have been built, making it the second most-produced pistol in the world after the Glock.

The PM is an all-steel, fixed-barrel handgun with a part count of just 27 excluding the magazine, every component optimised for mass production and interchangeability. Because a blowback pistol relies on slide mass to delay opening of the breech, it is heavy for its size. The chrome-lined four-groove barrel is pressed and pinned to the frame, and the recoil spring wraps around it; the trigger guard pivots down to release the slide for field stripping. The trigger is double action/single action, and the safety lever simultaneously decocks the hammer, blocks it from the firing pin and locks the slide. Feed is from an eight-round magazine released by a heel catch. The firing pin is free-floating with no spring or block, the design's one notable weakness.

Variants include:

• The PMM, a 1990 redesign with a hotter loading, chamber flutes and a 12-round magazine

• The PB, a suppressed model developed for reconnaissance units and the KGB

• The TKB-023, a polymer-framed experimental version that passed trials but was never fielded

• The commercial IJ-70 and Baikal-442 export models

Licensed and copied production ran in Bulgaria (Arsenal), China (Type 59), East Germany (Pistole-M), North Korea (Type 66) and Vietnam (K59).

The PM was issued to non-commissioned officers, Militsiya officers, special forces and tank and aircraft crews, and was adopted by most Eastern Bloc and non-aligned socialist states, the exceptions being Czechoslovakia and Poland, which had their own industries. It was formally replaced in the Russian Armed Forces by the MP-443 Grach in 2003 and in the Interior Ministry from 2006, and the SR-2 Udav entered mass production as its successor in 2019, but the replacement has been slow and the PM is still carried in Russia and across the post-Soviet states. It remains in service with dozens of countries including Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Vietnam, Cuba, Algeria and Syria.