Makarov’s pistol is a legendary weapon, marked by many literary works and feature films. Its incredible popularity was greatly facilitated by the reliability, reliability and simplicity of the design. Makarov’s pistol is a self-loading handgun, which is designed to defeat the enemy mainly at short distances.
Designed and constructed by the brilliant Soviet gunsmith N.F. Makarov, the PM has been the personal weapon of Soviet officers, and later of the Russian Armed Forces, Ministry of Internal Affairs and internal troops, for almost half a century. The device of the Makarov pistol is based on the use of the design of a longitudinally-sliding free bolt and a fixed barrel. The barrel is locked due to the mass of the shutter and the strength of the return spring. Such a constructional solution, simple to genius, provides amazing accuracy of fire, which cannot be said about similar weapons with various modifications of the moving barrel.
However, there is one small caveat. The practical use of such an elegant structural solution is limited by the mass of the shutter. In other words, such a device of the mechanism of the gun is advisable only for ammunition, the dimensions of which do not exceed a critical mark of 9 × 18 millimeters. It’s just this size that Makarov’s pistol fires with ammunition.
Another original structural feature of the PM is the use of a free hammer, which does not have a spring mechanism, which should perform a safety function by holding the hammer in its rear extreme position. In theory, this does not exclude the possibility of spontaneous firing. But the fact is that the strike mechanism of this unique weapon does not have enough mass for involuntary operation. That only emphasizes the genius of the creation of the great gunsmith.
Makarov pistol is characterized by exceptional simplicity, design elegance and a minimum of moving parts. Many of its details are assigned several functions at once, which is also the know-how of Soviet arms engineering. For example, the gate delay also performs the function of reflection of the cartridges. And the mainspring is at the same time part of the snap mechanism of the magazine.
An interesting fact is that the performance characteristics of the Makarov pistol are significantly superior to those of the Glock pistol, created many years later using completely different technologies. It was designed as a counterweight to PM, and all the emphasis in it was placed on reliability and simplicity. But Makarov still has fewer details than Glock. With proper operation, the PM is practically trouble-free and very durable.
The standard Makarov store contains eight rounds. After the last ammunition has been used up, a special delay mechanism fixes the bolt in the extreme rear position, from which it can easily be removed using the lever located on the housing, or by pulling the bolt frame back. Any of these manipulations, if the weapon is already equipped with a clip, performs the function of sending the cartridge into the chamber. And PM is again on a combat platoon.