CAnnoneer
Member
Can anybody enlighten me why the commies developed the 9x18? Clearly a Mak cannot accept the Luger 9x19, so how would the incompatibility be of use the the commies? Can a 9x19 accept the 9x18?
History
The Makarov was the result of a competition held to design a replacement for the aging Tokarev TT-33 semi-automatic pistol. The TT had been loosely derived from the popular Browning M1910 and was, by 1945, felt to be too large and heavy for a general service pistol. Rather than building his gun around an existing cartridge, Nikolai Makarov designed a new round, the 9 x 18 mm PM, based on the popular Browning 9 x 17 mm cartridge. In the interests of simplicity and economy, the Makarov pistol was to be of straight blowback operation, and the 9 x 18 mm round was found to be the most powerful which could be fired safely from such a design. Although the given dimension was 9mm, the bullet was actually 9.3mm in diameter, and was incompatible with pistols chambered for the popular 9mm Luger/Parabellum round.
Makarov called his design the Pistolet Makarova, and it was selected over the competitors on account of its simplicity (it had few moving parts), economy, ease of manufacture, accuracy and reasonable powerful.
Sounds logical enough, but do you have any supporting evidence for this? Surprisingly enough, many of the things "everybody knows" aren't true...Everybody knows
Exactly!pistol, if constructed to be safe to fire, would've quickly gotten too huge