Makarov pistol

The Makarov pistol or PM (Russian: Пистолет Макарова, Pistolet Makarova, literally Makarov's Pistol) is a Russian semi-automatic pistol. Under the project leadership of Nikolay Fyodorovich Makarov, it became the Soviet Union's standard military and police side arm from 1951 to 1991.

Development

The Makarov pistol resulted from a design competition for replacing the Tokarev TT-33 semi-automatic pistol and the Nagant M1895 revolver. Rather than building a pistol to an existing cartridge in the Soviet inventory, Nikolai Makarov took up the German wartime Walther "Ultra" design, fundamentally an enlarged Walther PP, utilizing the 9×18mm Makarov cartridge designed by B.V. Semin in 1946. For simplicity and economy, the Makarov pistol was of straight blowback operation, with the 9×18mm Makarov cartridge being the most powerful cartridge it could safely fire. The Luftwaffe had rejected this pistol design some years before because of its poor accuracy. Although the nominal calibre was 9.0 mm, the actual bullet was 9.22 mm in diameter, being shorter and wider and thus incompatible with pistols chambered for 9×19mm Parabellum cartridges.