Kalashnikov pistol - little-known competitor to Stechkin
Developed in the early 50s, the Kalashnikov pistol did not become a widely known development of its designer, which gained world fame thanks to the famous machine gun. The pistol participated in an army weapons competition along with another well-known Soviet model - the Stechkin pistol, as a result of which the selection of the competition committee stopped. In the middle of the 20th century, military designers widely worked out the idea of equipping individual army units with automatic pistols with the ability to fire bursts. Such developments were mainly carried out by foreign gunsmiths, creating weapons for the Parabellum, which was widespread at that time - a cartridge of 9 x 19 mm. In the USSR, such developments were bypassed for quite a long time, although the question was still relevant, how can the combat crews of military vehicles, tanks, artillery installations be equipped. The dimensions of the machine gun in this case did not fit, and the Makarov pistol was considered an insufficiently effective solution for field conditions.
The Soviet military forces at that time expected to receive two fundamentally different types of short-barreled firearms in their arsenal. The first compact sample weighing no more than 0.7 kg was supposed to go into service with the officer corps as a self-defense weapon, and the second larger pistol was planned to be given to military crews for possible use in an active combat zone. Today it is no longer a secret that the famous PM, which has been in service with the army since 1951, turned out to be the first compact sample. The niche of the second "large" sample was taken by the Stechkin pistol. His competitors at that time were several developments. Among them was the Kalashnikov pistol of 1950, created, like other representatives of automation for 9x18 mm ammunition.
The Soviet Kalashnikov automatic pistol was based on the principle of automatic operation with a free breechblock recoil. The main parts of the weapon were a fixed barrel, a non-self-cocking trigger, a fuse that transferred firing from single shots to a burst. The magazine capacity was enough for 18 rounds. A recess was provided on the handle to secure the butt, with which the weapon weighed 1700 g. In the future, the Kalashnikov pistol underwent several upgrades. A place for 20 ammunition was added in the store, the sight was modified, the fuse-translator of fire moved to another place. Despite the ongoing improvements and many tests, the weapon did not become the winner among other competitive developments, losing to Stechkin. The pistol remained in the history of weapons as several experimental prototypes and museum exhibits. The Topic of Article: Kalashnikov pistol - little-known competitor to Stechkin. |
