The Soviet Union attempted to adopt a high capacity semi-auto pistol back in the late ’30s. Various branches of their armed forces had complaints concerning the Tokarev pistol. Particularly, the low capacity magazine, likelihood of unintentional release of the magazine due to the location of the thumb release, inability to stick the barrel out of the tank and shoot the enemy that is in close proximity to the vehicle and can’t be engaged by the armament of the tank etc. They even launched trials which were almost won by Voevodin pistol. Almost, because the Soviet Union entered the WW2 and the trials/production were halted.

Note the 15 round double stack single feed magazine

Later, after the war, Soviet engineers resumed experiments with the idea of a double stack pistol chambered in 7.62x25mm Tokarev. In the ’50s a firearms designer named Georgiy Sevryugin designed a new pistol. It was based on the Tokarev design but was fed from a 15 round magazine. Interestingly, this prototype pistol also had a heel magazine release. Perhaps that was incorporated into the design (and later into Makarov pistol design) because of the mentioned complaints of unintentional magazine release with the thumb magazine release button of the Tokarev pistol. Other than the described changes, most of the other parts were borrowed from the Tokarev pistol.

This attempt to modernize the Tokarev pistol had no chances to be adopted because the Soviet Union had already decided to adopt the 9x18mm cartridge and a pistol chambered in it. With the adoption of assault rifles, the whole small arms doctrine was changed. The SMG was no more a primary weapon and there was no need to have a pistol sharing the same ammunition with it.

Sources:

“100 лет «Красной Армии»: Пистолет Токарева ТТ 15-зарядный, опытный”. (2018, March 21). Kalashnikov Media. Retrieved from: https://kalashnikov.media/media/videolibrary/4522184

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