#9x18

In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves is at Sellier & Bellot ammunition factory to test out their 9×18 Makarov ammo on a true legend of a machine pistol, the APS, also known as “the Stechkin.” The Stechkin automatic pistol or APS (Avtomaticheskiy Pistolet Stechkina, Russian: Автоматический Пистолет Стечкина) is a Soviet select fire machine pistol. It bears the name of its developer, Igor Stechkin. The Stechkin has some cool features up its sleeve, so we were excited to test it out, even if we broke it on the range!

Bubix GmbH is an Austrian firearms manufacturer whose first product, a subcompact pistol called Bubix Bro, was launched at the end of the past year. While having a lot of features common for a modern pistol such as a short barrel recoil action with a tilting barrel lockup, the Bubix Bro also features some rather unusual design solutions like the grip safety on the front strap of the grip or the takedown button inside the trigger guard. Let’s take a closer look.

There have been a lot of numbers thrown around with regards to the Russian ammo ban. Many of them are unsourced or unattributed, and as near as I can tell, wrong. So what are the actual numbers? What is the actual impact of this ban going to be?

As I said in another article, I kept my eye out for things I don’t see here in the US while roaming the halls of IWA 2018. A large percentage of IWA is made up of airsoft and airgun manufacturers along with blank firing guns. MWM Gillman GmbH is a company that imports and makes full steel gun replicas. But what caught my eye was the image of the Makarov Carbine Tac Kit.

We have earlier  reported about the FAB Defense release of the PM-G Makarov grip which not only gives the old Mak a nice grip shape, texture and beaver tail but perhaps, more importantly, converts the magazine release from heel to thumb one. Recently FAB Defense introduced the transparent version of the PM-G grip dedicated to the Russian market.

Last weekend, I took the major arguments of Kalashnikov conspiracy theorists head on, and one of those – which I hear rather frequently – is why he did not design any other weapons besides the AK-47.

According to sources at the Eurosatory exposition in Paris, France, the Russian Army has nearly completed tests on the new pistol design likely to be adopted to replace the 9x18mm PMM Makarov and 9x19mm PYa Yargin pistols currently in service. The Udav (Russian for “Boa”) pistol is based on the previous Serdyukov SR-1 “Gyurka” (the Russian name for a kind of desert viper), and like it is chambered for the Russian 9x21mm armor-piercing caliber, what was developed for it. This means that at least for a time the Russian Army will be fielding no less than three 9mm calibers (x18, x19, and x21), until the Udav can replace the other two pistols entirely. According to IHS Jane’s:

The Stechkin APS received a mention in the Handgun Radio segment I collaborated on with Daniel Watters, and for good reason. It could be argued that the APS, though and obscure weapon in the West, is one of the very few truly successful machine pistol designs ever fielded by a military power.