#Pl-15

According to a press release from Kalashnikov Concern, the Lebedev pistol has entered serial production. In the press release, the Russian arms company’s president Alan Lushnikov confirmed production of the pistol had begun in 2023 and announced that the company will be displaying at the EXPOTECHNOSTRAZH exposition from 15 to 17 March. Lushnikov said:

Kalashnikov Concern has released the competition version of the PL-14/PL-15 Lebedev pistol. The new pistol is called SP1. It has some new features added to make it attractive for the competition shooters. The company markets it for use in Production or Production Optics divisions. Let’s take a closer look.

Kalashnikov Concern has announced that production of their 9x19mm PL-15 pistol has been given the green light. The Russian Military sees the pistol as promising, however, they have not yet expressed public interest. The Russian Military currently uses the Makarov and the newer, also Kalashnikov Concern-designed, MP-443 Grach.

A few months ago, I had a pleasure of working with Larry Vickers on his trip to Russia. I wanted to highlight some weapons we shot for the TFB readers and give a little background about why and how certain weapons were developed.

According to Kalashnikov Concern and TASS Russian News Agency, the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant (a subsidiary of Kalashnikov Concern) is preparing for the mass production of Lebedev pistols in the foreseeable future.

Kalashnikov Media , a dedicated media website of Kalashnikov Concern, has released a video where the designer of PL-15 and PL-15K pistols, Dmitri Lebedev, talks about the compact version of his pistol. Here is that video (with English subtitles).

Kalashnikov Concern recently released a new English language video regarding their PL-15K compact pistol, MP-444 pistol, AM-17 and AMB-17 compact assault rifles, and SVCh semiautomatic sniper rifle. By way of a walkthrough from Kalashnikov Concern technical consultant Vladimir Onokoy, the video offers English speakers an important look at the technical features of the new weapons, which were until now something of a mystery to those on this side of the language barrier. The video is embedded below, followed by a written summary:

Is 2017 the Year of the Low Bore Axis? It seems like it just might be! Amid a sea of other pistols advertised as having low bore axes ( some of which do deliver on that claim), the Jablunka-based Czech Small Arms has introduced a new pistol with about as low a bore axis as is possible on a gun with the magazine feeding through the grip. The new handgun was introduced at IWA 2017, and is called the vz.15. CzechPoint posted photos of the new gun on their Facebook page:

Our friends at Kalashnikov Concern sent us promotional footage of their new firearms and kindly allowed us to publish it.