#Tokarev

Wood-and-blued-steel tactical shotguns are back in style! But if you want firepower with a little less recoil, your sub-gauge options are limited. Now, Tokarev USA is bringing in the TX3 20HD A1 pump-action to offer that retro look with a bit less kick. Or if you want, you can order it in a stainless marine finish for use as a boat gun.

Tokarev USA has just announced that they are entering the hunting and sporting market. The first model will be their APEX Field Shotgun which is a semi-automatic shotgun with a 3.5” chamber. The model will be available with checkered Turkish walnut furniture and matte black chrome finish. Priced from $379.99 it’s available with either a 26” or 28” barrel with ventilated ribs and fiber optic front sight.

Welcome back to another edition of the  TFB Round Table sponsored by  Ammunition To Go! For those who are first joining us, this is a multi-part series where TFB discusses the characteristics of great ammunition for specific applications. This could vary from big game hunting, plinking, precision rifle matches, small game hunting, or even pistol competitions. Chances are there is someone here at TFB who can offer you advice on buying the right round for your task at hand. This week I am back on TFB Round Table to discuss and recommend a cartridge that is not totally obscure and one that is also still available on shelves today. The cartridge in question is that of 7.62×25 Tokarev. Do you have an old Russian or Czech service pistol chambered in this high-velocity cartridge? Are you finding yourself pondering why it was extremely popular in its day? Stay tuned! Let’s dive right into the retro 7.62×25 Tokarev and some  ammunition options and information to bring your old gat back to the range!

In our previous coverage of modern Vietnamese small arms development on display at Indo Defense 2018 we spent some time looking at locally produced M79’s, Lee Enfield No.4’s, a rotary grenade launcher, and even a 9x19mm Bizon! In this post we’ll be looking at some of the other developments that we weren’t able to fit in the first one.

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.

The following is an article that was originally written in Russian by TFB contributor Maxim Popenker, and Andrey Ulanov, and translated to English by Peter Samsonov. With their permission, I have replicated the text here, and edited it, for the enrichment of you, our readers!

In a recent Modern Personal Defense Weapon Calibers post, we discussed the .223 Timbs, a pseudo-wildcat load of the 7.62x25mm Tokarev that uses a sabot to fire a 50gr .22 caliber projectile at 2,000 feet per second or more. At the time, very little information was publicly available regarding the origin and purpose of the .223 Timbs, and what we knew at the time could just be summed up as “it was developed by Joseph Timbs and Quality Cartridge.” After the article ran, it gained the attention of none other than Joseph Timbs himself, who reached out to The Firearm Blog, and gave us the bar booth version of the story.

Earlier we produced an episode on TFB TV about the Soviet SVT-40 semi-automatic rifle. In this episode, we examine the disassembly and assembly aspects of that same rifle. As mentioned earlier, the SVT-40 incorporated a number of very advanced features for its time such as a removable 10 round magazine, gas operated semi-automatic system, and a very simplistic but not so intrinsic method of field stripping. This was perhaps a downfall among the millions of Soviet conscripts coming into the Red Army during the Second World War, when taking apart the standard issue Mosin Nagant was just a trigger press and bolt throw away from a complete field strip.

Initially losing to Simonov’s AVS36, Tokarev’s design was later retried and adopted as the SVT 38, later becoming the SVT 40 after the Finnish Winter War debacle that the Soviet Union found itself in, just prior to the Second World War. Very forward thinking in many aspects of the design, the rifle featured a 10 round detachable magazine, short stroke gas piston operated tilt locking bolt, and an extremely lightweight construction compared to numerous other designs of the time. It was also the second most produced semi-automatic rifle of the Second World War after the M1 Garand, with over 1.6 million rifles manufactured during the war. Had it not been for the war itself, the SVT 40 was well on the path to completely replacing the Mosin Nagant. But with the changing infantry tactics against the German Army, and the severe shortage of manufacturing capability, in addition to some reliability and accuracy issues, led to the diminishing usage of the rifle during the war, with product ceased at the end. Of course, Simonov got the last laugh with elements of his AVS-36 being incorporated into the 7.62x39mm SKS, making the SVT 40 obsolete by the war’s end.

What do you get when you take the venerable speedster 7.62 Tokarev, and load it with a muzzleloader-style sabot and 50gr .22 cal projectile? You get one of the most interesting pistol, submachine gun, and personal defense weapon ammunition concepts there is!

Firearm designers in Donetsk have developed a new handgun called Oplot. It is a hammer fired, short barrel recoiling, tilting barrel locking semi-auto pistol. It is pretty reminiscent of Tokarev pistol and looks like its modernized version.

Since we’ve discussed the .30 M1 Carbine caliber, it is probably only a matter of time before someone mentioned another .30 caliber round used by the Allies during the Second World War, that being the 7.62x25mm Tokarev. The round is a turbocharged derivative of the 7.63 Mauser, itself a hopped up variant of the very first successful rimless pistol cartridge, the 7.65 Borchardt. It was adopted in 1930 by the new Soviet Russian government for use with the Tokarev TT pistol, and later was also used in the PPD-40, PPSh-41, and PPS-43 submachine guns. Outside of Russia, it has been a popular cartridge as well, being used by the Vietnamese, Czechs, Yugoslavs, and most notably, the Chinese (with whom it remains in service today).

Here follows a short story from a recent visit to the Central Armed Forces Museum.

German gunsmith Herbert Werle – creator of the famous “AK-47” Luger and the .45 ACP Luger Carbine – has created another strange hybrid firearm: A 7.62x25mm Tokarev M1 Carbine. Two videos of Werle testing the rifle are embedded below:

Before the famous Tokarev SVT-38 and -40 rifles of World War II, a Soviet engineer who would later become famous in the West for another of his designs developed a light weight select-fire infantry weapon in the standard full-power 7.62x54R caliber. That engineer was Simonov, and his AVS-36 was set in the mid-1930s to become the foundation of the future Soviet infantry rifle squad, supplanting the aging repeating bolt action Mosin M1891 rifle. A member over at Guns.ru posted pictures of his demilled AVS-36 to the forum, a few of which are presented below: