Hickok 45 reviews a Soviet submachine gun in Texas, one of this country's comparatively free states. Notice how he shoots auto in controlled bursts. Message to market:
You're more likely to hit something if you aim the gun.
Shoot straight,
LSP
It's interesting how it fires from an open bolt much like the M1 Thompson and the M3 Grease gun - other SMG's from that era.
ReplyDeleteI remember messing about with an M3 and thinking how heavy it was. It'd been captured from the Argies in the Falklands, "That'd be a weight to cart about," I thought.
ReplyDeleteI guess the advantage of the open bolt system is less moving parts/ease of manufacture?
In early machine-gun designs, there were problems with cook-offs from hot firing chambers. Open bolt designs were cooler than closed bolts. The gas guns (such as the AK-47) that came along after (six years later after the PPSh-41) were less prone to jam because dirt/mud, etc. didn't get into the breech. They fired from a closed bolt, and to some extent, were copied from German weapons.
ReplyDeleteThe German MKb-42 fired from and open bolt, but the final versions of that design incorporated Walther's closed bolt design and the StG-44 was specifically designed to counter the PPSh-41, which used the 7.62x25 Tokarev (pistol round). Kalashnikov incorporated some German design concepts in his AK-47. Eugene Stoner and the M-16 was also heavily influenced by the German StG-44/45, which in both Russian and American concepts, had validated lower power cartridges than the heavy rifle rounds (30-06).
Having said that, one of the finest (of that era) Sub-Machine Guns ever made, the Carl Gustav-45 (Swedish K), also fired an open bolt. It was one of the last of the open bolt SMG's, but people I knew carried them in Vietnam and Laos into the 1970's. I saw them in inventory (available for use) into the present era in some environments. So the open bolt system is not nearly as arcane as some people might suggest.
Thanks for the run down, interesting.
ReplyDeleteI'd agree that the stock does resemble that of an SKS, and would make sense as the SKS was in development during the war. The intermediate M43 round was much better suited for Simonov's design, even if his rifle was replaced in a few years of adoption in the Soviet armies with that of Kalashnikov. The only current official use of the SKS is with the Russian and Chinese Honor Guards (maybe some of the other former Warsaw Pact states, also).
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