What You Didn't Know About Makarov
The USSR had a need for a new service gun. Designer Makarov won it in the end, and Makarov pistols became the standard military sidearm for the Soviet Armed Forces.
Although, it took three more years to refine a design of the PM, before the 1951 when it was officially adopted as the “Pistolet Makarova” or, in short, the PM. Couple of following decades become a witness of the gradual growth of the Makarov design, in continuing attempts to develop new pistols with fewer rejects and also at lower cost.
Actually, most efforts which were concentrated on production technologies, and by the eighties lot of parts that were originally made with hand-fitting and machining, become precision-castings which required minimal, whether any, fitting. During the early sixties the PM pistols become lighter by the introduction of an aluminium, titanium alloy or polymer frames. The lightweight alloy frames turned to be too expensive, however polymer-framed pistol, was developed in Russian city of Tula as the TKB-023, has successfully passed most of the trials with flying colors.
Even though this fact, it was rejected by the military because of the unknown stability of the polymer frame during the long-term that was about 10-20 years of storage and use. During the last decades of the 20th century there were many attempts to improve some of deficiencies of the PM construction, which is typical for its relatively low stopping power, lethality and low magazine capacity. First and even an improved version of its cartridge, with lighter bullet and hotter powder charge, that was developed as 9x18 PMM.
