Anyone Have Any Russian or "ComBlock" Firearms to Share?

[les.b]

Faulkner:

Don't you wish we could go back in time and buy more of those?? That is a beauty!! The Russian SKSs are the original, and yours comes right out of the heart of the "Cold War". I know that we ask this question about all of our historical firearms, but wouldn't you like to know where it was issued, and to whom? Where it served, and so forth??? What a chunk of history, and a darn good shooting rifle as well.

Thanks for sharing,

Best Regards, Les

 

[les.b]

Thanks for starting this interesting thread.

The ONLY thing I would complain about with the .380 Mak is the adjustable rear site. It's sharp and it gets in the way for carry.

I did purchase an aluminum fixed sight that can be installed in place of the adj. site---I just have to find it and CAREFULLY install it one of these days. Also, the front site could be a little thicker and taller.

But honestly, for what this pistol is for (close quarters defense), it's all good.

When they first started allowing the import of these guns, the adjustable sight added "points" that are needed for the Feds to allow import. Like the PPK was too "small" to import, but if fitted with a PP frame, and made into a PPK/S, it is now OK to import. Weird stuff, but bureaucracy has its own strange logic that is incomprehensible to ordinary mortals. Anyway, good luck with your nice Mak!!!

Best Regards, Les

 

[American1776]

When they first started allowing the import of these guns, the adjustable sight added "points" that are needed for the Feds to allow import. Like the PPK was too "small" to import, but if fitted with a PP frame, and made into a PPK/S, it is now OK to import. Weird stuff, but bureaucracy has its own strange logic that is incomprehensible to ordinary mortals. Anyway, good luck with your nice Mak!!!

Best Regards, Les

Yeah, that darned 1968 import law. But gun laws in general make no sense.

I'm thinking of getting a clean CZ 83 in 380 or .32.

 

[les.b]

Yeah, that darned 1968 import law. But gun laws in general make no sense.

I'm thinking of getting a clean CZ 83 in 380 or .32.

I have t CZ 82 in the 9mm Mak caliber. An original Czech military issue. But the CZ 83 is basically the same gun, but in .380. Since you already use that cartridge, that might be your best bet. I have lots of calibers that I shoot, so I don't worry too much about having another gun in a different caliber. The little CZ 50s and 70s used to be inexpensive alternatives in the .32 acp caliber. All cool stuff from behind the "Iron Curtain "!!!

Best Regards, Les

 

[Texas Star]

I've only owned a CZ-75B in the current Czech Republic form, with the black epoxy finish, which has been durable. It is both accurate and reliable.

My son had a Makarov, which he liked. And he had close exposure to a Dragunov (sp?) when he shot the man running across a room in Baghdad with it. The individual had just run downstairs from a roof, where he'd been shooting at US troops with it. A single 9mm bullet from my son's Beretta killed him.

I've fired my son's AK and, I think, an SKS. Shot another AK on a range. They're okay, I guess, but I have no affection for them. They don't fit me well, and I can't get excited about them. Indifferent accuracy, too. I'd rather have an M-14 or an FN-FAL. I'm really more into my Winchester M-70 Fwt. Classic .270.

My interest in non-US military arms has been British. That's my heritage, so may be logical. But I'd sort of like to try a Makarov. They're pretty size-efficient and reliable. If they shoot as well as my Walther PP .32 did, they'd kill small game and snakes well.

I hear the Nagant revolvers have atrocious trigger pulls. And the grip checkering is usually crude.

 

[les.b]

Texas:

Glad you stopped by! I was hoping you would. Unfortunately for my bank account, I have a wide ranging interest in firearms, and seldom meet one that I don't at least want to examine, and usually want to take home with me. Most of the guns that I have posted, and will post on here are ones that I've collected some years ago. Some of the photos are ones that I took back then, and some are more recent.

I think that I have told you how I became hooked on knowing what was behind the "Iron Curtain". I have, in addition to studying the arms of the ComBlock, read widely, and as you know, visited and studied in several Eastern European countries.

I'm glad that you dropped by, and hope that you will check in from time to time. You might find something that you like here.

You are right, the Makarov is a fine firearm. It incorporates some of the features of the Walther PP and PPK series. Takedown is similar, and it is quite robust for the caliber. Russians are still using it, although they have some more recent designs as well.

You are right about the Nagant revolver, but we can blame some of the design flaws on the Belgian guy who was responsible for much of its design. The grip checkering on the ones that have been recently imported is a result of most of them being "Arsenal Refinished", and new made grips fitted. The original grips on the early ones was similar to checkering on American handguns.

Best Regards, Les

 

[Texas Star]

Different Nagant revolvers were used by other countries, like Norway and Sweden. I think Belgium used some.

Were those any better than the Russian examples? Calibers were 7.5mm. The Russian 7.62mm was probably hotter.

I've read that Russian tank crews liked Nagants better than Tokarev autos, because they could be poked out the slots and fired.

 

[Arik]

Different Nagant revolvers were used by other countries, like Norway and Sweden. I think Belgium used some.

Were those any better than the Russian examples? Calibers were 7.5mm. The Russian 7.62mm was probably hotter.

I've read that Russian tank crews liked Nagants better than Tokarev autos, because they could be poked out the slots and fired.

I don't think they were any better since they were all designed by the same man and considering the era it was made in I'll say the trigger pull wasn't bad. For today it's horrible

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[Arik]

I've only owned a CZ-75B in the current Czech Republic form, with the black epoxy finish, which has been durable. It is both accurate and reliable.

My son had a Makarov, which he liked. And he had close exposure to a Dragunov (sp?) when he shot the man running across a room in Baghdad with it. The individual had just run downstairs from a roof, where he'd been shooting at US troops with it. A single 9mm bullet from my son's Beretta killed him.

I've fired my son's AK and, I think, an SKS. Shot another AK on a range. They're okay, I guess, but I have no affection for them. They don't fit me well, and I can't get excited about them. Indifferent accuracy, too. I'd rather have an M-14 or an FN-FAL. I'm really more into my Winchester M-70 Fwt. Classic .270.

My interest in non-US military arms has been British. That's my heritage, so may be logical. But I'd sort of like to try a Makarov. They're pretty size-efficient and reliable. If they shoot as well as my Walther PP .32 did, they'd kill small game and snakes well.

I hear the Nagant revolvers have atrocious trigger pulls. And the grip checkering is usually crude.

Of course ammo and the shooter play a big role but the accuracy of an AK and a FAL are about the same. Somewhere between 2-4 moa

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[Art Doc]

If we are limited to military arms I have two. A common CZ 7.65 pistol and seldom seen variation of SKS.

You know what this looks like...

Have you seen one of these?

 

[crazyphil]

I had a Makarov but traded it several years ago on a revolver. Probably
should have kept it for what little I got in trade. It was very reliable.
I, and perhaps some of you, pronounce it Mack a rov with emphasis on
Mack? I had a genuine Russian student correct me. It is pronounced
Mu care ov with emphasis on care.

 

[Arik]

Correct. It's not Mack Arov. It's Maa car ov.

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[les.b]

If we are limited to military arms I have two. A common CZ 7.65 pistol and seldom seen variation of SKS.

You know what this looks like...

Have you seen one of these?

SP:

Thanks for contributing. I am partial to the CZ pistols, and this one has a really interesting operating system. I have been looking at the SKS, and other than noticing that it lacks a bayonet, I am not sure. I know that some of the imports from China had to remove the bayonets before they would allow importation. Could it be one of the Norinco imports? I'm just guessing.

At any rate, thanks for stopping by, and thanks for posting.

Oh, and by the way, we are not limited to military guns, if you have some target or hunting or other variations, we would be happy to see them.

Best Regards, Les

 

[les.b]

I had a Makarov but traded it several years ago on a revolver. Probably
should have kept it for what little I got in trade. It was very reliable.
I, and perhaps some of you, pronounce it Mack a rov with emphasis on
Mack? I had a genuine Russian student correct me. It is pronounced
Mu care ov with emphasis on care.

Phil:

As Arik pointed out, that is basically correct. The problem with trying to be accurate in our attempts to properly pronounce Russian words is that then to be consistent, we would have to incorporate Russian grammar. Without going into it too deeply, and because I forget a lot of the grammatical rules......

Nouns, and "Макаров" (the Russian spelling of Makarov in Cyrillic) is a noun, and nouns change their endings depending on how the are used in a sentence, whether they are the subject, or the object of a preposition, or whatever. Also, if we have a plural, the ending will change. When we add a plural ending, for example, Макаров would be Макаровы, and this would be pronounced in a different fashion. So the Пистолет Макарова, or ПМ (PM) can be a lesson in Russian language and grammar in and of itself.

Example 1.
"May I examine your Makarov pistol?"
"может я изучить ваш пистолет Макарова?"

Example 2.
"May I examine your Makarov pistols?"
"может я изучить ваши пистолеты Макарова?"

Here we see that the plural ending goes to the word "пистолет", which becomes "пистолеты", while Макарова stays the same.

I have to admit that I may have forgotten exact spellings here. So please forgive me if I mangled the language. It has been so long since I've used any of my Russian, that I forget much. The point is, that when we try to follow foreign pronunciation rules, we should be consistent and try to incorporate the rest of the grammar, and then it starts to get complicated. Not to mention that the average English speaking person will wonder what you are talking about.

I might point out that the Russians also pronounce many of the other weapons designs differently than we do. Mosin, Tokarev, etc.

Just some random thoughts on the topic.

Best Regards, Les

 

[Cyrano]

Probably was a Comblock weapon at the end of it's career. This is a Steyr M 95 that was originally in 8X50R. It was made by Steyr on a Bulgarian contract, and has the Bulgarian crest on the receiver ring. The left rail is stamped Steyr and the date, Later it was rechambered to 8X56R, and probably remained in Bulgarian service until they sold all their Steyrs (and they had a BUNCH of them they'd collected over the years), in the 1990s.

 

[Cyrano]

This is a rather scarce rifle. The Treaty of St Germain des Près ended World War I with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and spread their Steyr M 95 rifles all over the Balkans as well as Italy. The new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later to become Yugoslavia, got a bunch of them. They liked the German Mauser rifle, so they converted their M 95s to 8X57JS caliber and renamed them M 95 M. This entailed a new barrel and serious modification to the magazine, bolt head and extractor. They were loaded from Kar 98K stripper clips.

Very few of these have showed up in the US and most of them are beat to death; they fought the Partisan war against the Nazis under very difficult conditions. I've never seen one in this fine condition.

Photo 1; The rifle.
Photo 2: The receiver marking.
Photo 3: Note the clip guides in the receiver for the Mauser strippers. M 95s in the original caliber of 8X50R didn't have this.
Photo 4: Very Mauser-looking rear sight.
Photo 5: The magazine did not have a hole for dropping the clip out the bottom, as did the 8X50R caliber rifles loaded from a clip that entered the magazine and became part of the feed mechanism.

 

[crazyphil]

les.b I would be interested to know where/when you learned Russian.
I was a cryptographer with USAFSS and NSA back in the 50s and worked
around & with Russian linguists.

 

[les.b]

Probably was a Comblock weapon at the end of it's career. This is a Steyr M 95 that was originally in 8X50R. It was made by Steyr on a Bulgarian contract, and has the Bulgarian crest on the receiver ring. The left rail is stamped Steyr and the date, Later it was rechambered to 8X56R, and probably remained in Bulgarian service until they sold all their Steyrs (and they had a BUNCH of them they'd collected over the years), in the 1990s.

Cyrano:

Yet another beautiful example pulled from your vault!!! Really cool, and certainly unique. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to share with us.

Best Regards, Les

 

[les.b]

This is a rather scarce rifle. The Treaty of St Germain des Près ended World War I with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and spread their Steyr M 95 rifles all over the Balkans as well as Italy. The new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later to become Yugoslavia, got a bunch of them. They liked the German Mauser rifle, so they converted their M 95s to 8X57JS caliber and renamed them M 95 M. This entailed a new barrel and serious modification to the magazine, bolt head and extractor. They were loaded from Kar 98K stripper clips.

Very few of these have showed up in the US and most of them are beat to death; they fought the Partisan war against the Nazis under very difficult conditions. I've never seen one in this fine condition.

Photo 1; The rifle.
Photo 2: The receiver marking.
Photo 3: Note the clip guides in the receiver for the Mauser strippers. M 95s in the original caliber of 8X50R didn't have this.
Photo 4: Very Mauser-looking rear sight.
Photo 5: The magazine did not have a hole for dropping the clip out the bottom, as did the 8X50R caliber rifles loaded from a clip that entered the magazine and became part of the feed mechanism.

Cyrano:

Yet another rare bird!!! These just keep getting better and better. Keep them coming!!! That is yet another that I'm nut sure I've even heard of.

Best Regards, Les

 

[les.b]

This is a rather scarce rifle. The Treaty of St Germain des Près ended World War I with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and spread their Steyr M 95 rifles all over the Balkans as well as Italy. The new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later to become Yugoslavia, got a bunch of them. They liked the German Mauser rifle, so they converted their M 95s to 8X57JS caliber and renamed them M 95 M. This entailed a new barrel and serious modification to the magazine, bolt head and extractor. They were loaded from Kar 98K stripper clips.

Very few of these have showed up in the US and most of them are beat to death; they fought the Partisan war against the Nazis under very difficult conditions. I've never seen one in this fine condition.

Photo 1; The rifle.
Photo 2: The receiver marking.
Photo 3: Note the clip guides in the receiver for the Mauser strippers. M 95s in the original caliber of 8X50R didn't have this.
Photo 4: Very Mauser-looking rear sight.
Photo 5: The magazine did not have a hole for dropping the clip out the bottom, as did the 8X50R caliber rifles loaded from a clip that entered the magazine and became part of the feed mechanism.

Cyrano:

Yet another rare bird!!! These just keep getting better and better. Keep them coming!!! That is yet another that I'm not sure that I've even heard of.

Best Regards, Les