Category Archives: Tokarev

Winning the Cold War

The battle between CO2 and the thermometer Part 2 Part 1

By Dennis Adler

If you find yourself on a winter day with a need to shoot a CO2 powered air pistol in 28 degrees, it will work for a short time. How short? Depends upon the air pistol, its internal design, and how soon the CO2 loses PSI and velocity drops to the point where the pistol won’t function. With the Gletcher Tokarev TT-33 it turned out to be 90 shots with the first four of five 18-round magazines maintaining at least 346 fps velocity and 1.25 inch accuracy at 21 feet. This is what you would definitely call a best case scenario.

Over the years I have had varying results with CO2 in cold weather, particularly with blowback action pistols, but also with single and double action revolvers. My most disappointing test was two winters ago with a Peacemaker that got about two reloads from a CO2 cylinder before the BBs (this was before the pellet models were introduced) almost rolled out of the barrel. With a couple of semi-autos I managed two magazines before the CO2 failed to power the slide. The temperatures were almost always in the 30s. For this most recent test it was 28 degrees with a light wind and the test gun was a Gletcher Tokarev TT-33 blowback action [1], which completely surprised me by performing exceptionally well in below freezing temperatures. With the ProChrono chronograph using infrared screens plugged into an outside power source, I was able to clock velocity for each magazine I shot. After only a few minutes exposure to the outside weather, having come from a 70 degree room where the CO2 had been loaded into the pistol grip, the first 9 shots fired clocked from 355 fps to 327 fps with an average velocity of 346 fps. I went through five 18-round stick magazines before the gun clocked a low of 276 fps and then was unable to continue firing. That’s a total of 90 shots over a period of 15 minutes outdoors in 28 degree weather. This is the best result I have ever had with a CO2 pistol in below freezing temperatures. The Gletcher Tokarev TT-33 has been an exceptional gun since it was introduced, but I would have to say it is an all around performer despite having a stick magazine and separate CO2 channel in the grip frame. The blowback action is snappy, even at 28 degrees. The bottom line here is that I picked a gun that happens to perform well in cold weather. read more

Tokarev TT-33, Makarov PM1951, and Grach MR-443

A three quarter century revolution in Russian Small Arms Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

By Dennis Adler

The gun at left is an actual TT-33, my aged Gletcher at right. There are some minor visual differences between the TT-33 and Gletcher TT, most notably the use of Colt-style rear slide serrations rather than the more distinctive elongated vertical serrations used on the Tokarev, and a slightly different look to the trigger, although accurate in size.

Arms designs were global with differing technologies but many similar ideas; one cannot look at a Colt Model 1911 without seeing similarities to countless other European arms of the period. The same can be said for Walther or Browning designs; the confluence of ideas, though perhaps packaged differently, were much the same, and with few exceptions, most were variations of John M. Browning designs created at the end of the 19^th and into the early 20^th century. The Russians were more often borrowers or outright purchasers of foreign arms in the mid to late 19^th century when the Czars were impressed by American guns like Colt and Smith & Wesson. Even with large orders for S&W Americans modified to the needs of the Russian military, leading to S&W producing the First, Second and Third Model Russian variations, the Russian military also sought out sources of arms closer to home, in Belgium, where brothers Leon and Emile Nagant and Fabrique d’Armes et Leon Nagant in Liege developed the 7.62mm, 7-shot gas-seal Nagant revolver. The double action/single action revolver was adopted in 1895 as the standard issue handgun for the Russian Army, and was so well regarded by the military that the Russia government purchased the patent rights and began manufacturing Nagant revolvers in the arsenals at Tula, Sestroryetsk and Izhevsk. Production continued throughout the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and abdication of the Czarist government, through two world wars, and right up until 1945! And even after WWII, the 7-shot Negant revolvers were still carried by Soviet police and the infamous KGB. read more

The Gletcher Russian Legends Tokarev TT, PM 1951 and APS

Blowback action reproductions of the Soviet Union’s most famous pistols

Part 1 The Tokarev TT

By Dennis Adler

The Gletcher TT has authentic lines with few exceptions. The vertical slide serrations are copied from the post WWII version of the TT-33 rather than the original design which had evenly spaced elliptical and vertical serrations. The slide and magazine release are very accurate, as are the hard rubber grips and lanyard loop at the bottom of the frame.

The Soviet Union’s 7.62mm Tokarev TT-30 and TT-33 semiautomatic pistols, which had been adopted by the Red Army in 1934, quickly earned the trust of Russian soldiers during WWII, and continued to grow in popularity because of their power and reliability. In the 1930s the Tokarev was considered a significant step up from the old 19^th century Nagant Model 1895 revolvers that had been in use for more than 40 years, and still remained in use even into WWII. The wheels of change had, however, been set into motion after the First World War when the Russian military recognized that their sturdy but antiquated,7-shot Nagant revolvers had to be replaced by a modern military handgun, and by modern, that meant a semiautomatic pistol. read more