Shooting the Polish PA-63.

I've been interested in weapons chambered for the 9x18mm round for more than 30 years. Initially, I found myself working in places such as North Africa, where I often encountered weapons in this caliber.

For a period I also taught a class for those likely to be working where terrorist kidnapping was endemic. As part of the class, I would teach disarming techniques followed by turning weapons against one's captors. Since many terrorist groups at the time were supplied by the Soviet Union or its client states, I taught familiarity with some weapons chambered for the 9mm Makarov round.

I must admit, too, that on occasion I carried pistols chambered for the 9mm Makarov round because if I had to drop them somewhere, they weren't going to indicate a user of U.S. origin. Finally, I just liked 9mm Makarov pistols because they were scarce in the West, which gave them a certain "neat" factor.

With the wide availability today of imported Bulgarian Makarovs and Polish P-64 pistols, the scarcity factor is no longer as relevant, though there are still pistols chambered for this round, which are unlikely to be encountered by most shooters. A substantial number of American shooters are now quite familiar with the 9x18mm round and some of its pistols, and many like the combo.

The most ubiquitous pistol in 9x18mm chambering is the Makarov, which lends its name to the cartridge that was developed for it. As with many post-World War II Soviet designs, the Makarov owes a debt to captured German technology, in this case the Walther PP/PPK. Developed around a half-century ago in the Soviet Union, the PM, as the Makarov is known in Russia, remains the standard Russian military and police pistol today, though it has been superseded with some special units.

Left to right, the .380, 9mm Makarov and 9mm Parabellum rounds.

While the PM resembles the Walther PP and has a similar operating system, there are some notable differences, especially in the safety. The Walther employs a hammer-drop safety that may be set before the slide is operated to allow the hammer to ride forward as the slide returns to the closed position, or it may be operated after a round is chambered.

The Makarov safety/hammer drop operates in reverse of that of the Walther. While the safety is pressed downward to drop the hammer on a Walther, on the Makarov it is pressed upward. Also, when the Makarov safety is in the up position, it locks the action. In order to enable the double action of the Makarov, the safety must be returned to the down position after using it to drop the hammer.

Makarovs have notoriously heavy trigger pulls, quite likely by intent since the pistol was widely issued into conscripts in the Warsaw Pact and among Marxist guerrillas in the Third World. Nevertheless, the Russian special police officers with whom I've discussed the Makarov are relatively satisfied with it. They train to use it quickly in combat scenarios and find it very fast-handling. It is, however, normally a secondary weapon to the AKSU, the SMG version of the AKS-74.