7.62mm Submachine Guns

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Doc Intrepid

New member
If anyone knows the answer, I'm sure that some of the members here will have an explanation. Here is the issue:

I'm informed that "7.62mm Submachine guns" are in current use by various law enforcement or military organizations (outside the US).

I'm familiar with 7.62mm x 55mm; 7.62mm x 51mm; and 7.62mm x 39mm cartridges, but none of these are pistol cartridges. The weapons that fire these rounds are machineguns, not submachine guns.

AFAIK the definition of a Submachine gun is that it is a fully-automatic weapon that fires pistol cartridges.

I'm aware that historically there once were Soviet 7.62mm Submachine guns that fired 7.62mm x 25mm Tokarev pistol rounds during World War II.

Courtesy of Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPSh-41

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×25mm_Tokarev

But as far as I know this is now considered a historical weapon, not something that would be manufactured or issued to a military or paramilitary organization in 2015.

Does anyone here know of a currently manufactured submachine gun that chambers a 7.62mm pistol cartridge?

Thanks in advance!
 
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Model12Win

Moderator
I'm not really aware of one except maybe the Škorpion vz. 61 which might be still in use by the Czech army. Techincally, it's chambered in 7.65 but is often lobbed together with 7.62mm weapons.

I'm sure there are PPSH-41 and PPS-43 7.62x25mm Soviet WW2 era handguns still in use somewhere by secondary forces. I know Tokarev pistols are still around in post-Soviet locations used by cops, security guards, reservists, etc.

Could you cite where you heard what you heard though?
 
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Sharkbite

New member
I would bet someone used the term SUBmachine gun incorrectly. Im pretty abreast of modern law enforcement weapons and tactics.

Even a 300blackout PDW is not a subgun by definition. Although its the same size as a MP5
 
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Doc Intrepid

New member
Can't provide a citation as a link, it was a verbal. Essentially the claim was that 7.62mm submachineguns were being issued (today - 2015) to security forces. I noted that I was unaware of any '7.62mm submachineguns' of current manufacture being issued to any security forces.

(i.e. meaning a modern SMG manufactured recently, not a 40 year old Soviet Tokarev SMG that is still in use somewhere...)

They mentioned "PK", which - when I looked - led me to 7.62mm PK and PKM Russian machineguns. (7.62mm x 54mm) Not SUB machineguns. So that wasn't useful.

When I googled SMG PK, I got this - which winds up being 9mm, not 7.62mm:

http://www.pmulcahy.com/submachineguns/pakistani_submachineguns.htm

So I'm drawing a blank.

Perhaps someone is manufacturing brand new SMGs that chamber old WW II 7.62mm x 25mm Tokarev pistol rounds, but I find this difficult to believe...

It does appear that pallets of old Soviet ammo for them is available in Serbia, Bulgaria, and other former Eastern Bloc countries. Just wondered if anyone here had this all sussed out already.
 
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barnbwt

New member
There were a zillion versions of 7.62x25 SMGs; British Sterling*, Czech CZ26, Yugo M56, Russian PPSH41, Polish PPS43 (Russia moved on quickly after WWII but the satellites kept making them), and even today there's a Bizon variant in Tokarev. Plenty of machine pistols (Tokarev and Mauser based) as well.

The Chinese are old fans of the round, I suspect they've an entire range of guns natively designed and built for it. As stone-simple as SMGs are, every single model is likely still in service (sheesh, there's probably still MP34's rocking out in eastern Europe, somewhere :rolleyes:)

TCB

*Doubt this one saw actual service ;)
 
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