Good point on the Astras, but they were sort of an exception to the general rule, being full sized military pistols with beefy recoil springs around the barrels making them a bit awkward to operate and difficult to field strip and re assemble. You generally won’t find one that was in service very long without a badly battered or cracked frame.
The 9mm Largo was a 9X21mm IIRC, and a really good round which never got the credit I think it deserved. The STAR “B” series (I think) pistols which used a Browning lock up system did a much better job of handling it than the Astras did.
The SMGs by and large used the blowback system with the more powerful rounds like the 9mm, .45ACP and .30 Tok, but the bolts weigh a couple or three pounds for the mass / inertia required.
Totally impractical for a handgun, especially a compact one like the Makarov.
The famous “Tommy Gun” weighed more than the M-1 Garand Infantry main battle rifle, and most of that was in the bolt, which also functioned as the hammer/striker and firing pin.
On the Czech Weapons forum on “Gunboards”
http://www.gunboards.com/forums/
we speculated about a modern DA auto in 7.62 X 25mm (which is a whole ‘nuther animal using JHP bullets) with a hi cap double stack mag.
I don’t know if a polymer frame would handle the old TOK round for very long, but you could try it I suppose.
I’m surprised that the Russians felt so compelled to conform to the NATO standard 9X19mm. They could have done a lot worse than to return to the good old .30 Tokarev.
That will do anything these newfangled 5.7mm FN dandys will do IMHO and then some. It’s tactical obsolescence has been grossly exaggerated, as most of us who still shoot the old Tokarev can attest.
If you load a 110 - 120 gr. bullet in it you can make it just subsonic and run it through a suppressor while still cycling the action and packing a respectable wallop downrange, too.
The Russians had a bloody good thing going with the old TOK round, and I’m a little baffled why they abandoned it in favor of a relatively anemic 9mm which Soldiers over the past century or so have come to generally mistrust. Neither can I imagine the infamous Spetznaz Warriors being afraid of a sidearm that is loud and kicks a little.
I got a 9mm barrel for one of my CZ-52s but after firing the TOKS in it, the 9mms were absolutely “anticlimactic”.
I don’t think spetsnaz has ever used Makarov en-masse. They still used TT-33, APS and recently GSh-18 sidearms. Makarov known as a cop’s gun, and some cops still used Tokarevs there.
Makarovs were issued to regular troops whose combat roles is not about to have a full-sized assault rifle (pilots, tankers, nurses, cooks) but they rarely used it as well, sticking to APS and shortened AKs.
I agree with what you said with one exception. I don’t think the frames were at all susceptible to cracking or being stressed.
When I was a kid in the 50s and 60s, Astras were among the cheapest pistols available. I recall ordering a 600 with a holster and spare mag for $36. I got a 400 and box of ammo for $20. Both were in nice shape.
One 400 I had was probably the best finished handgun I have ever seen. It had a blue finish which I have hardly ever seen. It was a beautiful light blue, not black like most.
Those Astras just looked cool to me and they had a tendency to be more accurate than most. I think because of the fixed barrel.
They could be partially field stripped very rapidly by retracting the slide, turning the barrel out of it’s lugs then releasing the slide to move right off the frame. Of course separating the barrel, spring and slide from each other required pushing in on that little sleeve in the bushing with the end of the magazine. Still not really that hard to do.