Temptation!

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Aguila Blanca

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I found a place selling 1911 barrels chambered for 7.62x25 Tokarev.

Never thought about that as a possibility, never knew such a thing might be possible, let alone available. Now that I know it exists -- I want one. Of course, I don't have anything else that fires that cartridge, and I don't reload for it. There is no practical reason under the sun to buy the barrel -- but I still want one.

Somebody talk me down. PLEASE.
 
Will 7.62x25 even fit into a 1911 magazine? I was looking at a conversion barrel for a 10mm Glock some time back and found that the OAL of the 7.62x25 was too long for the mags.
 
JohnKSa said:
Will 7.62x25 even fit into a 1911 magazine? I was looking at a conversion barrel for a 10mm Glock some time back and found that the OAL of the 7.62x25 was too long for the mags.
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The spec for .45 ACP COL is 1.275". Spec for 7.62x45 Tokarev is 1.386" with a round-nose bullet. The fore-to-aft dimension of the magazine body is 1.372-.006 at the exterior. That makes the minimum in-spec dimension 1.366" less the metal thickness. So, yes, the Tokarev round is slightly too long, but should work with hollow point or flat-point bullets.

see this:

https://www.shootingtimes.com/editor...-tokarev/99440
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Interesting. Thanks.
 
This was a common project a while back with barrels from J&G and Numrich.

7.62x25 is too long for the 1911. People were getting maybe 5 rounds in a Super magazine at a slant. Maybe a commercial hollowpoint will fit and you can handload short, which kind of defeats the purpose of plinking with Iron Curtain surplus.

I read of squeezing magazines to elongate them as much as the magazine well would accept to get a shot or two more.

Some of the intrepid experimenters were deep seating bullets in that Iron Curtain surplus, which raised pressure in an already hot load.

Said Iron Curtain surplus tended to hard "submachine gun" primers and there were some extra strength mainsprings installed to fire them.

The ST article mentions some of that, but unfortunately did not get into reloading suitable OAL ammo with commercial primers.
 
I have a CZ52 and a Tokarev. The CZ is an excellent firearm. I still want Ruger and S&W to make their 557 pistols in 7.62x25. Maybe a Lipsey’s limited run just to prove their viability. And get the ammo manufacturers on board. A Hornady XTP at 1700 fps would be pretty cool. I have some Tokarev hollow point ammo from a small batch maker that I got in the 80’s. Privi used to make JHP for 7.62x25, but I haven’t seen any since Obama was President.
 
I just checked the magazines from my CZ-52 against all the large-frame, single-stack pistols that I have access to which include two 1911's (a S&W and a Springfield), a Ruger P90, and a S&W 1076 and the CZ's magazines were too long front-to-back to fit in the mag well of any of them. I don't know if perhaps the magazine from a TT-30/33 or Zastava M57 might be short enough to fit, but I rather doubt it as, when loaded with S&B factory 85 gr FMJ there isn't much extra room in my CZ's magazine. I suspect that in order to make such a conversion work, you'd have to have a 1911 with different mag well dimensions in order to fit a magazine that would work reliably. Perhaps a Coonan frame might work as .357 Magnum has an OAL of 1.59" which is longer than the 7.62x25's, but as I understand it the Coonan magazines stack the cartridges at an upward angle to address both the long OAL of .357 Magnum and the rimmed case, so it still might not be long enough (I don't have access to a Coonan having never seen one in person, so I don't know).

It seems to me that, if you have a 1911 frame with a large enough mag well to accept it, the easiest way to make this conversion work would be to modify the magazine from an existing 7.62x25 pistol like a Zastava M57, TT-30/33, or CZ-52 to work in the 1911. If, however, you're wanting to convert a standard 1911 frame that you already have, I think it's doubtful that you'll be able to get it to run reliably unless you're willing to handload ammunition to a shorter OAL specifically for this gun by deep-seating the bullets and/or using lighter bullets.

Honestly, I like 7.62x25 as much as anyone and more than most (my CZ-52 was my first handgun) and I think it would make a dandy service pistol cartridge if loaded with modern bullets. However, given the availability of factory ammunition available for it and the guns chambered in it, my interest in the cartridge is more mechanical curiosity and historical value than practicality. If you want a 7.62x25 1911 just for the "something different" factor, I get that, but for any other purpose I think it would be a lot easier and more cost effective to simply buy an existing gun in 7.62x25 or a 1911 in a different caliber.
 
The big issue is that the length of the round is kind of at the "break point" for common (and uncommon) pistol frames.

The spec given for the Russian round is .005" longer than the .30 Mauser. Might fit in a broomhandle but there are several other issues with that.

Too long for a regular 1911 size frame. Would fit in a Coonan or LAR Grizzly or Desert Eagle without too much modification, but when you get to that size gun, you have the option of MUCH BETTER (and bigger) cartridges.
 
There is a Chicom 7.62x25 that looks like a stretched P226.
But not allowed here and I no longer see it at Marstar in Canada.
 
The 7.62x25 would probably fit in the Rock Island .22 Magnum 1911, but I don't know if that will accept a standard slide of if it would need a longer space between the locking pugs and the breech face. I suspect it would.
 
Just to contribute to the delinquency of a handloader, you can get 1500 fps with a 90 grain .38 Super and a lot less Hokey Pokey with over length ammo.
 
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