why did 7.62 x 25 Tokarev round fall out of favor?
- Thread starter simonrichter
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Mike Irwin
Staff
"Originally, NATO countries didn't want the US 7.62x51mm round."
That wasn't because the 7.62 round wasn't invented in a European country, it was because our European partners, particularly Britain, saw the writing on the wall for the full-powered battle rifle cartridge while the US was still stuck in the myth that every American with a rifle was a 1,000 yard sniping machine.
The US even ignored its own battle studies of actions in WW II that showed that intermediate power cartridges were far more suited to modern combat scenarios.
That wasn't because the 7.62 round wasn't invented in a European country, it was because our European partners, particularly Britain, saw the writing on the wall for the full-powered battle rifle cartridge while the US was still stuck in the myth that every American with a rifle was a 1,000 yard sniping machine.
The US even ignored its own battle studies of actions in WW II that showed that intermediate power cartridges were far more suited to modern combat scenarios.
Mike Irwin
Staff
"Yes, it's a nearly identical case and bullet, but the Russians loaded it much hotter."
As originally developed, the 7.62 Tok round was only marginally hotter than the 7.63 Mauser round.
As use continued, the Soviets developed a number of different loadings, including an incendiary tracer round using a lighter bullet that pushed past 1,600 fps in Soviet submachine guns.
However, this round was not common issue.
As originally developed, the 7.62 Tok round was only marginally hotter than the 7.63 Mauser round.
As use continued, the Soviets developed a number of different loadings, including an incendiary tracer round using a lighter bullet that pushed past 1,600 fps in Soviet submachine guns.
However, this round was not common issue.
I think that not being invented in their European country had a bit to do with it, but of course such snobbish bullheadedness doesn't look good in the history books, and yes, we had our own version of that, as well.
The British were working on their .280, their bullpup rifle designs and yes, the idea of an intermediate round was appealing, as even their most stubborn folks realized they had taken the .303 as far at it could go.
the Germans were working on their own designs, one being (surprise) in 8mm Mauser, with other factions working for the 7,9mm Kurz and some for something else entirely...
The French were working on..well, ...being French...
I don't think the US was stuck in the myth that every soldier was a 1,000yd sniping machine, so much as that if they had a round that would do it, they could be. I think, as much as anything the 7.62x51 was developed so they could make a change, without making a change.
The .30-06 WORKED. It worked in WWI. It worked in WWII, it worked in Korea. And the new round WAS the GI .30-06, down range, anyway.
It always boils down to the actual people making the decisions, their personal beliefs, what they think is the best thing, what they can justify, and what they can get away with....
I can easily envision some Army brass looking at those studies, seeing them showing the intermediate cartridge better suited to modern combat, and setting them aside in favor of what they KNEW WORKED.
Machts nichts, today, other than as history, but don't think NATO or anyone else really operated, or operates differently, today.
Here's something to consider, and a bit more in line with the OP, if you wanted a high speed .30 caliber pistol round why go with the Tokarev, why not use the .30 Luger which fits in everything a 9mm does, and could be "magnumized" to a degree??
I'd be willing to bet, using some level of +p loads and not using the FMJ bullet from 100 years ago, you could do some fairly impressive things and do them from a handgun that the Tokarev round won't fit into.
Mike Irwin
Staff
"The British were working on their .280, their bullpup rifle designs and yes, the idea of an intermediate round was appealing, as even their most stubborn folks realized they had taken the .303 as far at it could go."
Quite literally, virtually every nation that had its own military small arms design and development infrastructure -- both West and East -- were working on the intermediate cartridge concept.
Soviets, Czechs, Poles, Hungarians in the East, with eventual adoption of the 7.62x39 by the Warsaw Pact.
In the West, Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, German, and others were working on various intermediate concepts.
Your "French were being French" is really a baseless slight. The French had been looking at the intermediate cartridge concept since before World War I, recognizing that the nature of combat was changing as both technology and the landscape changed.
It's easy to snicker at the "Froggy Surrenderboys" and dismiss them out of hand, because that's a lot easier than taking an actual hard look at the totality of their contributions.
The entire concept that "well, the .30-06 worked, so it should have been kept" its just as equally silly. The .58 rifled musket workd. The .50-70 Trapdoor worked. Why didn't we keep those?
Hey, if a single shot rifle and black powder .50 cal. round worked on the Great Plains, it should be perfect for urban combat in a bombed to hell European city, right?
Because it worked?
The real truth is yeah, the .30-06 worked, because it had to because it was the only thing available, but the US military's own studies showed VERY clearly it had SIGNIFICANT limitations and drawbacks in modern warfare.
Those limitations turned into abject failures with the adoption of the 7.62 and the M14 battle rifle platform. Yet, you can claim that the 7.62 worked in Vietnam simply the basis of it being the only thing available, so it had to work.
That just... doesn't work.
Quite literally, virtually every nation that had its own military small arms design and development infrastructure -- both West and East -- were working on the intermediate cartridge concept.
Soviets, Czechs, Poles, Hungarians in the East, with eventual adoption of the 7.62x39 by the Warsaw Pact.
In the West, Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, German, and others were working on various intermediate concepts.
Your "French were being French" is really a baseless slight. The French had been looking at the intermediate cartridge concept since before World War I, recognizing that the nature of combat was changing as both technology and the landscape changed.
It's easy to snicker at the "Froggy Surrenderboys" and dismiss them out of hand, because that's a lot easier than taking an actual hard look at the totality of their contributions.
The entire concept that "well, the .30-06 worked, so it should have been kept" its just as equally silly. The .58 rifled musket workd. The .50-70 Trapdoor worked. Why didn't we keep those?
Hey, if a single shot rifle and black powder .50 cal. round worked on the Great Plains, it should be perfect for urban combat in a bombed to hell European city, right?
Because it worked?
The real truth is yeah, the .30-06 worked, because it had to because it was the only thing available, but the US military's own studies showed VERY clearly it had SIGNIFICANT limitations and drawbacks in modern warfare.
Those limitations turned into abject failures with the adoption of the 7.62 and the M14 battle rifle platform. Yet, you can claim that the 7.62 worked in Vietnam simply the basis of it being the only thing available, so it had to work.
That just... doesn't work.
I loved my Tokarev.
It was my first outdoor carry pistol and I will always remember it fondly.
That said, I think that the round fell into favor in the USSR b/c it was used in both the pistol and the ppsh-41 which was a widely distributed weapon. Logistics was easy.
When WW2 ended and the Soviets were moving to intermediate cartridges, they settled on the 7.62x.39 SKS which was immediately replaced by the AK47. When they had the AK, they didn't need the inferior PPsh41 and the round that went with it. I think that the pistol was retired at almost the same time in favor of the Makarov.
No one in the West adopted it for the same reason that we've not adopted whatever the current Chinese intermediate round is. It might be great, but it also might not be. Comparatively we all know someone who has fired 9mm or 45 ACP or 5.56 NATO and we can do other research on our own as well; there's less mystery.
It was my first outdoor carry pistol and I will always remember it fondly.
That said, I think that the round fell into favor in the USSR b/c it was used in both the pistol and the ppsh-41 which was a widely distributed weapon. Logistics was easy.
When WW2 ended and the Soviets were moving to intermediate cartridges, they settled on the 7.62x.39 SKS which was immediately replaced by the AK47. When they had the AK, they didn't need the inferior PPsh41 and the round that went with it. I think that the pistol was retired at almost the same time in favor of the Makarov.
No one in the West adopted it for the same reason that we've not adopted whatever the current Chinese intermediate round is. It might be great, but it also might not be. Comparatively we all know someone who has fired 9mm or 45 ACP or 5.56 NATO and we can do other research on our own as well; there's less mystery.
Mike Irwin
Staff
"whatever the current Chinese intermediate round is."
5.8x42mm
5.8x42mm
Jim Watson
New member
Has anybody got a Yugoslavian M57 Tokarev derivative?
It has a properly located thumb safety, not just a lever scabbed on any old where to get US import points.
Carve out a set of Tokagypt style grips (They would have to be made to fit, the M57 has a longer butt than a TT33.) and it would be as "modern" as necessary.
As for rifles, the .30-06 is by current standards a medium machine gun round squeezed into infantry rifles. Our military leaders are planning on repeating that logic with a new super duper 6.8mm high velocity round originally specified for a SAW, the rifle added on the bandwagon.
But if you go back a century, everybody did that.
It wasn't long before nearly everybody realized it wasn't necessary to put up with the weight and recoil in a rifle. There was a lot of study given to "intermediate" rounds. Interestingly enough, a lot of them shot 7mm bullets.
I suspect the Germans and Soviets went 8mm and 7.62 just for the small savings in barrel tooling for otherwise all new guns.
We rattled along with full power rifles, the .308 being a .30-06 equivalent with Ball powder; until the .223/5.56 came along. There must be SOMETHING to it, the USSR and PRC liked what they saw and bought small bore.
It has a properly located thumb safety, not just a lever scabbed on any old where to get US import points.
Carve out a set of Tokagypt style grips (They would have to be made to fit, the M57 has a longer butt than a TT33.) and it would be as "modern" as necessary.
As for rifles, the .30-06 is by current standards a medium machine gun round squeezed into infantry rifles. Our military leaders are planning on repeating that logic with a new super duper 6.8mm high velocity round originally specified for a SAW, the rifle added on the bandwagon.
But if you go back a century, everybody did that.
It wasn't long before nearly everybody realized it wasn't necessary to put up with the weight and recoil in a rifle. There was a lot of study given to "intermediate" rounds. Interestingly enough, a lot of them shot 7mm bullets.
I suspect the Germans and Soviets went 8mm and 7.62 just for the small savings in barrel tooling for otherwise all new guns.
We rattled along with full power rifles, the .308 being a .30-06 equivalent with Ball powder; until the .223/5.56 came along. There must be SOMETHING to it, the USSR and PRC liked what they saw and bought small bore.
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And yet the 5.56 is so miserably ineffective that most states won't let you hunt deer with it.
What is so often overlooked (or perhaps avoided?) in discussions about military effectiveness of the small bore rounds and how the roughly .30 caliber rounds used in WWII are now too big, too heavy, and so inefficient for modern combat, is the historical perspective of why we used what we did, and why what we use now "works better".
And, part of that is the technology of the firearms themselves. In the beginning, one shot was all you got. So that one shot damn well better be effective in terms of bullet size, weight, and energy.
This was the rule for literally a few hundred years. That creates a pretty sound institutional memory. By the mid 1800s, you get practical repeaters, but still only one shot at a time. By WWII, we see personal automatic weapons and that tilts the balance the other way, for military use.
Because troops are firing full auto, lighter rounds are better, better for recoil control, better for ammo capacity /weight, and because you are firing in bursts and full auto each individual round doesn't need the power the older larger rounds have, to still be effective for military purposes.
And, that's the other key thing. The military requires the enemy be taken out of the fight. HOW that is done, either by a single round or a burst doesn't matter a lot, as long as the job gets done.
It's a very different situation than sport hunting where the object is to humanely dispatch an animal, with a single round (if possible). Which is a big reason why sport hunting laws seldom allow the use of light caliber rounds for big game.
Getting back on track,
Why did the 7.62 Tokarev "fall out of favor"??
Same reason most military rounds do. The owner government & military decide something else will do the job just as well, if not better.
Frequently this has to do with the design of the weapons the round is used in, more than the capabilities of the round itself.
Better, newer designs of firearms using a newer cartridge supplant the older models is the usual rule.
some designs are literally dead ends. Good enough at what they do, but unable to be improved or modified enough to meet changing requirements over time. Some designs meet their required needs well enough to be virtually unchanged for decades or more. Even when "better" designs are available, some of the old ones continue to soldier on, either because they are still good enough, or, sometimes due to sheer bureaucratic inertia until their shortcomings are too obvious to ignore.
simonrichter
New member
that totally makes sense, could have figured myself
Higher velocity, effectiveness might depend on your definition or particular use.
Remember that when designed and in common use the 7.62x25 is all FMJ as was 9MM when contemporary.
Choice of projectile diameter could well be related to the prior 7.62 Nagant revolvers and commonality with rifle bore (roughly). I seem to recall a story that some of the PPS-42/43 SMG were made during the seige of Leningrad by in part turning 1 rifle barrel into 3 SMG barrels.
Remember that when designed and in common use the 7.62x25 is all FMJ as was 9MM when contemporary.
Choice of projectile diameter could well be related to the prior 7.62 Nagant revolvers and commonality with rifle bore (roughly). I seem to recall a story that some of the PPS-42/43 SMG were made during the seige of Leningrad by in part turning 1 rifle barrel into 3 SMG barrels.
What user nation's armies consider effective and what you or I might consider effective for sporting or defense purposes is radically different.
Why doesn't anyone seem to remember that??
Small bore high velocity projectiles are militarily effective, particularly when used with high volume firepower.
Anything works when you're shooting people in the back of the neck to motivate others. Lots of things work well enough in SMG, and when yours has over twice the magazine capacity of the other guys, troops tend to like that...
Luger first offered the German military the .30 Luger. They thought the bullet too small. SO he opened the case up to 9mm and they accepted that.
The military point of view on cartridge "effectiveness" is generally "works well enough that our guys can beat their guys" and seldom goes beyond that.
In our capitalist system there's a lot of talk about this being better than that, this being more effective or more efficient, etc., but remember those guys are selling their product. And its the military of a democratic republic that is buying it. The Soviet system didn't work that way.
Why doesn't anyone seem to remember that??
Small bore high velocity projectiles are militarily effective, particularly when used with high volume firepower.
Anything works when you're shooting people in the back of the neck to motivate others. Lots of things work well enough in SMG, and when yours has over twice the magazine capacity of the other guys, troops tend to like that...
Luger first offered the German military the .30 Luger. They thought the bullet too small. SO he opened the case up to 9mm and they accepted that.
The military point of view on cartridge "effectiveness" is generally "works well enough that our guys can beat their guys" and seldom goes beyond that.
In our capitalist system there's a lot of talk about this being better than that, this being more effective or more efficient, etc., but remember those guys are selling their product. And its the military of a democratic republic that is buying it. The Soviet system didn't work that way.
Jim Watson
New member
The 7.62 Tokarev is a development of the 7.62 Mauser, already popular in Russia.
The 9mm Parabellum was first adopted by the German Navy. Before air power, the navies were the tech leaders of most militaries.
But the Swiss, Portuguese, and Finns thought 7.65 was enough. And the US Army thought it interesting enough to buy a thousand pistols.
The 9mm Parabellum was first adopted by the German Navy. Before air power, the navies were the tech leaders of most militaries.
But the Swiss, Portuguese, and Finns thought 7.65 was enough. And the US Army thought it interesting enough to buy a thousand pistols.
I've a Romanian TT-33 made in the 1950's .... fit and finish on that gun is better than a lot of new guns made right here in America that I see on the shelves today. You don't see bluing that deep blue except on vintage Colts ..... the only thing "crude" about it is the safety scabbed into it by the importer.
TruthTellers
New member
The Tok has higher velocities and more energy than 9mm does and retains that advantage out to 50 yards and likely much more. It's obviously a lighter bullet using a bottleneck case to achieve that and the advantages of using a bottleneck ammunition are well documented, so for a military perspective where you are limited to non-expanding ammunition, on sheer ballistics, the 7.62x25 has an advantage over 9mm.
Where it doesn't is end user satisfaction as the cartridge longer, thus the pistol's grip must be longer, which means if a doublestack were desired only those with the largest of hands would be able to shoot it comfortably.
It's a question of reliability and firepower vs form and function. A military needs guns that fit a broad spectrum of use for ease of training soldiers and logistics, they can't be having dozens of pistols in service outside of the most specialized needs. For a submachine gun tho, there is absolutely nothing that the 9mm has that makes it superior to what a properly designed 7.62x25 ammunition can do other than be the same ammunition used in service pistols.
Why did 7.62 x 25 Tokarev round fall out of favor?
During the early to mid 90s the Czechoslovakian Vz 52 pistols poured into the US by the tens of thousands along with the Chinese made Russian Tokarev guns. The Czech guns were pretty cool and everything pouring in was inexpensive. While the brass could be made several ways like reforming 9mm Win Mag cases the 7.62 X 25 brass was available from Starline I think I still have a few hundred cases. Using the Czech guns velocities of 1400 and 1500 FPS were easily loaded for using .312 90 and 71 grain FMJ bullets. The Tokarev guns needed to be loaded down and were said to be not as strong as the Czech design.
It was that pistol I managed to shoot one of my chronograph sky screens with when I was trying to see what velocities I could get.
Fortunately I did not hit one of the sensors. With all those pistols I really should have hung on to at least one of them but never did. 
Nice thing about bottle neck pistol rounds is you can push a light bullet to some pretty high velocities and the 7.62 Tokarev round is a good example from days gone by. Not sure where all of the guns that poured in are today. You got the Czech gun, a holster and one magazine for something like $69 USD if I recall correctly. The Chinese made Russian Tokarev guns were about the same price.
The only other bottleneck pistol round I flirted with was the 38-45 Clerke which went by a few other names. A .45 ACP was necked down to .357 diameter. Used a 1911 frame and a .38 Super barrel. The barrel was reamed to take the .45 modified case. Matter of fact you could buy the barrels pretty much ready to drop in. I still have an old set of RCBS loading dies for those. The round if I recall correctly came out around mid 60s.
The .40 S&W was a child of the 10mm and amounted to a 10mm short. Sig just necked down the .40 to take a .357bullet.
Anyway all of that aside there should be plenty of 7.62 Tokarev guns floating around out there. Someday I should sit down and count exactly how much brass I have and sell it to someone who wants it.
Ron
During the early to mid 90s the Czechoslovakian Vz 52 pistols poured into the US by the tens of thousands along with the Chinese made Russian Tokarev guns. The Czech guns were pretty cool and everything pouring in was inexpensive. While the brass could be made several ways like reforming 9mm Win Mag cases the 7.62 X 25 brass was available from Starline I think I still have a few hundred cases. Using the Czech guns velocities of 1400 and 1500 FPS were easily loaded for using .312 90 and 71 grain FMJ bullets. The Tokarev guns needed to be loaded down and were said to be not as strong as the Czech design.
It was that pistol I managed to shoot one of my chronograph sky screens with when I was trying to see what velocities I could get.
Fortunately I did not hit one of the sensors. With all those pistols I really should have hung on to at least one of them but never did. Nice thing about bottle neck pistol rounds is you can push a light bullet to some pretty high velocities and the 7.62 Tokarev round is a good example from days gone by. Not sure where all of the guns that poured in are today. You got the Czech gun, a holster and one magazine for something like $69 USD if I recall correctly. The Chinese made Russian Tokarev guns were about the same price.
The only other bottleneck pistol round I flirted with was the 38-45 Clerke which went by a few other names. A .45 ACP was necked down to .357 diameter. Used a 1911 frame and a .38 Super barrel. The barrel was reamed to take the .45 modified case. Matter of fact you could buy the barrels pretty much ready to drop in. I still have an old set of RCBS loading dies for those. The round if I recall correctly came out around mid 60s.
The .40 S&W was a child of the 10mm and amounted to a 10mm short. Sig just necked down the .40 to take a .357bullet.
Anyway all of that aside there should be plenty of 7.62 Tokarev guns floating around out there. Someday I should sit down and count exactly how much brass I have and sell it to someone who wants it.
Ron
TT33 are able to take higher pressures than the CZ52. The roller design is strong, but the barrel has a thin portion that will fail before the Tokarev will. Clark did a ton of testing of both guns and blew up many. In his tests the Tokarev held together better than the CZ. Both are nice guns but for strength the TT33 is tops.