HOME

WARFIGHTER INDEX

MODERN ARMIES

SPECIAL FORCES

ARMS BY COUNTRY

ARMS MANUFACTURERS

COMPARE ARMS

ARMS BY CONFLICT

ARMS BY TYPE

ARMS BY DECADE

COLD WAR ARMS

Infantry Small Arms / The Warfighter

Type 68

Semi-Automatic Military Service Pistol [ 1968 ]

The Type 68 became a localized, modified North Korean copy of the original Soviet TT-33 pistol series of World War 2 fame.

Authored By: Staff Writer | Last Edited: 09/10/2018 | Content ©www.MilitaryFactory.com | The following text is exclusive to this site.

VIEW SPECIFICATIONS [+]

Like other Soviet-aligned nations during the Cold War (1947-1991), it made sense for the North Korean military to adopt the ubiquitous TT-33 semi-automatic military service pistol series of World War 2 (1939-1945) fame. The original offering became available in 1930 and saw widespread service from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) into the Middle East civil wars of today (2018). In time, it made equal sense for North Korean industry to locally manufacture the pistol which, after some modifications to suit local requirements, is what the North Korean military took into service as the Type 68 (or "Model 1968" or "M68").

The Type 68 continued use of the proven, man-stopping 7.62x25mm Tokarev Soviet pistol cartridge through a semi-automatic action. Cartridges were fed by way of a spring-loaded eight-shot magazine inserted into the grip's base in the usual way. There were, however, several changes made to the original design, including a shortening of the design as a whole, but the pistol was more or less faithful to the original Soviet model of the war years. Narrower slanted serrations were cut into the rear of the slide assembly for an improved grip when managing the slide itself and its linking system was revised to better mimic the proven Browning-style cam arrangement. The slide stop pin was reinforced for the better and the heel of the butt was now home to the magazine catch. Rather interestingly, the North Korean Type 68 could accept the original TT-33 pistol's magazine but its own magazines were not interchangeable with the original Tokarev pistol series because of the latter's lack of a magazine cut-out.


The end result was a slightly enlarged gun filling the hand quite nicely. Overall length reached 185mm with a barrel length of 108mm. Its unloaded weight was 1lb, 12oz. Performance specs included a muzzle velocity of 1,300 feet-per-second.©MilitaryFactory.com

Note: The above text is EXCLUSIVE to the site www.MilitaryFactory.com. It is the product of many hours of research and work made possible with the help of contributors, veterans, insiders, and topic specialists. If you happen upon this text anywhere else on the internet or in print, please let us know at MilitaryFactory AT gmail DOT com so that we may take appropriate action against the offender / offending site and continue to protect this original work.

Specifications

BASICS [+] MANUFACTURER(S) [+] OPERATORS [+] ROLES [+] DIMENSIONS & WEIGHT [+] ACTION [+] CARTRIDGE & FEED [+] PERFORMANCE [+] VARIANTS [+] HONORS [+]