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Infantry Small Arms / The Warfighter

PM wz. 43/52

Submachine Gun (SMG) [ 1952 ]

The PM wz. 43/52 was a Polish offshoot of the famous Soviet PPS-43 Submachine Gun line.

Authored By: Staff Writer | Last Edited: 04/13/2016 | Content ©www.MilitaryFactory.com | The following text is exclusive to this site.

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Following World War 2 (1939-1945), the Polish military arsenal was rebuilt with largely Soviet-originated weapons and this included the PPS-43 Submachine Gun (SMG) series. The weapon was eventually taken under license-production as the "PM wz. 43" from 1948 onward until a modified form, the PM wz. 43/52, was revealed to supersede it. This model retained all of the form and function of the original Soviet offering but was given specific alterations to suit Polish Army requirements as well as local industry.

The PM in the designation stood for "Pistolet Maszynowy".

One of the key differences in the new post-war design was its fit of a Tommy Gun-style wooden stock (unlike the folding metal stock seen in the original). This assembly contained a hollowed-out compartment used to house the cleaning kit but the general benefit of its addition was in added weight at the rear of the gun - making for a better-balanced short-to-medium-range weapon. Full-automatic-fire-only was still the call-of-the-day for the Polish design though, through special pressure management of the trigger, an operator could fire single shots if needed. Other changes included modifications better suited to Polish assembly lines but, beyond that, the wz. 43.52 remained a submachine gun through and through, typically issued to special units, special forces and those operators requiring additional firepower but without access to a standard issue assault rifle.

A training model later emerged in .22 Long Rifle chambering and these were still fed through the standard PPS-43 detachable box magazine by way of a special insert added to keep the .22 organized for the feed. A semi-automatic-only model based on the military wz. 43/52 for the civilian market appeared in 2010 as the "PPS-43C".

From the period of 1952 until 1955, the Lucznik Arms Factory of Radom, Poland pushed out over 111,000 PPS and PPS-related submachine guns.©MilitaryFactory.com

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