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PPS

The PPS is a family of Soviet 7.62 mm submachine guns, designed in two main variants – the PPS-42 and PPS-43 by A. I. Sudaev as a personal defense weapon for reconnaissance units, vehicle crews and service personnel.

Development

The PPS-42 was created as a result of a Red Army requirement for a compact and lightweight weapon that would provide similar accuracy (with a reduced rate of fire) using more cost-effective production methods than the standard Soviet 7.62 mm PPSh-41 submachine gun being issued at the time. During the design phase, emphasis was placed on simplifying the production process and as a result, sheet-steel stamping was chosen to manufacture most of the firearm's assemblies. Prototypes were evaluated successfully in the spring of 1942, after which the firearm was accepted into service later that year as the PPS (Pistolet Pulemyot Sudayeva, Russian: ППС – Пистолет-пулемёт Судаева) model 1942. An initial pre-production run began that same year during the Siege of Leningrad, however mass production did not commence until early 1943 (over 45,000 firearms were eventually produced before being replaced by the improved PPS-43).

Design details

The PPS-42 is an automatic blowback-operated firearm, and is fired from an open bolt. It is chambered in the 7.62x25mm Tokarev M1930 pistol cartridge. The PPS features a striker firing mechanism (that is located inside the bolt assembly, which contains a fixed firing pin that is supported by the weapon's recoil spring), trigger assembly (that enables fully automatic fire only) and an external, lever-type safety that prevents accidental firing. In its "safe" position (the safety lever is engaged by sliding it forward of the trigger guard) both the bolt and trigger are disabled. The bolt also contains a spring-loaded extractor, which pulls the empty case out of the chamber and passes it to the fixed ejector. The weapon is fed from an arch-shaped 35-round box magazine that is not interchangeable with box magazines used with the PPSh-41 and the gun will not accept a drum magazine.

The submachine gun's rifled barrel (has right-hand 4 grooves) is mounted in a perforated heat shield and has a muzzle brake, which also serves as a compensator reducing muzzle rise during rapid fire. The PPS is also equipped with: open-type iron sights (consisting of a fixed blade foresight and a flip rear sight with settings for firing at 100 and 200 m), a folding metal stock that folds up and over the receiver frame and a pistol grip (the magazine well is intended to be used as the foregrip). Supplied with the PPS are: two magazine pouches, an oil bottle, bore brush and sling.

Towards the middle of 1943 the modernized PPS-43 entered production; once again efforts were made to reduce the amount of machining operations required to produce the weapon. The ventilated hand guard was integrated into the receiver housing and is now a single component, both the barrel and stock were shortened, the stock's locking mechanism was simplified, the casing ejector was moved to the rear of the recoil spring guide rod, the magazine well angle was increased in the receiver as to enhance feeding reliability and the safety was improved to block the trigger and lock the bolt in either the open or closed position.

Variants

Outside the Soviet Union the PPS was also license-produced in Poland (from 1948) and the People's Republic of China (Type 54). Several variants were built based on the PPS-43 including: a training version built in Poland, designed to use the 5.6 mm Long Rifle (.22 LR) rimfire cartridge (fed from standard PPS-43 magazines but using aluminum reduction inserts) and the Finnish 9 mm M/44 submachine gun, converted to use the 9x19mm Parabellum pistol round and box magazines (used in the Carl Gustav SMG) or drum magazines (from the Suomi M/31). The PPS-43 was adopted by the armed forces of several countries of the former Warsaw Pact as well as its many African and Asian allies.

In the early 1950s Poland developed a modified version of the PPS-43, known as the PPS wz. 1943/1952 that replaced the folding metal stock with a fixed wood type buttstock. This was mounted to the receiver end plate using two adapters. The bolt release button received minor amendments to accommodate the change. The buttstock has a compartment carved inside of it that contains a standard cleaning kit, the side of the butt has a through used as a sling attachment point. This modification was meant to increase accuracy of the PPS submachine gun but minimal gains in accuracy were offset by the increase in weight and size of the PPS wz. 43/52 in comparison to the PPS-43. In the years 1952-1955 the Łucznik Arms Factory in Radom produced 111,000 PPS submachine guns.

In 1953, the West German border guards (Bundesgrenzschutz) adopted the Spanish-made DUX-53 and DUX-59 submachine guns, copied from the PPS-43 by way of the Finnish M/44. The Vietnamese K-50M also borrowed elements from the PPS design, while in the 1950s Hungary combined basic features of the PPS-43 with the bolt safety of the PPSh-41 in the unsuccessful M53.