Submachine gun: yesterday, today, tomorrow.
How did the Kiraly submachine guns differ from all the others? Now that we have sufficiently familiarized ourselves with the history of this type of weapon and its features, let's take a small “step aside” and look at the same “Kiraly”, well, how can we do without it … Because this sample of the creative thought of its creator to a certain extent - a trend, and a very indicative one.
Not Hungarian at all, but Swiss
It is interesting that the history of this submachine gun, like many others, we will note this, began in 1931, but not in Hungary, but in Switzerland. The fact is that at this time the commander of the Vatican's Swiss guard turned to the Swiss company Schweizerishe Industrie-Gesellshaft with an order to develop a submachine gun, which this guard would have to arm. Three years of work and in 1934 the SIG MKMS submachine gun appeared, and the problem immediately arose of how to recoup the costs of its development and fabrication. After all, the Vatican Guard needed only 200 copies of the new weapon, while in order to recoup it, it was necessary to sell at least 1000. However, the vaunted Swiss quality did its job. Something was sold to the Finns, but the largest batch, just over a thousand PPs, was purchased from the company by the army of the puppet state of Menjiang - created by the Japanese for their own convenience in Inner Mongolia.
And so his Majesty the occasion pleased that among those who worked on the new submachine gun, there was also an engineer from Hungary, Pal Kirali. In 1937, he returned to his homeland, conjured a little over the drawings of the well-known ZIG, and as a result received a submachine gun, which he offered to the Danubia plant in Budapest.
The main thing is increased firepower
It should be noted here that since the guard at the Vatican was small, it made no sense for its soldiers to arm themselves with both a rifle and a submachine gun. They simply did not have those auxiliary units that, according to the tradition of that time, would have been armed with them. They needed one thing, and a fairly long-range, rapid-fire, multiply charged, and also lighter than a rifle. That is, a weapon suitable "for all occasions" just for them - the papal guards. That is, there was a specific order for a specific military unit, and it was quite concretely embodied in metal. And that is why a long barrel (50 cm) and a magazine for 40 rounds were installed on the ZIG. However, the long barrel immediately required automation, providing a sufficient time delay for the bullet to fly out of the barrel, that is, having a semi-free shutter. The long barrel is also about the size. Therefore, in order to reduce them in the stowed position, the Swiss made the magazine receiver foldable so that it folds forward. This allowed the submachine gunners not to stand out on the battlefield from the general mass of infantry with rifles and at the same time facilitated the transportation of this PP.
First, they began to produce the serial MKMS model, then the shorter "police" model MKPS. But the high price discouraged buyers. Therefore, modifications were soon made MKMO and MKPO, which had free breeches. However, until 1941, all four samples were sold in an amount of only 1200 pieces.
Difficult to do - very simple
Whatever it was, but from the point of view of technology, the "machine" from the Swiss really turned out to be very curious. As it often happens, its semi-free bolt consisted of two parts - front and rear, and the front (bolt larva) has the shape of the letter "P" with a very stretched upper crossbar. The rear part of the shutter enters the front only when the rear part of the "P" is skewed upwards. Shooting is carried out from an open bolt. When the bolt group in its movement comes to the front position, the bevel on the rear of the bolt presses on the bevel of the front part or the bolt head, and it rises, falls into the groove of the receiver and so it locks. The rear part of the bolt continues to move and its firing pin pricks the cartridge primer in the chamber. After the shot, both parts of the bolt retreat back a very short distance, while they are disengaged, the rear part of the bolt head is lowered, and now both parts of the bolt move backwards by inertia. Thus, the weapon is reloaded and the whole cycle is repeated again. For a folding store, a groove and a special dust cover were provided in the forend under the barrel, which covered the hole for it in the receiver. The stock was made of high quality wood, and was marked for firing from 100 to 1000 meters. The bayonet on such a long submachine gun, such as the SIG MKMS, was also not a problem to install.
The action of the SIG MKMS shutter according to the 1936 patent:
Figure 1 - both parts of the bolt are in the "before firing" position in the rear part of the receiver and are one piece; fig. 2 - the shutter is released by pressing the trigger, moves forward, the beveled protrusion of the rear part presses on the beveled rear surface of the larva and raises it up. Once in the slot of the receiver, it can no longer move back and this is how it is locked. However, there is a 23-24 free space between the larva and the receiver. The rear part with a striker strikes the capsule through the hole in the larva; fig. 3 - the shot has been fired. The larva moved back to the stop, while the rear part of the bolt moves backward by inertia. Now the larva will go down and be able to move back together with the back of the bolt.
I want everything my own
As for Hungary, it was not without reason that it was said - "his example is for another science." The fact that this development went to the Vatican greatly inspired the Hungarian military and they … adopted the "Kiraly submachine gun" under the designation 39M. Like its immediate ancestor or predecessor, it looked very much like a carbine, and with a store in the forend, this similarity increased even more. After all, its length was 105 cm, and the length of the German Mauser 98k carbine was 111 cm, a difference that is completely insignificant at a distance. More importantly, it used the most powerful Mauser pistol cartridge of that time, 9 × 25 mm.
39M in the hands of a Hungarian soldier.
However, it cannot be said that Kiraly copied everything from the Swiss model. No, on the contrary, he made a very important change in the design: he came up with a new bolt for his submachine gun, which was then named after him; "Kiraly's shutter".
The main detail is the lever
Just like the SIG MKMS bolt, the Kiraly-designed bolt consists of two parts, interconnected by a complex-shaped accelerator lever. It interacts with a special protrusion in the bolt box so that the front of the bolt moves back faster than the back. Then the lever comes out of clutch with the receiver, and both parts of the bolt move back as one piece. Only while both parts of the bolt interacted with each other in such a clever way, the bullet had already managed to leave the barrel, and the gas pressure in it dropped to a safe level. So the cartridge case was removed from the chamber without fear of being ripped or swollen.
The 39M shutter device is Kiraly's patent. The accelerator lever is # 16.
When all the trouble is in vain …
It would seem that both the long barrel and such a complex shutter should have significantly increased the muzzle velocity and thereby increased the combat properties of the 39M. However, it is precisely this to achieve, despite all the tricks, Kiraly did not succeed. This also happened, and more than once. A person thinks that it will be so and so, but all his efforts are in vain for a number of reasons completely independent of him, which he simply could not foresee. The same happened in this case. Since the Kiraly submachine gun was fired from an open bolt, the long barrel placed on it did not give him any advantages in shooting accuracy. In addition, the long barrel was overheated, there was a curvature and … the bullets flew in the wrong place. And although the sight had a notch up to 600 meters, it was really impossible to hit targets at such a distance.
The initial speed could not be increased either. For the Mauser pistol it was 420 m / s, and for the Kiraly submachine gun 480 m / s. But at the same time, the Mauser's barrel length was 140 mm, while the 39M's - 500 mm! And it's all about the composition of the gunpowder of the used cartridge, which burned so quickly that the long barrel did not give much.
Otherwise, the device of this PP was quite traditional for that time. The device of the trigger made it possible to conduct both single fire and automatic. At the same time, the fire translator served as a fuse. The store had a two-row arrangement of cartridges with their two-row output. This was done to make it easier to equip the magazine, although the supply of cartridges from the magazine with a single-row exit is more reliable.
In 1944, a modification 44M appeared under the standard Parabellum cartridge. At the same time, the barrel on it was shortened to 250 mm, which, however, had practically no effect on the convenience of use and its other characteristics.
Józef Kucher K1 submachine gun.
After the war, Kiraly left for the Dominican Republic, and there, on the basis of 39M, he designed the Cristobal M2 - an original carbine chambered for.30 Carbine, which again turned out to be something in between a submachine gun and a submachine gun.
Well, in the Hungarian People's Republic, on the basis of a cartridge from a TT pistol, designer Józef Kucher - a former assistant at Kiraly - created his own submachine gun, designated K1. It was the same 44M, only with a horn magazine due to the taper of the sleeve of our cartridge, and simplified well, just to the limit. In 1953, the K1 was adopted by the Hungarian People's Army under the designation 53M, but it did not stay in service for a long time.
Well, now about the trend, that is, the direction of development that was set by this, in general, not a very successful sample. It turned out, and far from immediately, that such well-equipped fighters of various terrorist groups are increasingly participating in hostilities against the forces of law and order that their equipment provides them with good protection from the fire of the same submachine guns with which counter-terrorist units are armed. In addition, they go into battle very often, pumped up with drugs and painkillers, so that they, even having received mortal wounds, continue to fight.
That is, they needed a compact and powerful weapon capable of penetrating bullet-proof vests and … immobilizing any potential enemy with one hit.
Submachine guns for … powerful cartridges
In Russia, such a weapon was the 12, 7-mm assault machine SHA-12, about which Voennoye Obozreniye published materials several times, for example, on August 23, 2012, November 29, 2018 and December 12, 2018. designed according to the bullpup scheme and with a wide use of plastic and aluminum alloys. The weight, however, turned out to be significant - 5, 2 kg, well, after all, this weapon is one of the most powerful and deadly. And to some extent, this is by no means a rifle, but a real large-caliber submachine gun, since its aiming range is only 100 m. And the customer believes that this is quite enough!
So, another direction in the development of submachine guns of the future may well be … either large-caliber or submachine guns for especially powerful cartridges of standard calibers. Or maybe they will be created for cartridges that are completely unusual for today? But … we will tell you about this next time.
