Recently, one can observe a huge interest in weapons designed by designer Baryshev. The low recoil when firing and, as a result, the high accuracy of the weapon gives rise to a lot of controversy about the fact that the designer's work was underestimated and his developments would be much better than those that are now in service, even under the condition of mass production. And mass production, especially in our country, is able to hack to the root of any good idea. Designer Baryshev has developed a lot of very interesting samples of weapons, about which a huge amount of materials have already been written, but for some reason they always miss one sample or mention it in passing, simply noting its existence. We are talking about Baryshev's pistol, which once participated in the competition along with the Makarov pistol, in which it made good competition to the winner.
In principle, it is not surprising that little is known about this Baryshev pistol. The thing is that, unlike other models of weapons by the designer, this pistol is very simple, in fact primitive, but this is only in comparison. In fact, despite all the simplicity of the design, this pistol showed better results, including in the accuracy of fire, but it was less reliable in comparison with the same PM, which is why it lost the competition. The simplicity of the weapon is explained by the fact that a low-power ammunition was used in the pistol, respectively, it was pointless to be wise with the weapon's automation in this case, since the automatic mechanism based on the free bolt was quite successful with such a cartridge. Nevertheless, some of the solutions that the constructor used were interesting, although not new. First of all, it should be noted that the return spring was located under the barrel of the pistol on a non-removable guide. Thus, with incomplete disassembly of the weapon, the pistol was divided into only three components: the pistol itself, the bolt cover and the magazine. The advantage seems to be not so big, but it can be noted as an advantage over other samples.
Much more interesting was the fact that the design of the firing mechanism was such that it was possible to fire instantly if necessary, although at the same time a very high safety of handling the weapon was maintained. This was achieved in the following way. The firing mechanism had a fuse, or rather a safety cocking of the hammer (intermediate position between the deflected and cocked hammer), which was disabled when the trigger was pulled. In other words, the fuse was turned off when fired self-cocking, something like a modified version of the TT trigger mechanism. In my opinion, the designer made a little trick with the safety system, since in most cases it is quite enough just a tight self-cocking so that an accidental shot does not happen, unless of course we exclude those cases when a pistol is played with a cartridge in the chamber. In the end, they already knew about the automatic safety of the drummer at that time, so it was possible to resolve the issue this way. One way or another, but during the competition, this high safety of the pistol and the ability to instantly shoot if necessary was noted separately.
This is how the weapon works. Having inserted the magazine into the pistol, the shooter pulls the bolt cover towards himself and releases it, thereby cocking the hammer and sending the cartridge into the chamber. After that, the trigger is removed from the combat platoon and set to the safety platoon position. In such a semi-cocked state, the weapon can be absolutely safely worn by the shooter until the first need for use. If it is necessary to shoot, the shooter simply pulls the trigger, if there is time, having previously cocked the hammer, thereby reducing the pressure on the trigger and increasing the accuracy of the first shot. Thus, the trigger is either first cocked and then broken, or it is immediately broken. A primed primer with an initiating compound ignites the powder inside the cartridge, which accordingly begins to burn, emitting a very large volume of powder gases. Since the powder gases become more and more in the process of burning the powder, they try to increase the distance between the bullet and the sleeve, thereby increasing the volume and reducing the increased pressure. This is how the bullet accelerates down the barrel of the pistol and leaves it. However, the propellant gases not only push the bullet, but also have exactly the same effect on the cartridge case, pushing it back.
The sleeve, trying to move backward, transfers energy from the propellant gases to the casing-bolt, which is much heavier in weight than a light bullet, and accordingly, its speed of movement is lower. Due to its mass, the casing-bolt moves back even when the bullet has already left the barrel and the pressure of the powder gases decreases. Thus, the casing-bolt receives the energy necessary for its full rollback and simultaneous compression of the return spring, as well as the cocking of the trigger. Having reached its extreme rear point, the breech casing stops for a split second and, under the action of the return spring, begins to move forward, removing a new cartridge from the magazine and inserting it into the chamber. The next time the trigger is pulled, the next trigger breaks off, respectively, the next shot occurs, which sets the entire structure in motion according to the same plan.
Much more interesting is that at the same competition, when comparing PM and Baryshev's pistol, the appearance of the weapon was also noted, and not in favor of the latter. Honestly, I don't know why Baryshev's pistol was disliked in appearance, in my opinion it is quite a nice sample, which is no worse and no better than the same PM. And if you imagine a rounded "muzzle" of a weapon with a silent firing device, then you get a handsome man. It should also be noted that the pistol does not have controls that could catch on clothes when removing the weapon, even the slide delay is controlled using a button, duplicated, by the way, on both sides of the pistol. The magazine is fixed with a spring-loaded latch at the bottom of the handle, similarly to the same PM. An interesting point is that the trigger of the pistol is sectorial, that is, in any of its positions, it closes the slot on the back of the bolt casing, which reduces the amount of dirt that can get into the weapon. However, even such a measure of protection against dirt did not make the weapon extremely reliable, even under ideal operating conditions.
The main problem of the weapon was that the designer put the pistol's high accuracy for the sake of reliability. Since the pistol consisted of many parts, specifically from 37 when completely disassembled against 27 Makarov pistols, its reliability was by definition lower. All the same, whatever one may say, the simpler the device, the more reliable it is, a vivid example of this is a scrap, although it can be, if not broken, then bent with enough enthusiasm. All parts of the weapon were fitted with minimal tolerances, so moisture, dirt, and just old grease could become the reasons for the failure of the weapon. But in terms of accuracy, this weapon bypassed all its competitors in the competition, although it is not known what would have happened to the pistol if it was put into mass production. The reason for the failure under ideal operating conditions of the weapon was most often that the bolt did not always roll back all the way back, respectively, the spent cartridge case coming out of the chamber again entered it and reloading was not carried out. It is difficult to say what was the cause of such a problem without having to face it personally. Perhaps the reason was too rigid a return spring, or perhaps the same fit of the parts together gave such a result. One way or another, the designer was in no hurry to change anything in his pistol, so it can be assumed that, with an increase in manufacturing tolerances, the pistol would lose its high accuracy.
So at different distances, in comparison with the same Makarov pistol, Baryshev's pistol turned out to be a quarter more accurate, while the sample rejections were equal to 0.84 percent of shots in ideal conditions, when the Makarov pistol could "boast" only four hundredths of a percent. Well, since we started talking about numbers, we cannot fail to note the dimensions and weight of the weapon. The length of Baryshev's pistol is 162 millimeters with a barrel length of 95 millimeters. The height of the weapon is 120 millimeters, the thickness is 30. The weight of the pistol is 735 grams. One could say that the weapon is more accurate in comparison with the PM because of the greater weight and longer barrel length, but agree that 2 millimeters and 19 grams are weak arguments.
Thus it can be summed up. The Baryshev pistol is indeed a more accurate weapon in comparison with the PM, but this accuracy is achieved not by design features, but by high precision in the manufacture of parts. The consequence of this accuracy is the low reliability of the weapon. In general, in this case, the weapon clearly cannot claim the well-deserved place of the PM, but with the rest of the samples we will try to figure it out in the following articles.
