No, these were made this way. The pic above is actually a little nicer than mine. You can see the wavy, uneven sides of the slide and the unevenly stamped lettering. Above the plastic grip, you can see the "66" inside of a triangle, which I understand to be the factory where the weapon was made (same as mine), which is supposed to be a bicycle factory. It's my understanding that Norinco doesn't actually make anything. They are a sales/export agency that handles the output of government owned factories. For instance, my SKS is (IIRC) from factory 26.
Mine is somewhat cruder in finish that this: Around the cut out of the slide ahead of the frame, more machining is visible.
It is also my understanding that somewhere back in the 50s or 60s, the Egyptian military ordered pistols from Hungary in 9mm. The Hungarians used the TT33 Tokarev and made up a 9mm barrel. Also, since the 9mm P round is shorter, but of the same rim diameter as the 7.62x25 round, all that was needed was a magazine with dimensions for the shorter round. A "C" section of steel in the back of the magazine well adapts the narrower 9mm magazine to the well. It is held in place by a pin near the bottom of the frame, which, in turn, is held in place by the plastic grips. Anyhow, because the Tokarev design was modified to take 9mm for the Egyptians, we call these pistols "Tokagypts" over here.
The safety was added by the Chinese as a response to USA safety regulations.
The whole business is admittedly finished quite crudely, but everything is finished with sufficient accuracy to make the weapon quite workable. For a long time, I wanted one and I found mine used in a gun shop display counter. I think I paid $110 for it. In included 2 magazines that are number-matched to the weapon.
It shoots fine. I've never really laid it on a bench to see what it will do as far as grouping. I've only shot it off hand at the club, putting maybe a few hundred rounds through it. It works quite well, with no jams or problems. It seems reasonably accurate.
If you have ever seen the James Bond movie
For Your Eyes Only, the actor Topol is carrying a TT33 or Tokagypt. Judging from the finish, I would guess that the one he carries is not Chinese/Norinco.
Most of the Warsaw Pact ones I've seen, including Soviet TT33s, are generally nicely made. A big lot of Polish TT33s were shipped into the USA about 5 or so years back, which were fitted with the trigger block safety I described in the first post. These are very nicely finished, with great polishing.
As far as converting a TT33 in 7.62x25 to 9mm, I don't think you'd even need a gunsmith to do it -- if you're lucky. You would need a barrel, a magazine, and the "C" shaped spacer with it's pin. Hopefully, the tolerances of manufacture would allow you to come pretty close and a little fitting in the barrel/link region would do the trick for you. However, this assumes that the machining of the barrel locking ribs are made close enough to the tolerance of the slide to lock properly.
Other than the hammer/sear module I described in the first post, these resemble the 1911 Colt locking system very closely. However, to simplify machining, the slide release does not have the tricky machining to keep it in place. Instead, the Soviets used the stamped clip on the right hand side of the frame to retain the slide release pin. Removing this clip is the first step to getting the thing apart. It strips very similarly to a 1911.
As far as a personal defense or carry gun, if it is all you have, then it's better than nothing. But for me, the inability to carry it safely with a round chambered puts it pretty low on my list.
For its size, there is still a lot of metal in it and it is heavy. Compared to my CZ 52, a larger gun, it is heavier. However, both suffer from the awkwardly angled grip, which causes one to shoot low. This would require a lot of practice to overcome, were one to make it a protection tool. For this purpose, my Detective Special is much superior. However, I must say that the whole package, which is very similar in all dimensions to the old .32/.380 Browning Pocket Pistol, is quite compact and packs a lot more punch than the Brownings do, what with the 9mm round.
So overall, they are cheap to buy and quite serviceable, but not especially well suited for self defense. If this is all you can afford, then it is certainly worth it and better than other, smaller arms. However, if you can only have one gun and you can afford better, do it.
Despite the .32 ACP being much less powerful than 9mm, I feel much better in carrying my CZ50 for protection, as it is at least safe to carry with a round in the chamber and, being double action, doesn't need to be manually cocked to make it ready for action.
-- Fri Aug 07, 2009 21:39 --
I posted these pics here awhile back, but since it has been some time, I'll do so again:
Semi auto pistols:
Double action revolvers:
Single action revolvers:
). The grip angle and the loose tolerances did'nt help me much. I am sure more accuracy could be tweaked from it if I had used other than milsurp ammo in it and made some modifications. I did infact use S&B ammo but it was more for plinking and measuring MV than accuracy.
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