Gunsmith Stechkin biography

He was glorified by a single pistol, but what! The Automatic Pistol of Stechkin, or APS, won the true love of the fighters of special forces, evaluating its high accuracy, a capacious store and the possibility of shooting in bursts. But in reality, the Tula designer had a much larger number of samples of firearms, whose users also became mainly special forces. The defense of the diploma with weapons in the hands of the legend says that during the defense of the thesis, the graduate of the arms and machine gun faculty of the Tula Polytechnic Institute Igor Stechkin had to open fire into the air to prove the performance of the designed gun.

Say, looking at the student’s drawings, one of the commission members dropped that such a gun could not shoot, and then the young Stechkin, who had achieved permission to bring the prototype of his weapons to protect the diploma, took it out and made three idle shots to the audience ceiling-and received the well-deserved “excellent”. Whether it was so or not, today it is difficult to judge, but the fact that the same “diploma” pistol Igor Stechkin is still stored in the Museum of the Tula Polytechnic.

So, the legend may well rely on real events. Moreover, for his time, the first automatic pistol of the future legendary designer was really unusual and could well cause the distrust of gunsmiths of the old formation. The life path that Igor Stechkin passed from the moment of birth on November 15 before the defense of the thesis was quite straight and obvious. According to the memoirs of his older brother Oleg, they swaddled the future gunsmith on the nightstand, in which the revolver of their surgeon’s father was stored at that restless time, a good doctor at that time, especially if he was from the nobles, just in case he had to have personal weapons at hand, and by adolescence Igor already learned to quickly and accurately disassemble and collect all the weapons that was in the house, as a hunting, like a hunting, like a hunting, like a hunting, as a hunting, like a hunting, like a hunting, like a hunting.

So combat. And one can imagine a bitterness with which in the fall of the year Stechkin, who had just entered the arms and machine gun faculty, found out that he would not go to the army because of a weak vision, and should go to the evacuation with his family-first to Buzuluk, and then to Izhevsk. True, an evacuated student did not get to the weapons factory, but worked on a motorcycle grinder, but he got the opportunity to study at the Moscow Mechanical and Machine Building Institute at that time called the current Bauman MSTU, which was also in Izhevsk in evacuation.

And a year later, Igor Stechkin returned to Tula and resumed his studies at the Polytechnic Institute, which he graduated in the year, protecting his diploma with shooting at the ceiling. Demonstration of APS shooting techniques with a hidden hollow during army tests, the beginning of X Source: Warspot. Even then, this KB was one of the main forges of Soviet weapons, including firearms.

It was on firearms that Igor Stechkin began to work. On his account was the 7.62 mm caliber designed as part of the thesis, so that the KB management had no great doubt who to entrust the work on the military order to create an automatic pistol for a new 9-mm cartridge. Probably, cooperation with an experienced gunsmith became the reason that the APS developed by Stechkin was outwardly quite similar to the PM, but was significantly different in dimensions.

And it is not surprising: the pistol ordered by the military had to have a large container store so that there were enough cartridges for shooting in bursts. And this opportunity itself was required, since the Ministry of Defense had to arm the crews of combat vehicles and the first numbers of heavy weapons, as well as officers while participating in the hostilities.

For these purposes, PM with its eight cartridges, a low aiming range and a low distance of effective action was unsuitable. And the APS, which received a long trunk and a twenty -shot store, fully responded to the needs of the army authorities. The Fagot anti -tank missile system with the calculation during the exercises of the Soviet Army, the end of the 10th years is source: Libma.

The main advantages of the pistol - the possibility of firing in bursts and good accuracy - determined its shortcomings: it was bulky and heavy for everyday wearing. In addition, the “Makarovsky” cartridge under which it was designed was low -power, which determined the low efficiency of the APS firing: against body armor, for example, it was almost powerless, and the range of meters left much to be desired.

The pistol adopted in the year after seven years was removed from production, and soon the main part of the issued copies was in army warehouses. But not all: the low -haired multi -election personal weapons fully appreciated the Soviet intelligence services, which became the main operators of the APS. To perform specific tasks that provided for fire contact at short distances, the capabilities of the Stechkinsky brainchild were fully enough.And when at the beginning of X the same specific weapons were required by the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, their employees also made a choice in favor of the APS.

This pistol was actively used during both Chechen campaigns and in other local conflicts in the territory of the former USSR. Yes, and it was appreciated quite highly abroad: say, the APS had the Cuban leaders of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro as a personal weapon, but in general this gun was in service in fifty in different countries. Ernesto Che Guevara with a Stechkin automatic pistol at the shooting range Source: ru-Polit.

When the military announced the Abakan contest in search of an assault rifle-firing machine than traditional AK, the designer presented a weapon on it, which was distinguished by the original Bull Pap layout: with a store located behind the fire control handle, this allows you to reduce the dimensions and weight of the weapon. The Stechkinsky TKB Automat showed excellent results, but ultimately lost to the Nikonov Academy of Sciences designed in the traditional layout, and the original, simple and technological automatic machine, he nevertheless lost to Kalashnikovsky AKSU.

And the automatic pistols, to the design of which Stechkin returned in the early X, like APS, found demand only in special forces. Perhaps only the work of Igor Stechkin in a completely different area - the design of portable missile weapons - brought positive and very impressive results.

The Fagot and Competition anti -tank missile systems were not only adopted, but also proved their high efficiency with excellent operational characteristics, which their purchases became confirming by many countries. Nevertheless, Igor Yakovlevich once and for all entered the history of Soviet weapons thanks to his very first independent project-the APS pistol. The name "Stechkin" has become as household as "Kalashnikov" or "Makarov", and this in itself serves as evidence of the recognition of the success of the gunsmith among the main consumers of his products - the military.

Presented to the Abakan contest, Stechkina TKB Right on the right on the right among other contestants Source: Bastion-Karpenko. Source: forum.