The PPS Submachine Gun: The Leningrad typewriter

You are a 29-year old mechanical engineer and the city you live in, the second largest city in the country, is besieged by enemy troops. The defenders need a simple gun that can be made quickly but is still effective. You are Alex Sudayev, its 1941 Leningrad, and your solution is the PPS.

Born in battle

In 1941, the Soviet Red Army was the largest in the world but found itself far outclassed in terms of weapons, leadership, and tactics when Hitler launched his immense invasion of the Soviet Union in June of that year. Within weeks, the German Army Group North under Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb advanced to Leningrad and placed it effectively under a siege that would last some 900 grueling days.  Civilians drafted right off the streets were augmenting the defenders of the city but they needed weapons faster than you could say bad borscht.

Alexey Ivanovich Sudayev at the time was an engineer working inside the city. Taking the PPSh-41 submachine gun design of firearms legend Georgi Shpagin, he reworked it. Whereas the 41 used a heavy, carved wooden stock, and required nearly 8-hours of machining per weapon, he produced a simplified blowback weapon that fired from an open bolt and could be made in just 2.7-hours, using half the raw steel as the PPSh-41, and best of all, no wood.

Dubbed the Pistolet-Pulemet Sudaeva model of 1942 (PPS-42), the gun was rushed into production locally.

Design

Sudaeva’s gun was a rough looking piece of work cut from a sheet of basic stamped steel and of blocky construction, with an upper and lower receiver that hinges open. Its bolt was simple and the cocking handle placed directly to it, reciprocating the whole time the full-auto only weapon fired. To keep the rattling of this open bolt from cracking the stamped steel receiver, a simple leather recoil buffer was installed.

Weighing in at 6.5-pounds, it was 35.7-inches long with its stock extended. With its folding metal stock collapsed atop the gun it was a very compact 25.2-inches long. A 10.7-inch barrel proved accurate enough for spraying Nazi storm troopers and was enclosed in a square barrel shroud with air holes for cooling. The gun used a 35-round detachable box magazine with a very slight banana curve to it to feed the weapon with 7.62x25mm Tokarev pistol cartridges at a rate of 600 per minute.

The gun fieldstripped incredibly easy: dropping the hinged lower away from the upper and removing the bolt and spring, it could be taught in about 30 seconds. This made the gun perfect or issuing to a conscript that up until yesterday was a student, factory worker, or farmer. Give em a uniform, a PPS, and some bullets and send em to the front to fight the Fascist invaders. Of course, often the front could be just two blocks over, which made transport easy.

The Soviets loved the design and after some 45,000 of the PPS-42 were made, while a gently finished version, the PPS43 was put into more widespread production. The PPS-43 was about an inch shorter in all of the dimensions and used a chrome-lined barrel that was good for up to 20,000 rounds of corrosive ammo.

Use

The PPS became the standard sub gun of the late war Soviet Army. The gun was a good two pounds lighter than the PPSh-41, and almost a foot shorter, which made it a better fit for tank crews and vehicle drivers. Also, being cheaper, faster to build, and using fewer materials helped in its choice for adoption.

In possibly the most famous Soviet image of the war, a young Red Army soldier is seen raising a flag over the Reichstag during the Battle of Berlin in 1945—with a PPS slung over his back. The image is seen as the Russian version of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima and the PPS was there, front and center.

Sadly, Sudaev died in 1946 just before his 34th birthday, and his gun was already being phased out in favor of the newly introduced AK-47. Like the PPS, it was simply made of steel stampings and later AKMS models carried a very similar folding stock. Even while the Soviets started to withdraw the gun from their service, they shipped machine tooling and expertise abroad to allies to help them make their own versions of the Leningrad typewriter. In Poland, it was put into production as the PPS wz.1943/1952 and continues being churned out by Radom to this day.

In Red China, the PPS43 became the Type 54. GIs fighting in Korea encountered this dreaded Asian burp gun and also in Vietnam where it’s service spread for generations out over a 30-years. As such, these guns are still quite often seen in the hands of guerilla types and drug-runners throughout the jungles of South West Asia to this day.

If you watch enough footage from conflicts in the Third world, you will see the PPS popping up everywhere from the Ivory Coast to Thailand and everywhere in between. They are rusty and crusty, but they still work.

Collectability

The PPS43 is one of the great bargains today in terms of affordable surplus guns that are both historical and shootable.

These guns, crazy cheap on the surplus market, were imported off and on into the US Pre-1986 and a number of full-auto originals are floating around. They proved popular with Hollywood prop houses in the 1980s and 90s, with a handful being visually mocked up to resemble the more popular (and much more expensive) Heckler & Koch MP5. Other non-working models were mocked up for movies including the Mel Gibson Vietnam epic, We Were Soldiers and are available for collectors out there for under $400.

Radom in Poland makes an almost perfect semi-auto pistol version of the PPS43 that is currently being imported. Dubbed the PPS43-C, it still has the 10-inch barrel and folding stock—but its tack is welded to keep it from being classified as a SBR.

This is one of the few subguns that are still widely available in torched kit form for cheap. Sportsman’s Guide , MGS, Centerfire Systems, and others stock these for about $80, which makes the likely hood of a getting a kit and doing a reweld well within reach of the common hobbyist. Remember to keep your ATF regs in line, as you do not want to make an illegal machine gun. There are many pistol builds out there with new receivers and no buttstock as well as 16-inch barreled carbines made by Wiselite, and others.

It makes a great starting point for an under $600 SBR build as well.

Safety and known issues

The leather buffers on these guns are problematic and, while you can always create your own if the going gets tough, it may be wise to pick up several ‘OE’ models while you can and store them in a clean dry area for when the Germans come. Keep in mind these should be inspected and replaced every few hundred rounds or so. It’s a good idea to have enough buffers in stock to get you through the ammo you have on hand at least, so get in touch with your buffer math each time you buy ammo.

Speaking of bullets. Ammo used to be crazy cheap for these guns, running about $75 a case on the surplus market just a couple years ago, but today tends to go a little higher. There is still a good bit of Polish and Bulgarian bulk floating around for now. New made Sellier & Bellot production go for about .50 cents per round, which will keep you from burning through a whole lot.

No matter how many Germans are surrounding your city.

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