Registered here a few days ago

shinerjohn · Post by **shinerjohn** » December 20th, 2008, 1:51 am

and I have a p64 on the way from J & G Sales. Earlier this year I bought the FEG PA-63 on GunBroker. Excellent pistol. Changed the springs and grips. Since then I bought East German, Russian, and Bulgarian Makarovs from GunBroker. I absolutely love the 9x18mm caliber! I have 38 specials, 357 magnums, 380 ACP, and 9mm Luger. I shoot all my guns and enjoy it! But there is something about the Makarov caliber! I am drawn to them and I may have discovered the reason. I was born in 1946. I read somewhere that the 9x18mm caliber originated in 1946. Coincidence?

I look forward to learning from you and sharing with you.

olympus · Post by **olympus** » December 20th, 2008, 11:17 am

Welcome to the forum! We're glad to have you here. I'm fairly new here, but I've found everyone to be very helpful and if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Most of the questions you might have, have probably been asked before.

shinerjohn · Post by **shinerjohn** » December 20th, 2008, 12:47 pm

Thank you for the welcome, olympus. I hope to learn much about these pistols and I've been impressed with the camaraderie among the members here.

I do have an early question: I've read that one of the reasons the P64 was replaced by the P83 was reliability. The Polish army and police wanted a new handgun because of limited magazine capacity and reliability.

Does anyone know what is unreliable about the P64? I thought they were supposed to function very well. From what I've read, they are very accurate. What do you think? Is your P64 reliable?

Thanks!

davebaird · Post by **davebaird** » December 20th, 2008, 4:56 pm

Hi John and welcome. I'm pretty new here as well, but have a few hundred rounds through my P64. My pistol is 100% reliable now but I changed-out the springs, polished the feed ramp and cleaned it VERY VERY well. Before I did those things the gun was only 90%. Any Makarov I have shot was always 100% from the get-go, so maybe the P64's just need a little more TLC to get up there and any military organization is NOT the place for firearms TLC!

JMHO! Dave

olympus · Post by **olympus** » December 20th, 2008, 7:15 pm

I think a civilian defintion of reliability is somewhat different from a military definition. Military firearms need to be able to function in far harsher environments than the average civilian will be using them. And like davebaird said, military personel don't overly concern themselves with keeping a pistol completely clean and oiled. They have a dirty job and need a pistol that can deal with the elements. That being said, unless you're just going to put your pistol through some torture tests and run it through the ringer, I don't see why it won't be 100 percent reliable for anything you can put it through on a daily basis.

Post by **normsutton** » December 20th, 2008, 9:03 pm

shinerjohn

and WELCOME

unreliable about the P-64, I think it could of been the ammo, Russian bullets was mostly .364 dia to .365( works fine in a Makarov because of larger width of the mag ) but will jam up in the mag of a P-64 & a PA-63 ,the Hungarian and Czech Bullet was and still is .363 dia. I don't think Poland had an ammo factory

the P-64 & the PA-63 utilized a true 380 mag where the Makarov was designed to be a 9 x 18 round

NORM

shinerjohn · Post by **shinerjohn** » December 21st, 2008, 4:35 pm

The possible explanations y'all gave me sound reasonable enough. I had not seen any postings from civilian owners that hinted at anything other than reliable. I just wanted to know if I was missing anything.

Thanks, everyone! I should pick up my P64 tomorrow. Can't wait!

shinerjohn · Post by **shinerjohn** » December 24th, 2008, 1:31 pm

I received my pistol and I'm very pleased with it. It's a 1976 model and the bluing is flawless. I changed the recoil spring to a 22 pounder and I've been dremeling the dog out of it!!! I may have to take a tad more off.... I changed the hammer spring to 18 pounds and I may move up to the 19 or 20. The single action is perhaps too light. Friends, I thought I would NEVER get the new hammer spring on!! My goodness!!!
I went to the range right after work yesterday. Very accurate and the recoil is not bad at all. I did have some problems with hollow points and using 6 + 1. I did some reading here last night and I'll be busy the next few days working on this beauty.
Over all I'm very pleased with the P64. I just need to shoot it more and work out the minor issues as I build confidence with it.
Thanks to all of you for your postings and suggestions! This is a great site because of each of you.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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