Baikal 79-8 Makarov review

The Makarov pistol, a real classic pistol few people haven´t heard of. Today i thought i tell you about a pistol that has been around for a long time. This pistol is blank/gas firing pistol in 8mmK caliber.

Cosmetics:

The pistol i have is well used and has a worn finish. The gun has a blued slide with the frame made in an "military" style finish, the frame is not slippery and seem to have a good resistance against "wear and tear". It ressambles a little of the Walther PP/PPK in the form and breakdown procedure. Sorry to say, the Makarov has the same sort of barrel as the new Walther PP from Umarex, namely the "Strohhalmlauf" as you see in pic.3

Handling:

The pistol is very easy to use and has a decocking safety feature, but it differs from for example PP/PPK/PK380. When the Makarov safety is up (pic.4) the gun cannot be fired and the gun is decocked. Only when the safety is down (pic.5) the gun can be fired. Interesting, the firing pin has no spring at all, it lay loose in the slide. The gun weights about 625g and is totally made in steel! Everything exept the black plastic grips.

It fieldstrips the same way as the PP/PPK, hold down the triggerguard, draw back the slide and lift it off. Very easy.

NOTE: As i can only upload 5 pictures per/tread this review will continue below this statement!

* Part 2*

As you can see on pic.1, you see the firing pin and the decocker notch to the left of the firing pin. When you put the safety on the notch comes out a little preventing the hammer to engage the firing pin.

The magazine release is at the bottom of the grip, it engages the little notch on the back of the magazine as seen on pic.2. The spring for the mag. release is the same spring for the hammer.

Pic. 3 shows the Makarov to 90% taken apart. the gun is very easy to strip down totally, and only made of few parts, all of wich in steel of course.... :^)

Pic. 4 shows the chamber of the gun. Sturdy and rough, not exactly fine precision made....

*Part 3*

Shooting:

The gun is a case of luck as Gabor once described it. Unfortunaly my gun is not reliable, for every magazine i shot (i used Geco and Umarex ammo) there were at least 1-2 failure to feed! The problem was not that it didnt eject the round, it actually does that very good, the casings fly with alot of force to say the least out of the gun! But to load the next round. A strange thing is that it fired a full magazine with Wadie CS-gas without problem, but i suspect i was just lucky with that mag. I had real problems with the Geco 8mmK ammunition thou, several times it left the green plastic in the chamber, hence leaving me to fieldstrip the gun and take the plastic out. Didnt have that problem with the Umarex ammo. Another collector here in Sweden has the same Baikal 79-8 gun as i but he have no problems at all with the gun jamming....

The double action trigger is a little hard but nothing that bothered me, single action pressure is very nice. But beware of getting black hands after shooting because the gun gets VERY dirty, my hands were all black after i have been shooting with it!

The magazine holds 8 rounds in 8mmK, magazine spring is stronger that on any other blank gun i fired.

Return spring to the slide:

If we go back to the returnspring, you have the little "steelring" that must be on the returnspring (pic. 1). That ring comes on the spring (pic.2) to fill the gap on the slide (pic. 3). The Makarov has not the slide so its fits the "Strohhalmlauf" as on Walther PP from Umarex, so therefore you have the ring to fill out the gap. If you do not use it the result will look like on pic.4. You can see the "naked" barrel on pic.5

Fazit:

Baikal 79-8 Makarov is an sturdy and tough gun, simple and will have a long lifespan being made of steel, but the realibilty is not given, some guns work fine, some jams. Case of luck...

Its a nice collectors item but nothing i could recommend for self defence for its realibility problems. The guns has no threads in the end of the barrel to fire fireworks nor has it any PTB.

Data:

Model : Baikal 79-8 Makarov
Typ : Semiautomatic with DA/SA trigger system
Caliber : 8mmK
Mag. capacity : 8-rounds
Safety : Left mounted decocker
Length : 161mm
Height: 127mm
Weight : 625g
PTB : *none*

Best regards/// Daniel

About the problem of "failure to feed".

This pistol, has a serious problem of it jamming and fails to feed a round to the chamber. It happen often, and some Makarovs works just fine. Why?!?! Why does my Makarov not work? (Actually, im getting a another Makarov blank gun cause this one had no firing pin when it arrived! So i got another Baikal 79-8 for compensation! )

Look at picture A. Thats how it looks when the ammunition is sitting in the magazine ready for departure to the chamber. That´s the line between the chamber and ammo. THEN, very often when i shoot, the ammo get stuck like it does on picture B, also pic C and D for more photos in different angles. What is the problem? Is it the magazine? It has a very strong magazine spring. Or maybe the feed ramp? How can i solve this problem?

///Daniel

Hallo colt_user, yes, i believe it is like you said first, that the upper rim if the cartridge chamber is too high. Maybe the magazine spring is too strong so it "swings" the ammo upp when its going to the chamber...

The FEG PA-63 has the other problem, it don´t eject the rounds good enough after firing so it get jammed, suspect that its too little obstacles in the barrel, it doesnt build up enough pressure to eject. While the Makarov actually has almost too much obstacle, almost all pressure goes backvard, it just have a tiny hole at the beginning of the barrel. Maybe that´s why the green plastic came out of the Geco ammo, it didnt do that on the PK380 when i fired it.

I have a firing pin to my Makarov. I bought it at a spare part discount. Well see how the other Makarov performs.

/// Daniel