Our fourth offering in the ‘Bargain Basement’ series is a Soviet PPSh 41 sub-machine gun manufactured by the Moscow Automotive Factory in 1944. Read on for another LSB journey in firearms history…

Georgy Semyonovich Shpagin’s name is synonymous with the PPSh-41 submachine gun. However, he was also involved in the design of the DShK heavy machine gun. He was born on 17 April 1897 and died on 6 February 1952, and received various awards in recognition for his work, such as the Order Hero of Socialist Labour, the Order of Suvorov and the Order of the Red Star.

The genius in Spagin’s design is that it took the earlier PPD-40, itself an improvement of the earlier PPD, which was the brainchild of Vasily Degtyaryov back in 1934, and turned it into a cheaply-produced, simple to use and very efficient gun, which could be mass produced and widely distributed within the Soviet armed forces.

Production started with a few hundred in November of the same year, but by Spring 1942, the PPSh-41 was being churned out at the rate of 3,000 pieces a day from the various factories, which used unskilled labourer. In the end, an estimated total of 6 million guns had been manufactured.

The PPSh-41 was chambered for the 7.62x25mm cartridge, which was common to the Tokarev TT-33 pistol. It had an effective range of 150 meters. In automatic mode, it fired at the rate of 900 rounds per minute, fed from a 71-round drum magazine. Later, in 1942, a 35-round stick magazine was developed.

It was used in all the major battles where the Soviets were fighting the Axis powers, becoming an iconic symbol of the ‘Great Patriotic War’. It was even adopted by the Germans, who used captured guns and designated them the ‘MP717(r)’. Some were converted to the 9x19mm Para cartridge. These were designated ‘MP41(r)’ and are very rarely encountered nowadays.

The PPSh-41 which we are offering today was manufactured in 1944 by the Moscow Automotive Factory Zavod imeni Stalin (ZIS).  The ZIS factory symbol was a Cyrillic character that looks like a number ‘3’, which represents the Roman letter ‘Z’. In the 1950s, the Russian army initiated a programme to refurbish all their inventory of weapons, including captured ones, and it took almost ten years to complete the job. This gun had been refurbished by the Army and it is in perfect condition. It comes complete with a Molot-manufactured 71-round drum magazine.

This PPSh 41 is being offered on a first come, first served basis, as part of our Bargain Basement deals. You can snap it up at a considerable discount based on how fast you react to our post to confirm your order with a deposit:

• Within 1 hour:     20% discount, or € 390

• Within 3 hours:   15% discount, or € 420

• Within 24 hours: 10% discount, or € 440

This could be the opportunity that you have been waiting for – act fast to avoid disappointment! A sale will be considered as closed only if you contact us (SMS, WhatsApp or Messenger) and follow up with a 50% deposit by BOV Mobile Pay or Bank Transfer to our account. Details will be provided in our reply to your message.

Thanks to LSB’s knowledge and experience in historical firearms, all the pieces that we offer are covered by a lifetime warranty that you get is what we describe in detail, to ensure that you will never be disappointed with your purchase.

You will require a 2020 Collector Licence A Special to purchase this firearm.

We take great pleasure in bringing you these daily snippets of firearms history and we hope that you enjoy reading them.

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