Romanian TTC Tokarev range outing...

[mrnyman]

Zachomega , no offense intended and i believe the older more experienced shooters here would agree with me , NO one buys a TT for its beauty, charm, precision engineering, craftsmanship, accuracy and prestige, if you want that buy a SIG, Berreta or HK, people buy a TT for what it is , it is a part of history, it is the Gun that helped that helped wipe the NAZI scourge from the world, the reason you are not speaking German today locked away in some work camp.
Same for the Mosin 91 you mentioned, it is not the pretttiest Gun , not the most accurate either, but you know what Vasily Zaitsev used it to kill over 400 Nazis at the battle of Stalingrad, its not the machine , it is the man behind the machine, it always were.

THe TT is a thing of beauty and has earned the respect and the right to be in anyone's gun collection and must seen and appreciated as such.
A TT of any nationality can join my gun collection any day.

When general Zhukov entered Berlin in 1945 he had a TT strapped to his hip.

Firearm ownership is a wonderful hobby , but as i got older i realized that it is more than the Guns, it is the history and education that is involved that makes it so fascinating, i guess thats why they have firearms museums.

Nyman

[PA Rifleman]

Zachomega , no offense intended and i believe the older more experienced shooters here would agree with me , NO one buys a TT for its beauty,...

Nyman

I doubt he did. Based on reading his previous posts, Zachomega is no idiot. From his first post in this thread, it's clear he had at least two genuine mechanical issues with his TT:

...

1. Racking the slide was near impossible when I first bought the gun unless the hammer was already cocked. I filed down a burr in the metal and now the slide is easily racked.
2. The safety ...doesn't always work and sometimes the trigger won't move backwards even with the safety disengaged.
3. There is also no firing pin or hammer safety so if you drop this gun with a round chambered, it will most likely go off. (This is a normal TT characteristic - ~PA Rifleman)

...

The Bulgarian stuff comes in packs of 40 on 8 round stripper clips. However, the stripper clips don't do much other than hold 8 rounds (which conveniently is how many the TTC loads). I suspect the stripper clips were designed with another weapon in mind.

Here's a possibility:


Mag capacity is 24 rds or 40 rds, both are multiples of eight.
(source)

... The Romanian ammo nearly always went off on the first trigger pull. The Bulgarian ammo definitely had a lot of stiff primers however which OFTEN required 2 or more trigger pulls to go off. ...

It's clear from this post he had hard-primer ammo, possibly SMG ammo. So, ammo issues were part of his experience.

[zachomega]

Zachomega , no offense intended and i believe the older more experienced shooters here would agree with me , NO one buys a TT for its beauty, charm, precision engineering, craftsmanship, accuracy and prestige, if you want that buy a SIG, Berreta or HK, people buy a TT for what it is , it is a part of history, it is the Gun that helped that helped wipe the NAZI scourge from the world, the reason you are not speaking German today locked away in some work camp.
Same for the Mosin 91 you mentioned, it is not the pretttiest Gun , not the most accurate either, but you know what Vasily Zaitsev used it to kill over 400 Nazis at the battle of Stalingrad, its not the machine , it is the man behind the machine, it always were.

THe TT is a thing of beauty and has earned the respect and the right to be in anyone's gun collection and must seen and appreciated as such.
A TT of any nationality can join my gun collection any day.

When general Zhukov entered Berlin in 1945 he had a TT strapped to his hip.

Firearm ownership is a wonderful hobby , but as i got older i realized that it is more than the Guns, it is the history and education that is involved that makes it so fascinating, i guess thats why they have firearms museums.

Nyman

I take no offense. I understand the historical aspect of the guns...Truly I do. I have a BA in history. However, I think it is unfair to say that the Romanian TTC helped stop anything. Firstly, the Romanians were part of the Axis. Secondly, the gun was made well after the war ended.

Additionally, the sub machine gun really changed the face of Stalingrad more than the TT pistols. In fact, pure manpower really changed the face of Stalingrad. Some soldiers were sent into combat without weapons at all and had to wait for their comrades to die. I truly commend them and their bravery...even if it was forced out of them with the threat of execution if they retreated or surrendered (Russian persecution of soldiers suspected of leaving their post - even if captured - continued well after the war ended).

You are correct though. I didn't buy the TT for its charm or beauty or craftsmanship, but I also didn't buy it as a mantle piece or paper weight.

-Zach

[zachomega]

Here's a possibility:


Mag capacity is 24 rds or 40 rds, both are multiples of eight.
(source)

It's clear from this post he had hard-primer ammo, possibly SMG ammo. So, ammo issues were part of his experience.

The PPSH-41 also used 7.62x25 although it didn't use anything that loaded in multiples of 8.

-Zach

[Ecclectic Collector]

Zachomega,

I've got a Russian TT-33 (dated 1947) and apparently in unfired condition when I got it (not anymore though!).

I've also had one of the Chinese model 213 Tokarevs in the past (it was a mediocre gun).

My point is: I think you got a dog of a Tokarev. Fix it or sell it, but any gun no matter how good a basic design (which the TT is) is junk if all the parts are out of spec, or worn to the point of uselessness. Quality control is sometimes an issue with the Bulgaian and Romanian guns, and I think you got one with major problems.

Also, I agree with Nyman; this is a historical design, not a modern one. Too bad the US still has a defacto import ban with Russia and you can't get a real WW2 Russian gun anymore.

PS: Nyman, rep to you for summerising why historic guns are so important to collect.

[Nullifidian]

Reports from other folks saying their TTC is accurate have me thinking that perhaps I just need to:

1) drift the rear sight
2) maybe change out the barrel for one in better condition

While a TTC is not technically a TT33, the differences are minimal. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong but I though the only difference between a TTC and TT-33 were cosmetic; i.e. the TTC is a TT-33 made in Cugir, Romania (hence the "C").

As such, the model has historical significance as others have mentioned. I love the idea of owning historical guns. WWII in particular has meaning to me. On one side of my family, I had a great uncle who flew in the daylight raids over Berlin. On the other side, my grandmother escaped from Hungary and my grandfather was a Russian agent who fought in the French Resistance.

So both Russian and American WWII era weapons have special meaning to me. Russian especially because my grandfather fought on the ground in enemy territory, with a small supply of weapons smuggled in to him by the Soviets. I never got a chance to talk to my grandfather about his time in the French Resistance, but in all likelihood, he carried a TT-33 in addition to any captured weapons.

My grandmother's family (with the exception of her and one of her aunts) was entirely wiped out by the holocaust. The same goes with her first husband's family (who she was married to at the time). My grandmother's aunt was in a concentration camp and was liberated by the Russians.


Anyway, all this gives the weapons of the Russian army extreme historical and personal importance to me. It's for that reason I probably won't ever get rid of the TT, even if it winds up being nothing more than a paperweight. Unless some day I can justify buying a real WWII Russian TT-33.

[jonnyc]

Old post, i know, but I just got a Romanian TT so I just came across it.

For a bit of background, I collect the 7.62x25 cartridge and have over a thousand different items, not to mention files of info and over 100 different boxes and packets. I also have 4 other TT variants, so I'm not new to the round or platform.

First off, there is no such thing as Tokarev "SMG" ammo, it was all designed and produced for both pistols and SMGs.

Second, the "Bulgarian" ammo used in the OP's test is actually Czech milsurp ammo, and well-known for being all-around crap.

I love shooting my Tokarevs, and find that they can have exceptional accuracy and reliability......if I do my part. I'm looking forward to testing my "new" Romanian, and then doing something about that ugly safety. My plan is to ensure its reliability and then use it for a truck/knock-around gun that I can stash and pretty much forget about.

[justashooter]

I forgot to mention in the course of firing the gun, the trigger locked up and would not fire. I had to unload the gun, rack the slide a few times and work with the trigger to get it to do anything.
-Zach

this malfunction is due to the safety that was added to allow for importation. the safety can be removed and the problem is gone.