5 Worst Russian Handguns on the Planet

Charlie Gao

Security, Europe

From Russia, with bullets?

While the Makarov and Tokarev are probably the most well known Russian pistols, the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union designed many more. Some of these designs were excellent, others, not so much. Here are some of the worst pistols that were designed or used by Russia, stretching from the imperial era to the current day.

The OTs-23 “Drotik”

The 5.45x18mm Soviet cartridge was primarily designed for the PSM, a very slim and concealable pistol that was primarily used by undercover police and high ranking officers who wanted a pistol that weighed very little. The OTs-23, however, weighs almost one kilogram and is rather large. This makes it kind of pointless, given the anemic nature of the 5.45x18mm. The cartridge is very weak, with 128 Joules of muzzle energy (for comparison, 9mm Parabellum puts out 481 Joules, more than three times that amount). To its credit, the 5.45x18 can effectively pierce soft body armor, something the standard issue 9x18mm Makarov cartridge cannot do. However, the earlier standard issue 7.62x25mm Tokarev can also penetrate soft body armor—while imparting more energy on the target after penetration. The machine pistol features of the OTs-23 could be an attempt to make up for the weak nature of the cartridge. Part of the pistol’s design philosophy was to use its insanely high rate of fire (up to 1800 rpm) to land hits in close proximity to each other in order to achieve greater stopping power. In the end, the OTs-23 delivered poor results, was not adopted for service and was produced in very limited numbers.

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