Russian Current Service Pistol: the PYa / MP443 Grach / MP446C Viking

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com. I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm here today at the British Royal Armouries taking a look at some of the modern handguns in their extensive reference collection. Today we are taking a look at a Russian pistol. This is an MP443 Grok, or Rook. Actually, technically speaking, this is the civilian variant, the Viking 446C ... made by Kalashnikov Concern, sold under the Baikal trade name. This is also, this is the civilian version of what is currently the Russian technically official standard service sidearm, the pistol YPA. Now mechanically this is pretty basic, has typical Browning tilting barrel system. We have a polymer frame around a carbon steel inner structure. Stainless steel barrel, other regular carbon steel parts. Double action, single action fire control system that does have an ambidextrous frame mounted safety that's not too bad. The pistol itself went through a pretty long process to get to the point where it is now. It was initially developed as part of the trial starting in 1993 to select a replacement for the Makarov, for the Soviet military. It eventually became the winner of that trial, but it wasn't actually formally adopted by now Russian military and police forces until 2003. And then even once it was adopted it would take several more years before it actually got into production. Mass production began in 2011, 2012. Actual issue to the army began in 2016. So it's a pistol that's been around for a very long time. Relatively simple, seems to be reasonably reliable. Like there's not a whole lot of, there's really no new technology in this. There's not a whole lot seemingly to go wrong. These pistols have been seen, or are being seen, in Ukraine. They have not yet fully replaced the Makarov and at this rate, with the war in Ukraine, it probably will be a very long time before they actually do. I can't imagine that this is a huge production priority for the Russian Federation right now. But it is the standard service pistol, so I figured we ought to take a closer look at it. Let me show you up close. Let's start with the markings because there are a bunch of them. Made in Russia, 2007 production. So before these were really in mass production for the military, they were being made on the commercial market. The commercial name is Viking by Baikal. This is obviously one made for export, given that all the wording is in English. However, these are also made for the Russian civilian market. MP446 is the Kalashnikov Concerns designation for the pistol in military service. It's the PYA, and that follows the Russian tradition of naming the pistols with, well, naming a lot of their guns with a letter for the type of gun, and a letter for the inventor's last name. So PPS, the Pistol Pulimat Sudayev, the Sudayev submachine gun. The predecessor to this in military service was the PM, the Pistolet Makarov. So PYA, Pistolet Yagarin. Anyway, serial number here with a prefix of year of production. And we have the serial number also marked on the metal frame, which you have access to through the trigger guard right there. For controls we have a frame mounted safety here. It is ambidextrous, which is kind of nice. We do have a double action hammer, and it is a mostly shrouded hammer. That's kind of nice, that makes the hammer less likely to snag on things. That said, it does also mean that if you get dirt in there, it's actually going to be really pretty obnoxiously difficult to try and clean it out. And there is no decocker. So we can fire in single action, we can fire in double action, but if the gun's cocked and you want to decock it, you don't really have any options other than either thumbing the hammer down very carefully, or just unloading it and dry firing it. Sights are a pretty basic three dot sort of arrangement. The magazine release is on the left side only. We have a double stack, double feed magazine. I like that, I wish more pistols did that. That makes it really pretty easy to load, and typically increases the capacity by one or two rounds over a comparable magazine that has to abandon some space to narrow down to a single stack. Initially these were 17 round magazines. In 2004 they introduced an 18 round magazine. So I suspect this is an 18 round magazine here. The operation is basic Browning tilting barrel. You can see that working right there. And to disassemble it we are going to pop out this barrel cross pin. I'm going to use an Elbonian disassembly tool here. Pop that out, there we go, that's kind of stiff. But now I can slide the slide assembly off. There's the frame, you can see the polymer out here, and the sort of purplish colour to the steel components inside. There's our fire control mechanism, pretty basic there. Ejector is a separate component. Really nothing particularly exotic going on there. And frankly the same holds true for the slide. You can see a high power style oval cam in there. The spring, the recoil spring, is really quite stiff to get out. There we go, it is a non-captive recoil spring. There's the guide rod. Take out the barrel. Note that the barrel is a separate component from the chamber and locking area. So we have one locking lug and it's the front of the chamber here, which locks up against the edge of the slide. This is chambered for the 7N21, which is 9x19mm but a fairly high pressure loading. You could think of this similar to 9mm NATO. It's a plus P or a plus P plus cartridge that is made. 7 ... N21 is an armour-piercing loading as well. For the civilian model, the Viking, what they do is actually mill the barrel down a bit thinner, and they do not rate it for the high pressure loads. It's just standard 9x19. Now it's, I mean, it's a little stereotypical perhaps that they haven't done anything that will actually prevent you from chambering or firing a high pressure round. They've just ensured that, or made it likely, that you'll have catastrophic results if you do, which I don't know that I'm really in favour of that sort of manufacturing plan. Anyway, we have 9x19 and a proof on the barrel. So, the military pistols will have a thicker barrel. The ... civilian pistols have a thinner one. I suspect, but this is just pure speculation on my part, that there is more material milled out of the civilian MP446 Viking slides to reduce their weight. I suspect the military guns have a bit heavier slides, kind of like the SIG 320s do. A little more weight is going to make the guns run a little slower, a little safer, a little more reliably with high pressure loadings. There you go, there it is disassembled. The MP446, a.k.a. the Viking, a.k.a. the PYA, the Yagarin, a.k.a. the Grok. Alright, if I'm going to be honest with you guys, I don't really think there's actually all that much very interesting about this pistol. There's really nothing novel about it. I like ... I mean the ambidextrous frame mounted safety is a good feature. I like the double stack, double feed magazines. I wish more pistol designers would do that. But that's pretty much the extent of the particularly exciting features such as they are. If this wasn't the standard service pistol for the Russian Federation right now, probably wouldn't be doing a video on it. But it is the standard service pistol for the Russian Federation, and for that reason I think it's worth taking a look at just for familiarization, for recognition of what is being used currently in different countries around the world. So if this were just a random commercial civilian design production pistol in the US, meh, I don't think it'd attract all that much attention. Anyway, hopefully you guys enjoyed the opportunity to take a closer look at Russia's standard service pistol. Big thanks to the British Royal Armouries for putting up with me and giving me the opportunity to film this for you guys. Thanks for watching.