Bumar
Fabryka Broni

Radom Before the Kalashnikov

In January 1947, the first small arms manufactured at the Radom plant were Soviet licensed Tokarev pistols, known in Poland as ‘pw sz.33’ – ‘pistolet wojskowy wz.1933’ or Model of 1933 Military Pistol. These were initially marked with a prewar triangular FB logo, and carried grip plates with triangular medallions, just like the prewar Vis – but this time the right plate carried letters ‘PW’ inside a triangle instead of ‘VIS’. The Tokarev was being manufactured until 1956, and 225000 pistols were made (including over a dozen thousand of the .22 LR ‘Sportowy’ training variant. o­n September 15, 1948 the name was changed from Państwowa Fabryka Broni (State Arms Factory) to Zjednoczone Zakłady Wyrobów Metalowych, Zakład Nr 1, or United Metalworking Works, Work Nr 1 – thus obliterating the ‘politically incorrect’ prewar name and logo. Further licensed Soviet small arms for the Polish Army commenced into serial manufacture at the Radom plant. In November 1949 the 26 mm signal pistol wz.44 was introduced, manufactured until as late as 1977 in 250000 examples. During the same year the Mosin kbk wz.44 carbine chambered in 7.62 mm x 54R came into series manufacture – 343000 of these were manufactured until 1955. Along with the kbk wz.44 the first post-war Radom’s own design was manufactured, the kbks wz.48 training carbine, being a .22 LR face-lifted to resemble the kbk wz.44 Mosin carbine variant of the pre-war kbk S wz.31. This was manufactured at Radom until 1956, as a main initial training and shooting sports carbine for youth and paramilitary organizations, as well as the military. The kbks wz.48, affectively known as the ‘Radomka’ became the first firearm for generations of Poles, who were taught shooting at school as part of the Junior ROTC-style ‘military education’ classes.

The apex of the production capabilities was reached during the period of 1950-53 Korean War, when working wartime-flat with three shifts a day, hundreds of thousand firearms were manufactured. Two submachine guns were then initiated at the Radom factory, using a new logo since 1950: an oval with ‘11’ code number within, giving rise to the ‘Works 11’ sobriquet. Between 1951 and 1955 as many as 111000 ‘7.62 mm pm wz.41’s (a license-manufactured version of the Soviet PPSh 41) and several dozen thousands of the ‘7.62 mm pm wz.43’ (PPS 43) were manufactured, including a small-scale production of the .22LR training variant of the latter.

On December 31, 1951 the Work Nr 1 was renamed again: this time to Zakłady Metalowe im. gen. Waltera (General Walter Metal Plant, taking its name from a Communist hero, Soviet general of Polish descent, Karol Świerczewski, whose Spanish Civil War nome-de-guerre was ‘General Walter’. This was the character Ernest Hemingway named ‘General Golz’ in his novel ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’).

During the 1950s took place the Radom’s o­nly and short-lived spell as machinegun maker. Just like in the prewar years, when MG manufacturing was Warsaw’s Fabryka Karabinów business, in postwar years this was virtually monopolized by the Poznań’s Cegielski Works. The o­nly real machine guns ever made in Radom were rifle-caliber (7.62 mm x 54R) Soviet-licensed LMGs by V. Degtaryov. During 1952-56 o­nly 3140 tank machine guns, the DTMs, were manufactured, as well as 5700 DP LMGs in 1954 and 10600 modernized DPMs in 1955. Then during 1958-61 came 11100 of another Degtaryov’s LMGs, this time chambered for the 7.62 mm x 39 intermediate round, the ‘7.62 mm rkm D’ known otherwise as RPD.