Bumar
Fabryka Broni

Polish Compact Submachineguns

After the licensed production of the large, WW2 submachine guns ceased in 1955, the FB started to prepare for the introduction of the new breed of Polish compact submachine guns or rather machine pistols. The first of these was the pm wz.63 (PM-63) also known as ‘Rak’ (Cancer). This design was initiated at the Warsaw Technological University, by P. Wilniewczyc, the same who set forth ideas for the Vis wz.35 pistol. After he died in 1960, the work was concluded by M. Wakalski, G. Czubak and T. Bednarski, then taken over by the Radom factory design team, where R. Che³micki and E. Durasiewicz partly redesigned it, making more suitable for mass-production. The first prototype series was made ready for trials in 1964, and then in 1967 a series manufacturing commenced, continuing until 1977, when the last of the ca. 77000 of these handy, small 9 mm x 18 selective fire weapons used by the drivers, AFV crews, ‘WSW’ Military Police and special forces were made. The PM-63 was exported in limited quantities mostly to GDR, where it was used by the East German MdI (Ministry of Inner Affairs) and MfS (Ministry of the State Security, the Stasi). Specimens captured during the 1979 brief Sino-Vietnamese war from Vietnamese tank crews were copied by Norinco and offered for export as Type 82 SMG – but with limited if any success.

The obsolete production technology, entirely based o­n machining made the PM-63 a very expensive weapon to manufacture, and as early as 1975 a project code-named ‘Glauberyt’ was launched to make a modern, cheap compact SMG, a heir to the Rak. From among several R-75 designs a sheet-metal formed and spot-welded R-75-I by R. Che³micki, J. Chêtkiewicz and St. Brix was chosen for further development. The next stage was R-81 (pm wz.81), further developed into a PM-84 chambered for the 9 mm x 18 round, and introduced into the inventory of the Polish Army. Regrettably, the introduction proved to be a little premature, and still several years of de-bugging was needed before it could be finally manufactured. Unfortunately this was already in 1990, and the PM-84 shared the fate of the Tantal – but faster. Already in 1992 it was withdrawn from production and replaced by the St. Brix re-designed PM-84P chambered in 9 mm x 19 Luger, introduced into the inventory of the Police and Army in 1994. The experience with the PM-84P led to a redesign in 1998, when a specifically Police version, the PM-98 was introduced, itself a starting point for still another developmental version, the PM-98s optimized for special units, as of 2006 re-named the PM-06. Both variants, PM-98 and PM-06 are still manufactured and even exported – they are utilized by certain Persian Gulf armies and by Indonesian Police special unit, amongst others.