
THE HISTORY OF PPS-43
Created in respond to a red army requirement for a compact and lightweight weapon that would provide similar accuracy and firepower while utilizing more cost-effective means of production than the Soviet PPSH-41 submachine gun being widely deployed at the time.These cost-saving measures reduced the amount of machined components to a bare minimum, cutting down machining time by more than half (2.7 hours of machining required to complete a PPS as opposed to 7.3 hours for the PPSh-41). Savings of over 50% were also noted in terms of raw steel usage (6.2 kg instead of 13.9 kg) and the number of workers required to fabricate the individual components and conduct final assembly of the weapon.
Prototypes were evaluated successfully during the spring of 1942, after which the firearm was accepted into service later that year as the PPS-42.The weapon was thrust into small-scale production during the Seige Of Leningrad.The improvements to production efficiency allowed the Soviets to increase monthly submachine gun output from 135,000 units to 350,000 weapons.
Operating mechanism
The PPS was an automaic blowback-operated weapon that fired from an open bolt. The bolt was cylindrical in shape and contained a spring-loaded claw extractor, which pulled the empty case out of the chamber and passed it to the fixed ejector housed in the lower receiver. The charging handle was integral to the bolt and was located on the right side; it would reciprocate during firing. The PPS was striker fired; the firing pin was press-fit into the bolt face and was by the striker spring (a small-diameter single coil wrapped around a steel guide rod), which was also the main recoil spring.
The PPS was fitted with a set of open-type iron sight consisting of a fixed front post protected from impact by two sheet metal plates and a flip rear sight with two pivoting notches, for firing at 100 and 200 m