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Chinese Type 50 PPSh: Founding “Gun City” in Manchuria (Ad-free)
🕑 Added 2024-04-12 12:00:06 +0000 UTCOne of the first new weapons adapted and used by the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army after the Communist victory in the Chinese civil war was the Type 50, a copy of the Soviet PPSh-41. The story of its manufacture begins at the Japanese occupied Mukden Arsenal. It was briefly occupied by the Soviets in 1945 before coming under control of the CCP. It was a huge manufacturing complex at the time, making artillery, small arms, ammunition, and more. A Nationalist bombing raid in 1949 led to the production being distributed among three separate smaller facilities, and the small remote town of Bei’an was chosen to become the new small arms factory site.
The town became so heavily focused on weapons manufacture that it gained the nickname of “Gun City”. The factory was formally named #626, and given the cover name of Qinghua Tool Company. It initially began with production of the Type 38 Arisaka, Type 24 Mauser (the Chiang Kai Shek rifle), the M1 Carbine (a failed project), and the Type 50 copy of the PPSh. In the spring of 1951 in response to UN advances northward in Korea, production was ordered to scale up on the Type 50, to 7500-9000 per month. This took a couple months to achieve, but in June 1951 the first large shipment of the guns left the factory, and by December 1953 a total of 358,000 had been made. At that point, production shifted to the Type 54, a copy of the PPS-43.
The Type 50 is a close copy of the Russian Shpagin, but differs in a couple details. The Chinese used a rear aperture sight, and the sights were placed slightly farther forward than on Russian guns. They are also generally very well made - better than most Russia wartime examples.
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Comments
Mrgunsngear
dislike the rear being slightly forward for a sub gun but I'd imagine in real world use it's not all that important
Guido Schriewer
41 sure looks way cooler actually using one... rather the pps43. rear sight alone makes the chincom better if you ask me. looking forward on the t54 video.
WayneWiiki
and the ammunition city became known as "Bullet Farm"...
Mike Decker
Years ago, when I was a Class 3 Dealer, I was hired as an 'expert' witness in an illegal gun case. The defense attorney asked me to examine the confiscated weapons at the Sheriff's office in Rapid City, hoping than none of them were operable. As it turned out the fellow had been making pistols from STEN kits and rebuilt an MP-40. The most interesting one was what looked like a Vietnam 'bring back' Chinese type 54 in excellent condition. I was no help to his case as a witness, but I got to see some interesting firearms.
