little tokarev info needed

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hardknocks!

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Hello All
so i stopped at this gun shop i never seen before today and see they have two tokarev tt 33 pistols.
having done a little reading about the gun in the pase and remembering some good posts on the gun i am interested.
a customer had a chinese and russian on the counter and ended up buying the china gun and the russian went back into glass case.
done some searching but cant find any russians for sale online so i dont know what its worth.
its showing some wear but i didnt look real close. what might this gun be worth in lets say shooter conditon? age sets the price maybe?
its priced at 275.00$
online auctions seem to be bringing more for yugos and romanian.
any info you could provide would be greatly appreciated.:D
trying not to buy more guns but im sure i can rationalize just one more.
thanks
 
The Russian Tokarevs had very loose tolerances and are known for being very inaccurate. You should avoid them except for collector's value. The best ones are Romanians, with Chinese and Polish tied for second. Some of the Chinese Tokarevs are 9mm Luger, although they can be converted back to 7.62x25 with just a barrel and a bushing swap and some standard Tokarev 7.62x25 mags.
 
Did it have a manual safety? If not, go back and grab it. I will then buy it from you if you don't want it. If it has a safety, pass it by.
 
Back when I was a dealer the New Production Norinco's were accurate guns but the safety on them was a joke! I would LOVE to have another in 7.62x25 and one in 38 Super!
 
I have Czech Model CZ-52 in mint condition. Where does it rank? Also have a 9x18 Russian Makarov purchased at the same time. Both are nice guns to own.
 
The Russian Tokarevs and Makarovs were produced much earlier than the other countries' versions, on much cruder equipment. It's amazing how 20 years and no wartime demands make a difference. This is why there's a huge accuracy difference between them. The later Russian Baikal Makarov, which was a 1990s commerical export, is a very fine gun, though.
 
I have one of the Chinese Toks, in 9MM, and it shoots pretty good. It does have the safety on it, and they painted the indicator dots backwards. When the gun is on safe, the red dot is exposed. When the safety is off, you see the white dot. Sounds backwards to me. My only other Norinco is the 1911, and of course we all know how that safety is supposed to work.
 
the whole safety on the Chinese ones are backwards, you have to pull the safety to the rear to fire rather than thumb it forward like you would expect. Apparently the safety was only put there to allow importation.
 
Hello
Not sure if it had the safety as i didnt look very good not knowing what to look for.
today i found a yugo tokarev and checked it out a little.
the mag seemed to not want to be removed very easily but it looked un shot.
i will try to get back there soon as possible and take a look at the russian tokarev.
thanks to all for the info.
 
If it doesn't have a safety snag it. All imported TOKs were required to have a safety put on them, none of them had them originally. So if it doesn't have a safety it's a vet bring back of some sort and worth more money.

I've got two Polish TOKs that are nice pistols but I also had a Chinese one that was a clunker.

Still $275 for a genuine Russian doesn't sound bad especially if it doesn't have a safety, and if you can talk them down even better.

I paid $225 apiece for my Poles both were in excellent shape one near mint condition, and that was about 8 or 10 years ago, only paid a $100 for the Chinese but that was about 15 years ago.
 
Weevil, aside from value, the trigger block safety on some Tokarevs works very well. My Romanian's is very solid and I'd carry it locked and cocked.
 
275 for a Russian Tokarev without an added safety is a STEAL.

If you pass on it, tell me where it is and I will snag it myself.
 
WardenWolf said:
Weevil, aside from value, the trigger block safety on some Tokarevs works very well. My Romanian's is very solid and I'd carry it locked and cocked.
Click to expand...


Yeah the one on the Poles isn't bad at all, it's just behind the trigger and is very solid, much better than the cobbled up mess that was on the Norinco I had.

I'd still be leery about carrying one though. All the safety does is block the trigger, nothing blocking the sear or hammer, and no firing pin block either.

The TOKs are cool old pistols but I've got more modern safer pistols that I carry.

Plus 7.62x25mm is a really ferocious round when it comes to penetration. I've shot through railroad ties with it. They'll even go through bullet-proof vests I think up to level III. Awesome round for combat and you're on offense but as a self-dense round in the big city I'd be worried about where my bullet might finally end up.

Now I did hear that somebody was offering a hollow-point for this caliber but I don't recall who. With a good HP 7.62TOK would be an interesting SD round.
 
roadliner said:
I have one of the Chinese Toks, in 9MM, and it shoots pretty good. It does have the safety on it, and they painted the indicator dots backwards. When the gun is on safe, the red dot is exposed. When the safety is off, you see the white dot. Sounds backwards to me.
Click to expand...

FYI, In the US, red generally means to "stop" but in China red is an indication of happiness! That might explain why they choose red for safe.
 
Wolf makes hollowpoints. They're hard to find sometimes, but they're out there. I have 3 boxes of the stuff. One I bought retail. The others I received in a parts package that also included a 9mm conversion kit. Someone did penetration and expansion tests with both the S&B FMJ rounds and the Wolf hollowpoints. The FMJ round goes through Level II Kevlar, mushrooms to .46, and still gets optimal penetration. The hollowpoint does the exact same against unarmored targets. Just an evil, evil round.

Regarding the safety, the Tokarev does have a very strong half-cock position. One person on here had an issue where his Tokarev's hammer would sometimes not stay cocked. It would often follow the slide forward or release if jolted. HOWEVER, the half-cock caught it every time. It never hit the firing pin. We told him what parts to check for problems in order to diagnose it and where to find replacements, and he presumably never had that problem again (most likely a bad sear spring).

Because of this, however, I trust the gun's safety. Making it fire unintentionally would require hitting the low-profile hammer and breaking both the full-cock and half-cock locking lugs. You can't break both lugs in a single impact because of the way the hammer is shaped and the path it travels. I consider this gun drop-safe when cocked.
 
Yeah the TOK wouldn't be the worst choice for a carry gun but personally I prefer something more modern.

It does use a fairly heavy firing-pin with no block so there is always the chance of an inertia strike on the primer being strong enough to set it off. But I'll agree that is pretty rare.

With HPs the TOK would be a very serious and potent weapon for SD.
 
Hello, new here, but it looks like an interesting forum.
Several of us went to see 'Barbarians at the Gates' and saw the character portraying Kruschev running around waving a Tok. That was enough, and we tracked down some Polish pistols made in the 50's; been some years and I'd have to look up what we paid.
These shoot very straight, with a really astounding report and muzzle flash. We chronoed some Czech sub-gun ammo at over 1600 fps; probably not something you'd want to feed a Tok on a regular basis. We actually clocked the hot stuff in a buddy's roller locked VZ52, reputedly a stronger design.
The regular ammo was more like 1400.
All the ones we found had the for-importation safety; it's neatly enough done.
I agree that I'd hesitate to carry one chamber-loaded. It's a nifty pistol.
Moon
 
When I carried my Norinco, I carried it on the 1/2 cock in a retention holster and never worried about and never had any issues. Truly marvelous little guns!
 
I have a Norinco 9mm Tok, purchased NIB back in mid 90's. Decents pistol, don't like the small capacity magazines. Where can you find magazines to purchase. Last guns show I looked around but could not find any but maybe I just didn't look hard enough. Are ther any reatail websites, that sell the mags for Luger and what's the prices? Thanks
JT
 
I disagree.

I have two Norincos, a 9MM and a 7.62, and they're tight as a drum. All of the others I've handled were a bit rattle-y and loose, some more than others. The Norincos also have chrome-lined barrels and are made out of harder steel than the others.

There's another advantage with the Norincos. They were made for commercial sale here about 15 years ago when 7.62 was unavailable. Most of them have been sitting around virtually unused since the mid-nineties. All of the other ones have had decades of service with who-knows-how-much-or-how-good maintenance.

Both of mine are tack-drivers.
 
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