peashooter85:The Borz machine pistol.In 1991, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, Chechnya d
peashooter85:The Borz machine pistol.In 1991, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, Chechnya declared its independence from Russia. The small state located in the Caucuses had little in the way of wealth or resources, so to arms its newly created military forces, the Chechens needed a weapons that was simple to use, but more importantly simple and cheap to produce.The Borz machine pistol was a copy of the Armenian K6-92 (top picture), which in turn was based off the Soviet PPS. The Borz, named after Chechnya’s national animal (wolf), was a far simplified version of the K6-92, utilizing mostly stamped metal with simple parts and few accessories. Chambered for 9X18 Makarov, they used a 30 or 40 round magazines and had simple fixed sights. Made by the Krasniy Molot plant in Grozny, the cost only about $100 a piece to produce.Only 200 were produced at the Krasniy Molot plant before the Russian Army occupied Grozny in 1994 during the First Chechen War. After the occupation of Grozny production of the Borz moved underground, were they were essentially produced by cottage industry using whatever materials were available. They were produced in small workshops, garages, attics, and people’s homes. Often the were produced from inferior quality materials such as scrap metal. Because of its simplicity it was easy to produced in such a way, and made a perfect insurgency weapon. Often, such examples were extremely crude, lacking sights and without rifled barrels. Due to its production from inferior materials they wore out and broke down easily. However, they were never intended as a full fledged combat weapon. Rather, they were intended as a “gun to get a gun”. Typically, Chechen fighters would ambush Russian soldiers by surprise, gunning them down with inaccurate but deadly close range fully automatic fire. Once the assault was over, the Chechens would then take the weapons of their slain foes, then escape before the Russian Army could react.The wars between Russia and Chechnya would be especially bloody and destructive, with terrible casualties on both sides. Today Chechnya remains a troubled region, with tensions continuing between the many ethnicity that live there. It unknown how many Borz machine pistols were produced during the Chechen Wars. -- source link