The Unofficial P64 Resource Forum

HI there, just acquired a P64. prev owner fired 10 rds and decided she would not like it to be her purse gun. Before that i don't know how many rds has gone through this little guy. She did buy it at Gander Mtn.

Now, I really love this thing. Small, solid, break down easy for cleaning, and fires the 9mm mak instead of the .380 (looking at Bersa Thunder series). It comes with 2 mags, leather holster with the cleaning rod and 2 boxes (50 +40 rds) of fiocchi FMJ. I got it for $220.00.

Now comes the questions:
1. The barrel has shallow rifling (compared to newer/ modern sigma 9mm). Is that normal for 9mm mak barrels? It's still shiny though.
2. Is the barrel replacable? How many rds is the barrel supposed to go through before it loses accuracy?

Aside from that i took it to the range yesterday and it performed flawlessly. The first 2 shots seemed like nothing, but after the hot houston summer weather, my hands started to sweat and you can feel the "snappiness" of this lil fellow. The beaver tail actually snapped the worst as you can feel it between your thumb and index finger. But it's still controllable and i found the accuracy for a less than 3" barrel to be SUPERB. I put a ragged hole at 7 yds roughly the size of a ping pong ball ( okay, maybe a bit larger but still smaller than a baseball size) from probably 4 mags.

I'll probably just gonna put some grip tape or look for an old bicycle tube i can slip on the grips. I already have some silver bear ammo, extra mag and the wolf 22lb spring on the way. I also have the uncle mike soft IWB holster for it when i'm ready to CC.

Thanks

forgot to mention the ejection was REALLY positive. Ejected brass seems to fly real fast. Couldn't catch it with my eye (when a friend shot it) and that it's a 1969 model with round hammer.
i got a bluing kit from academy to finish my mosin nagant. This thing will get the touch up as well.

welcome chuwee81

Welcome to the board! The barrel like all Makarovs, has polygonal rifling, so it LOOKS smooth but it is not. My P64 is also a 1969 model and I've put at least 200 rounds through it with no decrease in accuracy that I could detect.
One of the reasons why I own a P64 is because I have a Bersa Thunder 380 which I can't find affordable ammo for. The Bersa just sits in my gun locker collecting dust. With Makarovs, ammo is plentiful and relatively cheap. No worries about ammo running out anytime soon.

Thanks martilyo. It was actually an accidental find. I was just browsing a forum just looking for a deal and close by. I had in mind a bersa thnder or CZ 82. Then i saw this lady selling this for cheap. I did some research and ended up here. I concluded that this is a good gun for the money and went ahead and bought it. I think it's a very good buy and you're right, ammo is pretty cheap as well.

chuwee81 wrote: Now comes the questions:
1. The barrel has shallow rifling (compared to newer/ modern sigma 9mm). Is that normal for 9mm mak barrels? It's still shiny though.
2. Is the barrel replacable? How many rds is the barrel supposed to go through before it loses accuracy?

I compared the rifling in the P-64 I shoot the most with my Mauser HSc .380 and I'd say my P-64 has about the same rifling depth.

I'm sure the barrel is replaceable, but I certainly wouldn't want to shoot a P-64 so much that the barrel would need replacing. Arghhhh!

well, i guess that's how they made it in those days. Anyway i got a 9mm range toy, so i guess i'll just shoot the P64 every now and then until i'm ready to get CCW.