Tokarev

[alvin]

M20 was Chinese free exporting pistol to support people's revolutionary in southeastern Asia during the cold war. Many of those were found in Vietnam and Burma. After 1990, some of those pistols flowed back into China from those countries via black market, and became an important source of illegal guns in China.

[Jack Lawman]

There are 5 matching parts on the M20: Frame, slide, action block, barrel, bushing. Very hard to find them all matching. As previously stated, most are Vietnam bringbacks. I don't think very many were ever imported. Almost all of them lack import marks and safeties.

From another board http://www.gunsnet.net/forums/showthread.php?t=104195:

"Three original military versions (Chinese Tokarevs):
1) T51: Russian parts assembled in Chinese arsenals in Manchuria. Production started in 1951.
2) T54: Domestic production; type-designated in 1954. There is no difference between T51 and T54 except marking. T54 has three Chinese characters on top of the slide (Five-Four-Type), while T51 has three characters on the left rare side of the frame (Five-One-Type)
3) M20: the most interesting variation. They were identical to T54, but were marked M20 on tope of the slide. These were made for supplying various communist insurgencies, national liberation fronts, and Viet Nam troops. It has no Chinese markings, so the the source of supplier can be denied when the weapons are cought in embarrassed situations.

There are three Mxx weapons: M20: Type 54 Tokarev pistol; M21: Type 56 semi-auto rifle (SKS), and M22 (Type 56 assualt rifles, aka AK47)."

Jack

[Jack Lawman]

The trigger guard is also marked with an "A" and an"M":