Adventures with M57 Tokarev

[Olle]

I bought six of these, thought I better do it before ATF starts raising hell about the safety. I chose the VG + hand select options, and it was kind of a mixed bag. The bores ranged from very good (just some small specks) to like new, and the bluing was very good to excellent except for one. Some appeared to be rearsenaled, and this particular gun had a large rust pit under the bluing, right next to the Yugo crest. It also had extremely sloppy grips and a stuck extractor, but after some discussion they agreed to replace it.

I have heard comments from those that were not so lucky, seems like the QC at Classic Firearms is a bit hit or miss. Still, it's a lot of gun for the money and the lack of a frame mounted safety is priceless. Just install a $20 TT-33 trigger, and the gun will be as close to an as-issued M57 as you can realistically get. It will still be import marked, but they put this on the bottom of the trigger guard so it's not nearly as bad as it can be on other imports.

BTW: The firing pin assembly in these is more complicated than in the original TT-33, so I would not recommend taking it apart unless you really have to. I believe they modified it to work with the factory frame mounted thumb safety on other models, and the reassembly is a royal PITA.

[Zorba]

Originally Posted by Olle

BTW: The firing pin assembly in these is more complicated than in the original TT-33, so I would not recommend taking it apart unless you really have to. I believe they modified it to work with the factory frame mounted thumb safety on other models, and the reassembly is a royal PITA.

The 'net is full of people who say to not disassemble the FP on these at any cost - but I really didn't find it to be much of a problem. Watch "targetpopper's" reassy video (linked from mine), it really isn't bad. Took me about 20 seconds and no swearing.

[Olle]

Originally Posted by Zorba

The 'net is full of people who say to not disassemble the FP on these at any cost - but I really didn't find it to be much of a problem. Watch "targetpopper's" reassy video (linked from mine), it really isn't bad. Took me about 20 seconds and no swearing.

I did it just like in the video, but I felt that there was a high risk of parts slipping and flying into orbit. A steady hand and good pliers will do it, but I still wouldn't recommend it to "the casual gunsmith".