POTD: The Bottleneck with a Bang! 7.62×25 Tokarev
Sam.S 04.07.21
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! This time around we have a beautiful bottlenecked cartridge. The cartridge in question is the 7.62x25mm; otherwise, often referred to as 7.62 Tokarev or 7.62 Tok. Bottlenecked cartridges were a very popular design when early autoloading pistols came onto the scene.
It started with Hugo Borchardt’s C93 and eventually the Mauser C96 in 7.63×25 (30 Mauser which is actually the parent case to our cartridge in question) and then Luger with its 30 Luger. The Tokarev cartridge was born in 1930 as a part of the Soviet Union’s push to develop a new and more powerful pistol cartridge than the 7.62x38mmR Nagant revolver cartridge.
The 7.62×25 Tokarev is a bottlenecked cartridge which means it chambers reliably compared to say rimmed or straight-walled cartridges and it is capable of high velocities compared to other common calibers of the time. The 30 Mauser cartridge was the parent case and so 30 Mauser can be put in anything chambered for the Tokarev Cartridge. The big difference is that Tokarev tends to be loaded significantly hotter so it should not be put in a gun meant for 30 Mauser.
The 7.62×25 Tokarev would go on to be chambered in notable guns like the PPSH submachine guns, TT-33, and the CZ52. Today 7.62 Tokarev is available and still produced through companies like Fiocchi, PPU, and Sellier & Bellot.
