The S4M () was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

special service pistol.

History

Due to the politically devastating nature inherent in this design, the S4M was kept highly secret. Information on the pistol was not known by Western governments until well after the end of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

Design

The S4M was a simple break-open, two-shot

derringer A derringer or deringer is a small handgun that is neither a revolver, semi-automatic pistol, nor machine pistol. It is not to be confused with mini-revolvers or pocket pistols, although some later derringers were manufactured with the pepp ...

, but the unique features came from its specialized ammunition, designed around a cut-down version of the 7.62×39mm rounds used in the Soviet

AK-47 The AK-47, officially known as the Avtomat Kalashnikova (; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is an assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian small-arms designer Mikhail Kala ...

. The casings of the round contained a piston-like plunger between the bullet and the powder that would move forward inside the casing when fired. The piston would push the round down the barrel and plug the end of the casing, completely sealing off any explosive gases in the casing. This, combined with the inherently low-velocity round resulted in a truly silent pistol. The nature of the gun and ammunition led to it being wildly inaccurate outside of point-blank range. To add further confusion and throw possible suspicion away from the assassin, the barrel rifling was designed to affect the bullet in such a way that ballistics experts would not only conclude that the round was fired from an AK-47, but that the round was fired from several hundred metres away.

Successor

The S4M was succeeded by a less powerful, but otherwise fairly similar, MSP using the newer SP-3 ammunition in 7.62×39mm, which also used in the NRS knife.Maxim Popenker (2008)
Special purpose small arms ammunition of USSR and Russia
; updated version of an article first appeared in the March 2005 issue of ''The Cartridge Researcher'', the Journal of ECRA (the European Cartridge Research Association)

Users

References

External links