This weapon was a lightweight select-fire weapon with an 18-round double-row magazine. Russian small arms developers had been playing with the idea since at least the early 1920s, and by the late 1930s were ready to adopt a machine pistol in 7.62x25mm designed by an engineer named Voyevodin. The concept of a lightweight automatic firearm goes back to probably before the beginning of the 20th Century, but the successful implementation of the idea has so far eluded almost all who pursue it, with very few exceptions. It could be argued that the APS, though and obscure weapon in the West, is one of the very few truly successful machine pistol designs ever fielded by a military power.
The Stechkin APS received a mention in the Handgun Radio segment I collaborated on with Daniel Watters, and for good reason.
