North Vietnamese K-50M Submachine Gun

The K-50M was a North Vietnamese modification of the PPSh-41 submachine gun to mimic the handling of a French MAT-49. Made from Chinese Type 50 guns (which were direct copies of the original PPSh-41) in small shops, the K-50M used a wholly new lower receiver assembly. This new lower fitted an AK pistol grip and a collapsing wire stock patterned after the MAT-49. The barrel was kept intact, but the barrel shroud was shortened, the muzzle brake/compensator removed, and a new AK (or SKS) style of front sight block added. Mechanically, the guns remained unchanged, firing from an open bolt in 7.62x25mm Tokarev caliber, with the semiauto selector switch of the original Shpagin. The K-50M is compatible with PPSh-41 drums (allowing for fitting issues), but was issued with 35-round box magazines.

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740

[nindger]

It looks like an AK and a PPS had a child and abandoned it in the wilderness where it was raised by a tribe of outcast MP40s.

[EbonTheLord]

An interesting SMG I first learned about from Rising Storm 2: Vietnam.

[kaitokatsuki]

Vietnamese viewer here. We call it the K-50M in Vietnam as well. In museums and historical catalogues/documentaries, it's often referred to as "tiểu liên K-50M", meaning "K-50M submachine gun".


It goes without the hyphen sometimes, I mean, it's kinda inconsistent.

[caprise-music]

*EVERY TIME* I watch some war documentary on tv and I see a weapon I’m not familiar with, the next day conveniently pops up a video of it on Forgotten Weapons!





It’s uncanny. Thank you! 🙏🏻

[hathaway.]

Dunno if anyone knows this but Vietnam has a *double stack* variant of the Tokarev pistol called the K14-VN, it also has better sights and longer barrel for more accuracy

[swampk]

Welds on the barrel look so crude because the welder had tears in his eyes

[DansilSchroeder]

Just about broke my heart when I saw it was deactivated. That's murder...

[cabbage]

K-50M is the correct vietnamese designation. K is just an abbreviation for "Kiểu" in Vietnamese, which means "type" or "model". A lot of Chinese weapons when given to Vietnam were assigned a "K" designation. For example, the Type 54 pistol, the Chinese version of the TT-33, is called K-54 in Vietnam

[ComradeAesthetic]

The "K" in "K-50M" is an acronym. In Vietnamese, it means "Kiểu" and in English, it means Type.
Sorry for bad English hope you guy understand
Edit 1: OMG Thank for the like, heart and kind words guy !!!

[olddirtbiker]

For $200 and the gunsmithing cost of reactivating this could be a good investment if the auction price was not too much.

[kennethobrien]

Only seen one of these. It had been de-activated by several 5.56 hits to receiver Aug. 1969. Never forget how handy it looked.

[joet.s.]

Me: "oh man, I hope there's firing footage!"
*hears the word "decommissioned"
Me: well damn

[valstutz]

A rather iconic North Vietnamese weapon, glad to see Ian finally got his hands on one!

[justin]

nobody:
Ian: Somehow the French had influenced this.

[rcbif]

Dayton Airforce Museum has one on display.
Everyone's looking at the airplanes, and I'm edging around a glass display case trying to get the best picture of an SMG, lol

[lethanhlam]

During 1960, the North Vietnamese Army decided that they must design a new weapons to provide for a guerrillas soldier in the south, this weapons must be have a strong firepower and simple to be fit for guerrilla tactics. This mission was assigned to Z1 factory. They used the stock and a rear sight of a MAT-49 SMG to replace the original stock and rear sight of an original PPSh-41, remove the barrel casing and used the 35 round- box megazine, so that how the K-50M SMG was create

[anikazkhrv]

So to make things clear because I had a chance to use a K-50M:

1. The base of the gun is inconsistent. Some of them is the real papasha after WWII and most are from the Chinese clone. You held a Chinese-baseyd. There are small modifications just to make the mag holder works as the original papasha. because the original Type-50 can use its drum magazines only, while the papasha can use both.

2. Its fire rate is only 700rpm with soft rubber buffer, you can use the PPSh buffer to restore the badass 1250rpm fire rate, but it will make the gun overheat quickly. That means fire rate will depends on the recoil buffer materials. I used to add some plastics to increase the fire rate to 900rpm and this is suitable for me, but for the NVA and VC at that time, 700rpm is the best for them because of more open fields and they have to sync with the AK training too (AK, not AK-47)

3. This thing, alongside with PPSh-41 and Type-50, can be modernized to use in law enforcements if they adjust the case ejecting position, but they just stopped the improvising project when they got AKMS aids from Soviet Union. most of all modern SMGs can't be compared with the value of the papasha bought to you: big mag, reliable, accurate, adjustable fire rate, and insane firepower just behind the P90 and MP7.

[Tanuki]

Thanks Ian for covering this unicorn. Some interesting information I found from Vietnamese materials on the K-50M: it was created in an attempt to build "ghost guns" not directly traceable back to North Vietnam. These guns were hence mostly made in the early 60s (~10, 000 of them, made by the Z1 arms factory). After the US got directly involved in combat, there's no reason to hide anymore, and North Vietnam sent Soviet/Chinese weapons down south in large number.

[bjorntrollgesicht]

I can see that the fire control group is original, so is the barrel shroud, etc. They have essentially removed the wooden buttstock and replaced it with bent steel sheet welded directly to the remaining parts and slapped what appears to be a surplus MAT 49 stock. Simple, efficient. glorious.

[forrestlindsey]

I can assure you that the K50 fired very fast - it felt like 1, 000 RPM - and it would eject the empties straight forward. We discovered this when we fired ours into the sand and saw an extra row of holes about 4 inches above the bullet impacts. We captured ours when its former owner tried to fire it at us but the round in the chamber failed to go off. I still have that round with its dented primer. Unfortunate for him, but great for us.