Chinese Type 64 Silenced Pistol
Russ Chastain 08.17.20
(Image: Screenshot from video)
Developed for the Chinese military in 1964, this pistol was built specifically to be silenced (suppressed), which isn’t something you see every day. Most often, a suppressor is added to an existing gun design. And we get to see it up close, thanks to Ian of Forgotten Weapons.
It holds 9 rounds in a single-stack magazine and uses ammo that is essentially 32 ACP with a slightly smaller rim.
There’s a thumb-operated safety/slide lock on the left side, and it’s single action/double action.
An interesting crossbolt control in the slide acts as a sorta-kinda lock, although you can manually “rack” the slide regardless of the crossbolt’s position, when it’s pushed to the right the slide will not operate when a round is fired. So handy for not leaving brass at the scene of an assassination.
The mechanical portion of that feature is impressive, and you’ll see it after he shows us the suppressor, which is also a pretty great design.
The suppressor makes up most of the front portion of the gun. The barrel itself is pretty stumpy, as you can see.
I really love the holster, which is essentially a pocket/belt clip that straps onto the gun. It leaves the gun fully functional, so you can simply grab the entire thing off your hip and sling out a nice quiet .32 caliber slug while the other guy is still trying to unsnap his holster flap.
What’s not to love? The weight. It’s heavy at about 4 pounds. That’s why it was replaced by the Chinese Type 67 soon thereafter, which only weighs about 2 1/3 pounds.
Enjoy the video.