Wheel guns are rarely quiet – but that’s not never, and not every suppressed revolver is always a Nagant. Read on to learn about the Stechkin OTS 38 revolver. Mad Duo

OTS 38 Revolver

Okay, stop me if you’ve read this one…

“So I flicked off the safety of my suppressed snub-nosed revolver and emptied five rounds of 7.62 into the target, each one so silent that you would have thought I was dry-firing the gun. I had a spare moon clip of 7.62 ready to go.”

Do you think that sounds stupid? Not just uninformed but a flat-out short bus-riding soliloquy delivered by some leftist stooge who gained all his knowledge out of context by hanging out at gun shows and gun shop counters without so much as ever seeing a real gun?  It’s what some metrosexual wine-sipping scrote rag would write when he had to get descriptive in his alt-left spy novel or independent movie script?

Well, not actually, no. Such a beast exists.

It’s called the OTs-38 Stechkin revolver, and it fires from the bottom cylinder like a Chiappa Rhino in order to provide a much lower bore axis. This allows the revolver to transfer the recoil into the center of the shooter’s hand, more in line with the muscles of the shooter’s forearm. It has an integral laser sight where the barrel would normally appear on a revolver. As we mentioned above, it has a safety that blocks the hammer when cocked in order to deliver a single action first shot.

Silenced Revolver

This unusual silenced revolver was designed by Igor Yakovlevich Stechkin, who was one of the most creative arms designers in history. He was essentially the Q of KGB and GRU, designing machine pistols that actually look like pistols as well as cigarette lighter derringers and, of course, the OTS-38 that bears his name.

Unfortunately, Igor Stechkin died a year before his revolver made it to the production line.

Stechkin’s OTs-38 was built by the TSKIB SOO (Central Bureau for Sporting and Hunting Arms, a division of the famous KBP organization, located in Tula, Russia) on request from the Russian FSB (Federal Security Service).

The other thing you might be thinking right now is, “That sounds cool, but you said snub-nosed. I’ve read enough of your shit over the years about silencers and revolvers to know it can only be done on a Nagant Revolver where the cylinder provides a seal with the barrel to prevent gas leakage around the cylinder. So this is a threaded-barrel Nagant-type revolver, right?”

Nope. In fact, there is no silencer to attach to the barrel. The sound and flash of each round are fully contained within the cartridge case. Inside the case is a piston. After firing, the piston seals the cartridge’s neck. This eliminates the noise, smoke and flash by acting as a barrier after the round is touched off. In essence, each round acts as its own silencer.

Note: don’t confuse the OTs-38 or a silencer-equipped Nagant (both wheelguns), with the Pistolet Beschumnyj: all three are Commie guns, but the latter is an integrally suppressed semi-auto.

This particular round was designed to be effective at up to 100′, and the sound signature is said to be at 110 dB with no muzzle flash. It is a rimless cartridge and fed via moon clips.

“Ah hah, but in the intro, you said it was 7.62. That’s a rifle round. Is this the only error you made?”

The bullet diameter is 7.62mm. The overall case length is 42mm. So it’s slightly longer than an empty piece of brass from your AK or SKS (39mm), but unlike those rounds, there is no bottleneck; it’s pretty much a rimless straight wall case. The other unique concept here is that the cylinder opens out on the right-hand side of the revolver as opposed to the left.

These images of a suppressed wheelgun are courtesy of Tamara Keel, View from the Porch.

The bullet diameter is 7.62mm. The overall case length is 42mm. So it’s slightly longer than an empty piece of brass from your AK or SKS (39mm), but unlike those rounds, there is no bottleneck; it’s pretty much a rimless straight wall case. The other unique concept here is that the cylinder opens out on the right-hand side of the revolver as opposed to the left.

That is about the only thing that makes no sense to us in the design of the OTs-38 Stechkin. It has been said that this has to do with the nature of the cartridge cases and alignment with the barrel that is mounted in line with the bottom chamber of the cylinder.

The principle behind the ammunition, however, was designed by the people who literally went to the moon, or at least helped out in some way. AAI (Aircraft Armaments, Inc.) Corporation located in Hunt Valley, Maryland, designed ammunition based on this principle almost fifty years earlier for use with the Quiet Special Purpose Revolvers (QSPR), a modified S&W Model 29 that fired suppressed in the tunnels of Vietnam.

Unfortunately, we will probably never see this revolver or its ammunition available in America. It’s not that common in Russia either, as less than 300 of these were made between 2002 and 2012.

It goes to show that even if a firearm description sounds weird, wrong, or flat out stupid, it may still be something real and valid.

The OTs-38 (ОЦ-38) revolver is one of most unusual revolvers ever made. It was developed by the TSKIB SOO (Central Bureau for Sporting and Hunting Arms, a division of famous KBP organization, located in Tula, Russia) on request from Russian FSB (Federal Security Service). Because of its specific nature, OTs-38 is a limited production item, and it is being used by various Special Purpose law enforcement units.

The OTs-38 is an integrally silenced weapon, which produces almost no sound and absolutely no flash upon firing. It is built as alternative to PSS silent pistol, and uses same special, integrally silenced ammunition known as SP-4. The OTs-38 is one of the last designs by the late I. Ya. Stechkin, a famous Russian gun designer.

OTs-38 resembles a traditional double-action revolver but it has many uncommon features. For the start, it has a more or less common exposed hammer with double-action trigger, but the action fitted with ambidextrous manual safety which allows for safe “cocked & locked” carry, for fast and accurate first shot. Next, the OTs-38 fires from the bottom chamber of the cylinder, as opposed to most revolvers that fire from upper chamber. Therefore, the barrel axis of OTs-38 is relatively low and muzzle jump is minimal.

The large cylindrical housing, located above the barrel of OTs-38, contains an integral laser pointer / sight. The cylinder fixture is also of most unusual nature. The cylinder axis is hinged to the frame at the front, so once cylinder release (at the left side of the frame) is pushed forward, the cylinder can be swung open to the right and forward (while on most modern revolvers cylinders are swung down and to the left). Upon the opening of the cylinder, an automatic ejector partially withdraws the clip with rounds (or empty cases) from cylinder.

This unusual cylinder mounting is essential to provide minimum play between the firing chamber in cylinder and barrel throat, since the SP-4 bullets are of pure cylinder shape, and thus cannot self-align itself with the barrel upon firing, unlike most conventional bullets that have conical or ogive nose shape.

Since SP-4 ammunition is rimless, it is loaded into OTs-38 using special flat clips that hold 5 rounds together. via Modern Firearms

Learn more:

• Check out the Historical Firearms Blog
• Join a discussion on Reddit.
• Check out the FW Reddit discussion.
• Check out “integrally silenced ammunition” on Reddit.
• See what Wikipedia has to say about it
• 3d Models “photorealistic” OTS-38 print files
• Check out our list of suppressor compatible holsters

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