GSh-18

The GSh-18 (Cyrillic: ГШ-18) is a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol developed in 1990s at the KBP Instrument Design Bureau in Tula. The pistol's name is derived from its designers — Gryazev and Shipunov, and the number 18 denotes the magazine capacity.

Design details
The GSh-18 is a short recoil-operated, locked breech pistol. The weapon has an unusual cam-rotated barrel with 10 locking lugs. The GSh-18 is striker-fired and features a pre-set trigger that pre-cocks the pistol when the slide recoils after firing a shot. The striker firing pin is then fully cocked by pulling the trigger back to the rear.

GSh-18 contains only 17 parts (by comparison, the Glock 17 contains 34 parts).

Ammo
GSh-18 is designed to fire standard 9x19mm Parabellum ammo.

The GSh-18 is also designed to fire the new Russian 9x19mm 7N21 (Cyrillic: 7Н21) and 7N31 (Cyrillic: 7Н31) +P+ armor-piercing rounds. With the armor-piercing bullets 7N31 the gun punches 8 mm of steel (15–20 meters of distance).

Variants

 * GSh-18 (GRAU index 6P54)
 * GSh-18 with Picatinny rail - announced in 2012
 * GSh-18S «Sport» (ГШ-18С «Спорт») - in October 2010, KPB Design Bureau announced a possible marketing of a civilian version with modified trigger and firing pin and 10-round detachable box magazine to comply with Russian gun law. This information was confirmed at the 2011 IWA show where a sample gun was displayed.
 * GSh-18 «Sport 2» (ГШ-18 «Спорт 2») a civilian version with modified trigger and 18-round detachable box magazine
 * GSh-18T (ГШ-18Т) - Non-lethal pistol with the ability to fire ammunition with .45 rubber bullets. It was announced in October 2010.

Users

 * 🇷🇺 Russia - in 2003 it was adopted as a standard sidearm for all branches of Armed Forces of the Russian Federation; in 2000 pistols were used in Ministry of Justice; since 2001 GSh-18 used as service pistol in Ministry of Internal Affairs and other law enforcement agencies.