Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Our right to keep and bear arms has allowed the United States to establish one of the largest civilian firearm markets in the world. We can get just about anything, especially in the handgun realm. Sadly, we can’t get everything, and today, I want to pour over five foreign-made handguns I can’t get in the United States but want.
Table of contents
Taurus PT57C
Did you know how Taurus makes a quasi-Beretta 92-style firearm? Did you know they make a variant that chambers the .32 ACP that’s compact? Yep, they make it for foreign markets, and sadly, it’s not available to you and me. The one true caliber, .32 ACP, isn’t popular here. I love the .32 ACP and would love a modern DA/SA pistol with a double-stack magazine for concealed carry.
Yes, I would and occasionally carry the .32 ACP daily. The PT57C offers a 4-inch barrel, which offers excellent velocity, so you can throw some 71-grain pills very quickly. It will give you some decent expansion with JHPs. What exactly would it do over the standard .380 or 9mm pistol? (Besides, satisfy my.32 ACP needs.)
Low recoil. Very low recoil, almost .22LR levels, with the reliability of a centerfire cartridge. It’s a niche that would provide recoil-sensitive shooters with a capable but lightweight and compact weapon with almost no recoil. I could see a real possibility of the gun being imported, but it seems unlikely since .32 ACP isn’t a popular cartridge. Still, it’s a practical and affordable series of foreign-made handguns.
Norinco NP762
In 1994 U.S. Customs Agent Hipple, along with former Green Bay Packer lineman Agrent Braggs, uncovered a scheme by an arms dealer working with PolyTechnologies and Norinco to sell guns to criminals and launched Operation Dragonfire. Operation Dragonfire concluded with a ban on most Chinese-produced firearms, including the Norinco NP762.
The Norinco NP762 brings us the awesome 7.62 Tokarev cartridge in a SIG P226 clone. The gun comes with two 17-round magazines and offers you a modern DA/SA metal frame pistol with an accessory rail for lights and rails. It’s one of the few modern 7.62 Tokarev foreign-made handguns on the market.
I’m a fan of the SIG P226 and have always enjoyed shooting the hot 7.62 TOK. In a modern handgun, it’s likely a fun, flat-shooting pistol. With the right ammo, it’s a capable cartridge that hits hard and certainly reaches enough velocity to expand. Sadly, unless someone in Canada drops them in a river and it floats to Florida, I won’t see one.
MP-412: My Foreign Gun Crush
I fully blame Battlefield 4 for giving me this insane desire for the MP-412 REX. The Russians are behind this gun, and REX stands for Revolver for Export. Izhevsk Mechanical Plant produced the gun to sell overseas, but its market got cut quickly when Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin signed a voluntary ban on Russian imports to the American market. That seemingly killed the design; I don’t think many of these foreign-made handguns were ever made.
The MP-412 REX is a modern double-action revolver that chambers six rounds of .357 Magnum. Okay, nothing crazy there. However, the gun’s most notable feature is that it’s a top-break revolver that automatically ejects the cartridges when opened. The MP-412 would theoretically be much faster to reload than a swing-out cylinder.
The MP-412 would have been a slick import, although I would have been curious to know the strength of the top latch and how many full-powered .357 Magnum rounds it could take. The Russians don’t have a long history with domestic revolvers, which could be a weak point. I’d still shoot the piss out of .38 Special through one!
Creapeiron Elysien
The Elysien by Creapeiron is the only foreign-made handgun to have a prologue. Seriously, it’s a page on their website. It details what Elysien means and how the gun relates to the name. The Elysium sold me on its looks alone. It looks both elegant and insane at the same time. Kinda like Johnny Depp’s ex-wife.
If you just read the specs, it’s nothing crazy. It’s a full-sized DA-SA 9mm handgun with a metal frame and double-stacked magazine. It borrows a lot from the CZ-75, and it’s admittedly a Czech design so that’s not a surprise. Where we depart from the norm is everything else. The gun uses a cold-forged, triangular-shaped barrel that provides better lock-up, according to Creapeiron.
The gun uses many magnets, including screwless grip panels. Its slide is optics-ready, and you can mount a fixed optics mount slightly above it. It’s bizarre and alien-like, and I like it. I don’t love the 5,000 Euro price point.
Vigrand 007 – The Foreign James Bond
The Vigrand 007 has nothing to do with James Bond, but it could be his next pistol. The Vigrand 007 is another 9mm handgun with a double-stack magazine. It’s a DA/SA handgun that’s hammer-fired and seems to have some CZ-75-like design characteristics. It looks CZ-like, but under the hood things get radical.
The Vigrand 007 is a roller-delayed blowback pistol. Much like the MP5, it uses the roller-delayed system to its advantage. It allows for a fixed barrel design, which can help with accuracy overall. The slide remains very light, which helps reduce rearward recoil. It also sports a low-bore axis, but I’m not sure if it’s low enough to make a difference.
READ MORE: Beretta 92 Compact: A Classic Reborn
The Vigrand 007 appears to have options for metal and polymer frames and the polymer frame can be partially removed and replaced to swap colors and potentially add or remove rails. I want one hardcore, but at 3,500 dollars I might not be an early adopter of these foreign-made handguns.
Foreign Guns Don’t Always Reach America
American-made is awesome, but it seems like a lot of the more interesting and unique stuff comes from overseas. America is stuck on the striker-fired polymer frame pistol while our foreign gun enthusiasts are making some really crazy stuff. I will just keep lusting over these foreign-made handguns and hoping some brave importer will bring them to American shores.
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I’ll take one of each!
Pore not Pour
Followup on my above Beretta reference: You can also get threaded barrels for the Beretta 80 series, and could convert one to .32acp. As mentioned at the site, double stack magazines are around as well, though .32 ones might be harder to find. https://alleghenyarms.com/product/beretta-barrel-380acp/
You might want to look at Beretta 80 series for that compact .32acp which is very much an 84FS clone, not a 92 as stated. Classic just got in some 84bb’s with the hammer block safety. I’d like that over the hammer drop of the FS I carry as my backup work bag gun.