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At the start of Covid, instead of watching Netflix, I decided to build stuff. One item on the list was to buy a 1989 Soviet TOZ 35M 22lr "free pistol" and to hand carve the grips to my right hand. I spent over 40 hrs carving these grips from a solid cube of wood. Very humbling and Informative experience. Its literally a wooden glove, I can leave all my hand muscles limp and the gun will still stay in my hand. This helps to focus on the 15 gram trigger pull. This gun is 100% made to shoot one handed, and feels wrong to use 2 hands with. A very unique feature I noticed was a "thru-grip" hole for cleaning the barrel. The gun has a Martini-Henry action, and can be cleaned through the grip with the action open. Just a very odd, cool, and unique feature.
I have no way of proving this, but I was told by my LGS that these came in from Russia (about 1.5 years ago) from a disgruntled wife of a Russian Olympic Free Pistol coach who sold off a few hundred of these pistols to U.S. importers after her husband was shot and killed by one of his athletes/students during practice. A quick search confirms that a Russian Olympic free pistol student did indeed shoot their coach on purpose within this time frame.
I have no way of proving this, but I was told by my LGS that these came in from Russia (about 1.5 years ago) from a disgruntled wife of a Russian Olympic Free Pistol coach who sold off a few hundred of these pistols to U.S. importers after her husband was shot and killed by one of his athletes/students during practice. A quick search confirms that a Russian Olympic free pistol student did indeed shoot their coach on purpose within this time frame.
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