In the Tokarev-Tula (or TT) pistol family, one of the most “exotic” variants is certainly this Hungarian pistol destined for Egypt. The weapon is indeed somewhat different from the Soviet “cannons”: transition to the 9×19 mm caliber, revision of the grip by the use of grips clearly inspired by the P.38’s, addition of a safety… In a way, you would think that the TT-33s would meet German engineers here! And yet, it’s nothing quite really like this.

A circumstantial order from Egypt?

The excellent website on Hungarian weapons http://www.hungariae.com/ tells that this weapon was developed by Ambrus Balogh following an order for 30,000 weapons from Egypt in 1957 (we will come back to this in detail). According to the same website, the weapon was initially named “TT-9P”, probably for “Tokarev-Tula 9 mm Parabellum” and was finally marked “Tokagypt 58” for the weapons intended for Egypt. Only 13,250 weapons were reportedly delivered before the contract was interrupted. The cause of this interruption is not formally known to date. The cessation of payment by Egypt is put forward by most sources, without being documented to our knowledge. For our part, a small circumstantial analysis seems to provide some answers that we find interesting… and indeed more likely. To be taken as always, with a critical eye: these are suppositions based on historical facts and “commonly” accepted dates… but in no way duly sourced by official documents made public!

It is therefore necessary to return here to the handgun purchase contract prior to the purchase of the FÉG Tokaygpt 58. At an unspecified date in the first half of the 1950s (but in any case, before the Suez Canal crisis, some of these pistols dated from 1955 having been captured during the conflict), Egypt placed an order for 50,000 Italian Beretta 951 pistols of 9×19 mm caliber. This order is part of a continuity: the Egyptian desire to supply itself with modern weaponry. This desire goes even further: it ultimately aims to meet one’s own needs in this area. Thus, this order from Beretta is made after:

• The purchase of the production license for the Swedish Carl-Gustav m/45 submachine gunSubMachine Gun More of 9×19 mm caliber (from 1948 according to some sources, but much more likely in the mid-1950s) which would be called “Port Said”, then “Akaba” in a simplified version.
• The purchase of the license for the production of the “Hakim” semi-automatic rifles of 8×57 mm IS caliber (probably in 1954), derived from the AGM/42b, also of Swedish origin.

All of these licensed weapons (and others we’ll discuss below) will all be produced at Maadi’s Factory 54, which opened in 1954 on the outskirts of Cairo and closed in January 2024.

It should be noted that the combination of the “semi-automatic rifle (with a caliber of a power in line with the calibers used during the two world wars) / submachine gun” was resolutely “modern” in the 1950s: at that time, only the Soviets were equipped with a real “assault rifle” (therefore, in intermediate caliber) with the AK (also called AK-47 in the literature,  although this name is not official within the Soviet Army). In the West, it was not until 1964 that the first assault rifleAn assault rifle is a weapon defined by the use of an "inter... More (the M16) officially entered service… in the US Air Force! The semi-automatic infantry rifle (or even automatic, but unusable in this mode with 7.62×51 mm calibers) in “standard” caliber / submachine gunSubMachine Gun More will still have a bright future ahead of it. Some Western countries did not switch to assault rifles until late (such as reunified Germany in the early 1990s). It is interesting to note that Egypt, thanks to the Soviets, acquired the means of production (still at factory 54 in Maadi) of its local version of the AKM, the “MSIR”, in 1963.