The Type 64 was the first in a series of suppressed Chinese submachineguns. Introduced in 1964 (as you might have guessed), it used a simple blowback action chambered for 7.62x25mm cartridges. It was designed to use a heavy, subsonic variety of the round, but could fire standard ammunition if necessary.
Many parts of the Type 64 bear a strong resemblance to Chinese AK parts, including the magazine catch, stock, pistol grip, and safety lever.
One interesting aspect to the Type 64 is its reportedly very high cyclic rate or around 1200 rpm. This is due to a combination of an unlocked blowback action, relatively energetic cartridge, and added backpressure from the suppressor.
Twelve hundred rounds per minute? That’s like an MG42!
1200……It’s officially said that the rate is 1000 RPM.Maybe that’s still high…
High rate of fire is most likely caused by gas leakage to suppressor, so less gas acts on the bolt via the fired cartridge, thus it could not move the bolt sufficiently back enough to establish some “normal” rate of fire.
Type 64 submachine gun is one of the first domestically designed Chinese submachine guns. It was designed as a special purpose weapon for clandestine operations, and therefore is fitted with integral silencer (sound moderator) of significant size. Standard ammunition for Type 64 SMG is 7.62mm type 64 cartridge, which is based on 7.62x25mm Type 51 (same as Soviet 7.62x25mm TT) but is loaded with heavy, pointed bullet with subsonic velocity. Standard 7.62×25 TT ammunition also can be fired from Type 64 SMG but it will cause excessive wear to gun and its silencer. One interesting property of the Type 64 submachine gun is its extremely high cyclic rate of fire, about two times higher than the commonly accepted norm (about 400 to 600 rounds per minute). Because of such high rate of fire, this weapon was probably hard to control in full automatic mode.
And like the MAC’s, basically a one shot-assassins weapon.
(“What do you mean, out of ammo…already?”)
Duh.