Sometime back, I wrote an article detailing the historical and always cool Mk22 Mod 0 Hush Puppy pistol designed for Naval Special Warfare units. This little pistol had a unique feature that locked the slide to eliminate the noise of the slide slamming back and forth when fired suppressed. It’s an interesting and what I thought was a novel design. Turns out I was wrong; the Chinese had their own version of the Hush Puppy known as the Type 64 Silenced pistol.
The Type 64 Silenced pistol isn’t to be confused with the standard Type 64 pistol, or the Type 64 SMG, or the Type 64 tank, or Type 64 rifle, or Type 64 Anti-tank missile. Turns out Type 64 is a pretty broad term.
Much like the Hushpuppy, the Type 64 Silenced pistol was also used in Vietnam. It’s not unheard of for Russian and Chinese materials to show up in the hands of North Vietnamese soldiers. Our confirmation of a Type 64 Silenced pistol being in Vietnam comes from a DIA Intelligence report from 1868 that states:
One such weapon, probably of Chinese Communist manufacture, has a report about one-fourth as loud as that of an unsilenced .22-cal pistol firing long rifle ammunition and half as noisy as the snapping of a 7.62-mm RPD light machine gun bolt. The weapon features an integral silencer and uses a special 7.65-mm cartridge. A pushbutton selector on the slide permits manual or semiautomatic operation; maximum silencing, however, occurs during manual firing.
Breaking Down the Type 64 Silenced Pistol
The Type 64 Silenced Pistol is a standard blowback-operated handgun utilizing a rotating bolt with locking lugs. Those locking lugs allow the user to flip a toggle to lock the weapon’s slide in position. When done so, the weapon is a single-shot, manually operated firearm. Like the Hush Puppy, the manual action mode is the most silent and eliminates the clapping noise of the slide moving back and forth. When the toggle’s flipped again, it functions as a standard semiautomatic pistol.
Unlike the Hush Puppy, the user can manually operate the slide without flipping the toggle off. The toggle sits on the breech block and works like a cross bolt safety. Press it in one direction to lock the slide and in the other direction to operate in semi-auto mode.
Unlike the hush puppy, the Type 64 silenced pistol is an integrally suppressed weapon. This results in a much shorter, more concealable design. The Chinese went with a two-stage suppressor for the Type 64. The first stage is your traditional baffle system, and the second stage sits below the barrel.
The second chamber is split in half, and the top is an expansion chamber. The bottom half is a mesh baffle system in which gas feeds from a port close to the muzzle. This unique design, paired with the unique ammo, makes the weapon very quiet.
The Silenced pistol is a standard communist handgun design from the mid-60s. It has a manual thumb safety, a heel magazine release, a DA/SA action, and uses a 9-round box magazine.
The Type 64 Suppressed Pistol Ammo
There is no point in designing a special gun without special ammo, right? America did the American thing and designed 158 grain subsonic 9mm rounds. China decided to go smaller with a cartridge similar to the .32 ACP. The cartridge is 7.65x17mm, just like the .32 ACP but is a rimless cartridge. The standard 32 ACP has a semi-rim to it.
That being said, it’s not much different than the .32 ACP ballistically. The 74-grain bullet moves at about 740 feet per second. It’s not a man-stopping magnum round by any means, but it’s effective enough for what I assume the gun would be used for. This isn’t a gunfighting pistol, but something likely used for close-range assassinations.
Can I Get One?
Maybe. Believe it or not, there is at least one in the states, and it was brought here by the SIONICS founder, suppressor aficionado, soldier, spy, and a mercenary named Mitch WerBell III. He toured Vietnam with his suppressors selling them to the army. Legend has it that an assassin tried to take him out with a Type 64 Silenced Pistol and failed.
Mitch brought the gun home, and it remained in his collection until after his death. It went up for auction at Rock Island Auctions. It’s likely the only one in the United States available for transfer. In 2020 it sold for 46,000 dollars.
The Chinese Hush Puppy didn’t rip off the Mk 22 Mod 0, but parallel thinking seemingly occurred. It’s a unique design of a seemingly forgotten concept.
