There’s an old saying about how you can’t polish a turd. When I called Bill Laughridge of Cylinder & Slide I believe that’s what he thought I wanted him to do; polish a turd. “I’ll take a look at it, but I’m not making you any promises,” Bill said. What particular turd was I planning to send him?
About a year prior to the phone call to C&S, I had acquired a Hungarian FEG PA-63 handgun in a trade. The pistol was chambered in 9×18 Makarov and had a two-tone black and silver/gray finish. The steel slide was black and the aluminum frame was a silver/gray.
Being an import/surplus gun, the overall finish didn’t look new, but it wasn’t terrible. What could be described as terrible, however, was the double-action trigger pull on this DA/SA pistol. I didn’t have access to a trigger pull gauge back then, but I knew it was really heavy and gritty.
The Plan
I explained to Bill that my good friend, Robbie Barrkman of Robar Customs was already on board for the refinishing work, but I was hoping to have the trigger/action improved before the gun was re-finished. Again, Bill said that he was willing to take a look. However, he reserved the right to refuse service if it was “too bad inside.”
In addition to the trigger/action job, we agreed that I’d ship a new set of sights for installation, the factory sights being Spartan at best. And so, my little trade gun began its journey from Biloxi to Fremont, Nebraska and then on to Phoenix before it came back to me.
Shortly after the pistol arrived at the C&S shop, I got a phone call from Laughridge. “Well, the double-action pull on that thing is twenty-four pounds and the single-action is five. But, I looked inside and I think I can work with it.”
That was a relief. A couple of weeks later I had an email confirming that the PA-63 was on its way from Nebraska to Robar in Arizona.
Upon arrival at Robar, I got a call from Robbie. “What would you like me to do with this gun?” To which I replied, “I trust you. Just make it look good for color photos.” Robbie assured me that he could do just that.
In the meantime, I had purchased a new set of grips to replace the original black plastic versions that had a thumb-shelf on the left side. I set the grips aside and moved on with other projects. A few weeks later, I got an email informing me that the PA-63 project pistol was finished and on its way back to me.
Yes, I was excited. Robbie hadn’t taken pictures, so I didn’t yet know what to expect. This was back before everyone had a camera on their phones. When the package arrived, I tore into it like a kid sitting under a Christmas tree.
When I asked Robbie to make it “look good for color photos” he took that to heart. The two-tone finish had been flipped. Now there was a duct-tape gray NP3 finish on the slide and the frame was treated with a black Roguard finish. There were also two magazines in the box.
The trigger, hammer and magazine release button were all gilded in the Robar shop with their MIL-DTL-45204 gold plating. Also, after the NP3 was applied to the slide, they put the red “fire” dot under the safety/decocking lever. The old plastic grips definitely looked wrong, but they were easy to remove and were replaced by the slim gray versions I had purchased online. Now the gun was ready for its closeup, Mr. Demille.
FEG PA-63
For those unfamiliar, the FEG PA-63 pistol was made in Hungary and was an unapologetic clone of the classic Walther PP/PPK designs. The FEGs have been chambered in 9x18mm Makarov, .32 ACP and .380 ACP. As mentioned, the pistol has a traditional style DA/SA trigger, with a single slide-mounted de-cocking/safety lever.
The PA-63 is fed by 7-round magazines that have curved finger-rest baseplates. The magazine release button is located on the left side of the frame above the trigger guard, not at the base where most modern pistols put it. There’s no external slide lock on the pistol, but the slide does lock open on an empty magazine.
Interestingly, before the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union, the PA-63 was a standard-issue police pistol in Hungary. FEG ceased official production of these pistols in 1990 and Hungarian cops later moved to 9x19mm NATO pistols.
Also, one of the most notable customers for FEG arms was Saddam Hussein and Iraq. One of my buddies took a PA-63 pistol — identical to my gun in its original configuration — off of a captured Iraqi officer during Desert Storm. He managed to keep it as a war trophy, but that’s another story for another day.
After receiving the pistol back, the trigger/action feel is a 100 a percent improvement from what it had been only a few months prior. I called Bill and thanked him for the fantastic trigger job. He let me know that he got the DA pull down to a smooth 9.5 pounds and the SA pull was a consistent 4.5 pounds. The fact that Bill took a Hungarian communist surplus pistol and improved the gritty 24-pound trigger pull down to a buttery smooth 9.5 pound pull is a testament to that man’s mechanical genius and ability.
For those familiar with the Walter PP series, the PA-63 is constructed with the barrel affixed to the frame just like James Bond’s favorite blaster. The action is a straight blowback, not the delayed blowback or short recoil you’re used to from pistols with tilting barrels. That makes the recoil impulse extremely fast and more noticeable. The pistol is relatively lightweight being 21 ounces empty and the barrel length is 3.9 inches.
Disassembly is also identical to the Walter PP series…pull down on the front of the trigger guard, then draw the slide to the rear and lift it off of the frame. When you include the magazine, there are only four part groups total when the gun is taken down for cleaning. Reassembly is the reverse.
Speaking of Walther, on November 18, 2025, the German arms maker formally announced that they were ceasing production of the entire PP line including the PP, PPK, and PPK/S. Their modern guns will continue to be made by Walther Arms, Inc. in Ft. Smith, Arkansas.
Range Work
For my range work, I kept it simple. Full metal jacket training ammo came from Wolf Ammo with a 100 grain FMJ bullet and for defensive fodder I had the Hornady 95 grain jacketed hollow-point XTP bullet. The pistol ran reliably with both types of ammunition and both magazines fed the gun without issue.
As mentioned previously, the recoil impulse on the PA-63 is fast and a little bit snappy, but certainly not uncontrollable. If your primary form of shooting is with full-sized, striker-fired handguns, the recoil impulse will feel a bit strange to you.
I ran drills with two hands on the gun, right hand only and left hand only. No stoppage issues occurred. The gun had plenty of inherent accuracy. From a distance of 50 feet, I had 100 percent hits on a ½ sized steel silhouette.
Why did we call it the Poor Man’s James Bond pistol? Well, when the PA-63 was first being imported after the Cold War, they were priced at about one-quarter the cost of a new Walter PPK.
I’m reminded of what “Q”, Major Boothroyd, says of the Walther PPK in the movie Dr. No. He stated it is “7.65 mil” and has “a delivery like a brick through a plate glass window.” Describing the .32 ACP that way seems, shall we say, overly optimistic. If homeboy thought that the 7.65mm Browning had stopping power, he would have viewed the 9x18mm Makarov like a howitzer.
While the FEG PA-63 is now relegated to tables at gun shows or the odd auction here and there, there are a few online sellers that have them in stock. Yes, I’m well aware that the custom work done on the gun added up to more than the purchase price of a PPK would have been. Nonetheless, this “turd” polished up really nicely and turned out to be quite an interesting project gun.
Paul G. Markel is a combat decorated United States Marine veteran. He is also the founder of Student the Gun University and has been teaching Small Arms & Tactics to military personnel, police officers, and citizens for over three decades.