German gunsmith Herbert Werle – creator of the famous “AK-47” Luger and the .45 ACP Luger Carbine – has created another strange hybrid firearm: A 7.62x25mm Tokarev M1 Carbine. Two videos of Werle testing the rifle are embedded below:

In the description of his first video, Werle explains that because the 7.62x25mm round is so much less powerful than .30 Carbine, it is very difficult to get an M1 Carbine to run properly with it. According to Werle “The only way to get the carbine work is to shorten the way of the operating rod to unlock the bolt,” although whether by this he means that the cam track must be shortened, or the op rod and distance between the breech and the gas block itself, is unclear.

For magazines, Werle is using a hybrid of M1 Carbine and .357 Magnum caliber Desert Eagle magazines, I assume modified in some way to accommodate the shorter and thinner 7.62x25mm round. The use of .357 cal Desert Eagle magazines does suggest that caliber might be a better conversion than the Soviet round, but perhaps that was Werle’s point: To see if he could. Or maybe, the idea is that this conversion creates a handy carbine that can be cheaply fed with readily available ammunition, in areas outside the US where .30 Carbine isn’t plentiful.