Which is the better made Makarov? Anyone have any input on these two? Thank you!

Cut and paste from www.makarov.com


How is Izmech different from Baikal?
IMEZ stands for Izhevskii Mechanicheskii Zavod or Izhevsk Mechanical Factory located in the city of Izhevsk near the Ural Mountains. They produce the Makarov, PSM, various shotguns, airguns, artificial pacemakers for the heart, oil drilling equipment. It is a goverment, state owned enterprise, but has the right to close its own business contracts and deals without govermental interferance.


Baikal is a foreign trade organization this is similar to North China Industries (NORINCO). This was a govermental organization that was used to market Soviet goods abroad. These days Baikal is hardly active in any trade with the US, largely because of the Bill Clinton imposed "voluntary trade restrictions." IMEZ used the grips with Baikal on it because...well, it was all they had.... Baikal also traded autos, trucks, various other consumer goods. Not only guns and ammo.

Thank you Steve!

So is there a difference in quality that you know of?

Early examples of the imports were marked Imez , imported by B West or Big Bear Arms, Later examples started showing the name Baikal , as imported by KBI.
They were all made by Izhevsk, for some reason Baikal just started making their name more prominent as time went along. Remember Baikal is a russian export group and didn't actually manufacture anything.
I think overall the quality remained high, but it is clear that somewhere along the line that the fit and finish started to go down hill.
Early examples that I have seen had the same deep blue on slide and frame and fine grit finish as on the Russian PM. Later examples have a thin blue on the slide and a semi rough flat black finish on the frame.