Background
Tokarev, Fedor was born in 1871.
Tokarev, Fedor was born in 1871.
Educated at a Cossack officers’ school, 1900.
Outside the former Soviet Union he is best known as the designer of the Tokarev TT-30 and TT-33 self-loading pistol and the Tokarev SVT-38 and SVT-40 self-loading rifle, both of which were produced in large numbers during the German-Soviet War. He also designed the prototype of the FT-1 / ФТ-1 panoramic camera (FT stands for: Fotoapparat Tokareva / Фотоаппарат Токарева). 1888 – Admitted to the Military Vocational School at Novocherkassk.
Age 17
1892 – Graduated as Cossack noncommissioned officer and sent to the 12th Don Cossack Regiment as an armorer-artificer.
Age 21
1896 – Returned to Novecherkassk as Master Armorer Instructor. Age 25. Applied for admittance to the Military Technical School.
1900 – Graduated as a Cossack commissioned officer, age 29, and returned to his old unit, the 12th Don Cossack Regiment as Master Gunsmith. 1910 – Submitted his version of a conversion of the bolt-action Model 1891 Mosin–Nagant rifle to semi-automatic fire, which merited official testing.
Age 39
1927 – Designed Tokarev Model 1927 submachine gun prototype.
Tokarev"s son Nikolai (1899–1972) also became a prominent firearms designer. He worked for several decades in Tula and designed several machine guns and anti-aircraft guns that were used by the Soviet Army in the 1930s–1940s.