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The Pistola Ametralladora PAM submachine gun, often shortened as the PAM submachine gun, is a series of two Argentine submachine guns (the PAM-1 and PAM-2) that were licensed variants of the American M3A1 'Grease Gun'. The main difference between the PAM series and the M3A1 was that the PAM was chambered in 9×19mm Parabellum instead of the M3's .45 ACP. The PAM-1 began production in 1955 and remained in service with the Argentine Armed Forces through the Falklands War and the 90s before being mostly removed from service and sold on the civilian market. The PAM-2 was an improved version of the PAM-1 that mostly addressed the inadequate safety originating from the original M3.

Development and production

PAM-1

In October 1950, Argentine Military in Rosario, Argentina, members of the Argentine Army (EA) received a demonstration of the M3's capabilities. By 1954, they would acquire a license to produce a copy of the M3A1 at the Fábrica Militar de Armas Portátiles (FMAP) factory in Rosario, however this license somehow didn't include instructions or production designs on how to produce the weapon. To get around this hurdle, they enlisted the help of an Italian gunsmith by the name of Eduardo Sustercic who had previously worked in a gun factory in Brescia, Italy. With his assistance they reverse-engineered available designs of the M3A1 to create production drawings for their own use. This first design would become known as the PAM-1.

PAM-2

In 1961, engineers at FMAP created a design to fix the inadequate safety also found in the M3A1. Both guns had no way to mechanically disable the trigger, and instead relied on a protrusion on the bottom of the dust cover to lock into place and prevent the gun's bolt from engaging. However, dropping the gun could potentially dent the dust cover and prevent the safety from engaging entirely, causing mutiple fatalities and injuries during the M3's service in the U.S. Army. The solution implemented on the new PAM variant (the PAM-2) was retro-fitting a lever in place behind the magazine that would prevent the dust cover from leaving the bolt unless the lever was depressed. Out of a sample of 34,636 units of the PAM-1, 16,544 would be converted to the PAM-2 by adding this lever. However, this upgrade came at a time when the production of the PAM was slowing down in favor of the newly adopted FMK-3 (and later the Belgian FN FAL), so only around 1100 new units of the PAM-2 would be produced.

During its period of production between 1955 and 1972, a total of 47,000 units of the PAM-1 and PAM-2 were produced.

References

1. ^ "Pistola Ametralladora P.A.M.: The Argentine Grease Gun – Small Arms Defense Journal". Small Arms Defense Journal. February 24, 2023. Retrieved 2024-12-26.
2. Olive, Ronaldo (2017-04-25). "P.A.M.1 and P.A.M.2: Argentina's". thefirearmblog.com. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
3. "Argentine PAM1 9 mm sub machine gun, 1982 | Online Collection | National Army Museum, London". collection.nam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
4. Mendez, Rolando (2011-05-13). "Armas Livianas de la Infantería en Malvinas" [Light Weapons of the Infantry in Malvinas]. Full Aventura (in Spanish). Archived from the original on August 10, 2011. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
5. Ezell, Edward Clinton (1993). Small arms of the World: a Basic Manual of Small Arms. Internet Archive. New York : Barnes & Noble. p. 199. ISBN 978-0-88029-601-4.
6. ^ Thompson, Leroy (2016). The M3 Grease Gun. Illustrated by Adam Hook and Alan Gilliland. Great Britain: Osprey Publishing. p. 75. ISBN 978 1 4728 1107 3.

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• Weapons of Argentina