MANUFACTURER – Fabryka Broni Łucznik, Radom, Poland
STATUS – In production
SERVICE – Polish Border guards, Law Enforcement, and Special Forces, commercial sales to Iraqi National Police and an Indonesian Special Police Unit. Sales to Kurdistan and Philippines.
This is a further improved refinement of the original design that began with the PM-84 Glauberyt. The basic weapon is a very compact submachinegun for use by vehicle crews, reconnaissance, police, and SWAT units or anyone requiring a handy source of immediate volume of fire. The design is intended for use as a Close-Quarters Battle weapon and also fulfils the role of a Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) for support personnel.
Overall, the weapon has compact dimensions and is relatively light for its type. The PM-98 fires from a closed bolt for increased first-round hit capability and utilizes a straight-blowback action for simplicity of operation. The cocking lever for the bolt is on the left side of the receiver, where is extends upward enough to be used by either the right or left hand. The Safety/Selector switch is above and behind the central pistol grip, which allows it to be easily operated by the thumb of the right (firing) hand. Directly above the pistol grip, and ahead of the selector switch, is an unusual feature for a submachine gun, a last-round hold open device. When the last round is fired from a magazine, the hold-open device locks the bolt to the rear. With the bolt clear of the magazine well, a full magazine can be quickly inserted. Reloading the weapon is then a simple matter of pressing down the bolt catch. To aid in speeding up the reloading process, the magazine catch is a press-button located just behind the bottom of the trigger guard. To prevent an accidental pressing of the magazine catch, there is a curved guard or hedge just above it. With the change in the magazine catch on the PM-98, it cannot utilize the magazines from the earlier PM-89.
The action of the PM-98 incorporates a rate-reducing mechanism to help hold down the cyclic rate-of-fire due to the light bolt and short bolt travel on the weapon. The rate-of-fire reduction mechanism was removed for the PM98S (‘Szybkostrzelny’, or Fast Firing also ‘Specjalny’, or Special) version. That mechanism removal gives the PM98S a higher cyclic rate of 770 rounds per minute. The bolt is the telescoping type that surrounds the barrel with the actual bolt face in the center of mass of the bolt. This helps greatly in giving the weapon a compact overall length.
The rear peep sight is sized so that it can surround the front sight hood during sighting. That allows the sight hood to be used for a very fast acquisition of a target. The central front sight post is used for a more refined point of aim on a more precise target. To add electro-optical sights to the weapon, an alternate top cover is available that incorporates a MIL-STD-1913 (Picatinny) rail. The large horizontal handguard at the front of the weapon has a central threaded mounting area for the addition of a flashlight or laser aiming system. When neither illuminating aids are in place, the central mounting hole is filled with a threaded plug.
The weapon has a simple sliding stock with a rubber-covered butt plate. The rods of the stock have been considerably strengthened over those of the earlier PM-89 being almost double the diameter of the earlier rods and of a different design.
