According to MilMag, 20,000 units of PR-15, or Vis 100, pistols in 9mm caliber manufactured by Radom will be supplied to the Polish army. Agreement concerning the acquisition of this weapon has been signed on 4th December, while deliveries are planned to begin as of 2019 - announced Mariusz Błaszczak, the head of the Polish Ministry of Defence, during a conference organized on 5th December at the 1st Airlift Base in Warsaw.
Radom PR-15 Ragun, or Vis 100 pistol (Picture source: MilMag)
According to the MoD, thanks to a new contract it is going to be possible to gradually unify the personal firearms the soldiers use, along with simultaneous withdrawal of the obsolete 9 mm Russian-made Makarov pistols. The VIS 100 designation makes a reference to a Polish pre-war heritage – said Defense Minister Błaszczak. Deliveries of the weapon are to start late in 2019 and end in 2022. Only the commanding officers and selected soldiers would be issued the new handgun.
The name PR-15 is derived from the acronymization of pistolet, meaning pistol in Polish, and Radom, which is the name of the company. The number 15 signifies the initial projected year of release of the pistol. Ragun is a portmanteau of Radom and gun. IS 100’s name refers to the wz. 35 Vis pistol that was manufactured in Radom between 1936 and 1939. The number “100” refers to introduction of the weapon on the Centenary of the Polish independence. The pistol is a result of PR-Ragun development work started back in 2013. It constitutes an element of the Tytan combat ensemble.
The gun was initially conceived as a replacement for the FB P-64, FB P-83 Wanad and Wist-94 in the Polish military. At first, there were plans to modernize the MAG-98 with the help of Works 11, but this idea was soon dropped. Work on the development began in 2009. The design was to be in accordance with the requirements of the Polish military, which were outlined in a tactical-technical document published in 2014. The projects head designer was Piotr Dygas, who was supported by an engineering team which included Paweł Madej and Marian Gryszkiewicz. Both of whom were related to the development of the MAG-95/98 pistol.
Despite external similarities to the MAG-98, the PR-15 was actually designed from scratch because FB Radom did not have the technical documentation of the pistol, which was owned by a different company that was bought by Works 11. However, the initial prototypes did feature some components from the MAG-98. There were twelve pre-production prototypes manufactured for various trials, including military certification tests. These were also presented to journalist in 2014, which later created some confusion over the origin of this gun design. In reality, the designs are largely incompatible, including their magazines. Preliminary and qualification tests began in 2016. Development of the pistol ended in 2017 and it passed military qualification tests at the end of the year.
