Piotr Wilniewczyc

Infobox Person
name = Piotr Wilniewczyc


caption = Inventor of ViS
quotation =
birth_date = birth date|1887|1|31|mf=y
birth_place = near Irkutsk, Russia
dead=dead
death_date = death date and age|1960|12|23|1887|1|31|mf=y
death_place = Warsaw, Poland

Piotr Wilniewczyc (1887-1960) was a Polish engineer and arms constructor. Among his most successful constructions were the Vis-35 pistol , commonly known as the radom for the arsenal in which it was made, and the Mors submachine gun.

Biography

Piotr Wilniewczyc was born on January 31, 1887 near Irkutsk in Siberia. He grew up in Vilna. In 1905 he moved to Saint Petersburg and studied there at the University of St. Petersburg (mathematical and physical institute). Later he continued his studies at the Department of chemistry of the Lwów University of Technology. In 1915 Wilniewczyc also finished the Artillery School in St. Petersburg.

In 1921 he was offered a job at the "Boryszew Gunpowder Factory" near Sochaczew. From 1924 until 1928 Wilniewczyc was also giving lectures at the Artillery Officers' School in Toruń. In 1928 he started to work as a director of ballistic department of the State Arms Factories company ("Państwowe Wytwórnie Uzbrojenia") and he held this post until the war broke out.

His most successful project was the Vis-35 pistol, being a standard Polish pre-war military pistol. He also designed Mors submachine gun, which has not entered production due to war outbreak. After the war, he directed a team designing the Rak wz. 63 submachine gun, finished after his death.

During the war Wilniewczyc was working for the Home Army in Warsaw, developing a silencer for the Sten gun. After the Warsaw Uprising he moved to Łódź and soon afterwards he started giving lectures at the Łódź University of Technology. Since 1948 he was working also for the reopened Warsaw University of Technology. Died on December 23, 1960. He is buried at the Powązki cemetery in Warsaw.