I am thinking about buying one of these pistols. I know they are surplus and I just want something else to bring to the range while my Ruger is cooling down. I was wondering what the good and most important the bad is on them. I know there are several makes from Russian,Bulgarian,Chinese and German. Also what would be a better caliber 9x18 or .380. Thanx for any help or input.

Good? They work every time.
Bad? they get dissed by ignorant people. That's actually good, in a way, because the price stays down.
Lots of commercial Maks out of Russia, Germans are getting hard to find and are the most colectable. Never that many Chinese imported. Bulgarian Maks are good, solid handguns.
They gun is designed around the 9x18, I can't see any advantage to having one in .380, except to be able to buy ammo at Wallyworld or the like. 9x18 isn't going to be everywhere, but by buying over the 'net ammunition is not a problem. I'm partial to S&B 9x18, not the cheapest, but boxer primed and reloadable. OTH, Wolf, Barnaul, and some of the Chinese still floating around are steel caseed, berdan primed ammo that you can blast away with and not worry about finding and retrieving your brass.

Charly has given good info. Also, try makarov.com. It has tons of info. I was looking at one in a gun show in AZ and was interested to see that several of the dealers carried them as their side arm at the show.

Spud

ammo availability may be hard to come by in the 9mm