Type 86P

China's standard-issue plastic-bodied fragmentation hand grenade — an ovoid steel-ball design that replaced the stick grenade and remains the mainstay of PLA close-combat infantry.

Overview

The Type 86P is a defensive fragmentation hand grenade of the People's Liberation Army, characterised by a lightweight plastic body that encases approximately 1,600 small steel balls. It is the standard issue frag for Chinese infantry, supplanting the legacy stick-grenade family, and is frequently encountered alongside the closely related Type 82-2. The weapon is widely illustrated in reference databases such as IMFDB, underscoring its status as a canonical PLA small arm.

Development

The Type 86P entered service in the mid-1980s, drawing on lessons from the Sino-Vietnamese border conflict. It replaced the older Type 59 stick-grenade lineage, offering a more compact and safer plastic body with a uniform fragmentation pattern, according to CAT-UXO. Production is attributed to Chinese state ordnance with an export path through NORINCO, though detailed procurement figures remain unpublished.

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