These attempts failed to advance beyond early stages as Soviet engineers lacked experience with this type of weapon.

In the USSR these weapons were adopted; however even with German help Soviet industry still was not ready for mass production of some types, such as anti-aircraft autocannons.

In 1932 404 pieces were accepted (and in 1933 105 more followed, still from the 1932 batch), but then the production was stopped due to adoption of more powerful 45 mm anti-tank gun M1932 (19-K).

On 1 January 1936 RKKA possessed 506 guns of the type, of them 422 operational, 53 waiting for repair, 28 used for training, 3 unfit.

When RKKA received large numbers of more powerful 45 mm guns, many 1-Ks were apparently relegated to training facilities and depots.

It is known that the gun was present in some units, e.g. 8th Mechanized Corps and it is likely that pieces stored in army depots were also rushed into active service.

The drawbacks were a lack of suspension, weak fragmentation shell (because of small caliber) and poor manufacturing quality.

The situation was aggravated by low ammunition quality, which explains smaller penetration figures compared to the PaK 35/36.

As noted above, the 1-K could fire German shells, improving its anti-armor performance roughly to the level of early Soviet 45 mm guns, as those also suffered from problems with ammunition quality.

The APHE shell itself was of the 1890s Hotchkiss naval type consisting of a hard-nosed forged-steel projectile with a base-mounted inertial deceleration shock-delay fuse with a stable explosive filler, most likely Picric Acid.

German Rheinmetall-Borsig evaluation tests on a captured 1-K, during 1941, gave a maximum penetration of up to 42 mm of perpendicular rolled homogenous armour plate at 100 metres with APHE and up to 61 mm of perpendicular hardened carbon steel armour plate at 100 metres with APHE.