Seriously. I have a new favorite show to follow. It is a Russian show called the “Proving Ground” (english name obviously), and is subtitled. In the episode I was directed to, they review a couple of weapons. The KORD machine gun and the ASVK 6S8 sniper rifle.

They start out at the Degtyarev plant (which is east of Moscow). The plant produces such things as revolvers, machine guns, aircraft guns, anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank guns and rocket systems. And because, you know, it’s Russia, they also make motorcycles (i.e. Voskhod), mopeds, micro-tractors, sewing machines and accumulator batteries.

Both of the weapons shoot a 12.7mm round (12.7x108mm).

There are hilarious quotes throughout, my favorite being “This is how a two-brick wall of a regular residential house will look after a KORD machine gun will operate against it”.

And they want to use these to arm robots. You just can’t make this stuff up.

Some points of note:

• You can fix large guns with by hammering with a sledge.
• 2:45 watch out for Justin Beiber.
• 6:45 is a good discussion of how rifling is cut in standard barrels. For these they use “radial reduction” which can cut 1 meter in 15 minutes. The advantage is smoother and more even rifling.
• KORD has 7 main components and can be assembled with a hook and hammer.
• 19:15 for the obligatory blonde Russian model firing the sniper rifle. They claim they used her in the demo because if a delicate girl can handle it then “any real soldier” can. Uh-huh. She also fires the KORD around 23:00 whose design makes her “[feel] surprise and delight” as the recoil pushes her back a meter.
• Quick, but decent coverage of the optics they create for the ASVK.
• Good demo at the end showing the 6S8 standard round penetrating a train rail at 100 meters which they contrasted against a 7.62×54 round (which did not penetrate).

Shout out to Jim for finding this gem. (see what I did there?)

I can only hope that TFB will send me a 6S8 Sniper system and/or KORD for demo (I’m not picky, either will do)…