A Russian YouTube gun channel called “practical shooting” has released a video showing an extremely unusual competition rifle. As you can see, it is not just a heavily modded rifle but has a totally weird layout.

This competition rifle is based on a Molot Vepr Super rifle shown in the above image. It is chambered in .223 Remington. You can barely notice a couple of remaining features from the base rifle like the dust cover shape.

The rifle was created by a Russian competition shooter earlier in 2017. At first, it looks to be a poor attempt to make a “wonder rifle” that will win every prize. Well, guess what, it did just that! According to the host of the YouTube channel, the shooter won every prize in the Senior category of the practical shooting championship of Russia.

Perhaps the most unusual design feature that immediately jumps out is the stock. It is an extremely short one making the trigger to be located almost under the shooters face. Such layout forces the shooter to have his primary hand in an unusually tight folded position. The pistol grip is angled forward to allow holding the gun in this stance. Note also the rather large cheek piece.

Another interesting part is the magazine release lever. Not only the original paddle is enlarged but there is also a secondary lever on the left side of the receiver. This lever allows releasing the magazine with a rear stroke of the shooter’s left hand. Note also the enormously enlarged magazine well.

Next feature this rifle has is the humongous muzzle brake with a horizontal wall protruding halfway into the chamber.

The side mounted red dot sight is placed as close to the primary scope as possible resulting in a 20-degree angle between the two.

Other features of this rifle are the quick detach bipod which can be detached literally in a fraction of a second by hitting the quick release lever. The rifle also has rubber cushioning inserts inside the forearm which are supposed to increase the accuracy.

The designer of this rifle has also made special competition magazine pouches. These are basically large clips holding the magazines horizontally.

According to the author of the video, these pouches/holders in conjunction with the left side magazine release lever make the magazine changes extremely fast for the AK platform.

The designer of this rifle plans to make an AR-15 utilizing some of the features of this concept. Whenever it is released, we’ll let our readers know about it.

You can find the mentioned video (in Russian) embedded below: