#Fedorov

Over recent weeks Kalashnikov Media, of Kalashnikov Concern’s media department, have been treating us to videos looking at some very interesting and historically significant firearms including Mikhail Kalashnikov’s automatic pistol prototype and the  PP-71 SMG.

The following is an article that was originally written in Russian by TFB contributor Maxim Popenker, and Andrey Ulanov, and translated to English by Peter Samsonov. With their permission, I have replicated the text here, and edited it, for the enrichment of you, our readers!

The idea of .366 TKM cartridge was accepted really well in the Russian shooting community. What makes it unique for them is that firearms chambered in this caliber have partially rifled barrels which qualify as a shotgun in Russia and don’t require 5 year wait period for the first-time gun owners to obtain a rifled firearm. That rifled portion (about 135mm or so) is considered a built-in rifled choke (a.k.a. Paradox choke). In other words, they can buy these sort of small caliber slug cartridges and guns right off the shelf and still have somewhat rifle grade accuracy and power at moderate ranges (100 to 300 meters). In the video below a camera travels down the .366 TKM barrel (starting from the muzzle). Note how riflings start to disappear at some point and the bore becomes completely smooth.

Before the famous Tokarev SVT-38 and -40 rifles of World War II, a Soviet engineer who would later become famous in the West for another of his designs developed a light weight select-fire infantry weapon in the standard full-power 7.62x54R caliber. That engineer was Simonov, and his AVS-36 was set in the mid-1930s to become the foundation of the future Soviet infantry rifle squad, supplanting the aging repeating bolt action Mosin M1891 rifle. A member over at Guns.ru posted pictures of his demilled AVS-36 to the forum, a few of which are presented below:

The Fedorov Avtomat is an important milestone in the history of modern small arms. With the Federov, for the first time, an individual soldier could possess automatic firepower in a package small enough to move and fight with, while at the same time not significantly compromising the range or effectiveness of the bolt-action rifle. However, the weapon fell out of favor during the Soviet era, and was never produced in large numbers. By way of WeaponsMan.com (H/T to Hognose), we are brought yet more details of the Fedorov’s story, written by Alexander Vershinin for Russia Beyond The Headlines:

If you’ve spent any time at all in military history circles, you will have probably witnessed or been a participant in an argument about what, exactly, an “assault rifle” is, or whether a particular weapon qualifies as one. I, personally, have enjoyed this totally unproductive and thoroughly wasteful argument in one form or another more times than I could possibly keep track of. Although, maybe that says more about my memory than anything else…

The title of this article is an Anglicized version of the title of the article linked below.

What rifle influenced Kalashnikov’s famous carbine design more, the Garand M1, or the Haenel MP 43? This question was broached by blogger Jeff of TwistRate in a video posted to the Full30 gun video hosting website recently. Readers can follow the link to watch that video before reading my discussion of this question below.