#Mayak

The 14.5x114mm cartridge proved to be very effective in an anti-materiel role in modern warfare. Ukrainian companies have designed multiple anti-materiel rifles chambered in this cartridge within the past several years. In fact, the 14.5mm Snipex T-Rex and Alligator rifles have been recently adopted by the Ukrainian army and their semi-auto sibling, Snipex Monomakh, is being tested by the government. Another Ukrainian company that is extensively exploring the capabilities of this cartridge is the Mayak Plant. Earlier, we took a look at Mayak Plant’s Horizon’s Lord anti-materiel rifle and their new 12.7x114HL cartridge created by necking down the 14.5×114 to .50 caliber. Today, we’ll talk about another Mayak Plant design, the PG-14.5 Night Predator (ПГ-14,5 Нічний Хижак), an anti-materiel rifle chambered in 14.5x114mm.

Ukrainian Mayak arms plant has designed an AK variant called KalashNash that has a quick barrel change feature. It is possible to change the caliber of this rifle to any popular intermediate cartridge (5.56×45, 7.62×39,  5.45×39, 6.5 Grendel, etc.) by swapping the populated barrels and using caliber-specific bolts and magazines. Presumably, the two slots cut at the front bottom portion of the chamber area (see the picture below) are where the barrels are retained in the front trunnion.

Ukrainian arms manufacturers released upgraded versions of AK-47 (AKM), SVD and PKM during Arms and Security 2017 exhibition held in Kiev, Ukraine in October. SVD and AK based rifles were introduced by Stiletto Systems and are called KSO-2008 and KO-016 respectively.