#Ussr

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about the rimfire firearm world and its various types of guns, gear, ammunition, and history. Last week we talked about the Volquartsen Summit straight-pull rifle. This nifty yet expensive rifle is “near perfect” when described by those who own it but I think what holds a lot of us back from purchasing one is just the sheer upfront cost of one. The Volquartsen Summit is already $600 or more for just a completed receiver. However, I’ve seen people spend way more money on far less refined products within this industry so don’t let me influence your purchasing habits, I’d probably have one too if I had the money! This week, we’re diving back into a bit of both history and affordably priced firearms – the Romanian M69 full-sized 22LR military trainer rifle. Military trainer rifles chambered in 22LR are nothing new but I’ve often heard examples of some of these fairly old and fairly simple rifles outperforming a lot of modern dedicated 22LR designs. While I was out in Finland, I got to talking with my buddy Calvin who runs the YouTube Channel Firepower United. Some of you who’ve been here for a while will remember him from his collaborations with TFBTV’s Alex C in the early days. Calvin and I got to talking about gun collections and it turns out he has a litany of 22LR military trainers and this week he’s graciously allowed me to use one of his as an example for this edition of The Rimfire Report. Be sure to check out his YouTube channel and Instagram if you like humourous takes on some of gun culture’s biggest jokes and tropes.

Hello and welcome to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all bout the rimfire firearm world and its many facts, curiosities, firearms, and of course, its rich history! 22LR is what I would consider a global cartridge. As opposed to some cartridges that have only seen widespread adoption in specific regions of the world, 22LR is almost universally used in every country regardless of its specific firearms culture. One such firearm that is often forgotten by most of the world that is chambered in 22LR is one that actually has deep roots in the target and competition shooting scene – the MCM-K “Margo” 22LR pistol designed by Mikhail Margolin in the years following WWII. What’s interesting about the Margo pistol and Mr. Margolin is that despite their relative obscurity within the broader firearms world, both the Margolin MCM and its designer helped inspire future generations of competitive pistol shooters across the world. Today we’ll be taking a look at both the Margolin MCM and Mikhail Margolin to get a closer look at their tale.

It’s 1968, the Cold War has gone hot and you’re a British soldier somewhere in northwest Germany. The 3rd Shock Army is coming straight at you and you’re trying to decide if the Soviet motor rifle regiment infantry attacking your defensive position is bringing up a DShK or an SGM. You reach for your trusty copy of Recognition Handbook Foreign Weapons and Equipment (USSR) Group III Infantry Weapons.

In the Soviet Union, arms designing was almost exclusively done in government armories and design bureaus. And only on very rare occasions, individuals could be licensed to design firearms. This article tells about one of such independent designers – a gentleman named Firs Barkanov. The article is based on the story published by the Kalashnikov Gun Magazine. Mikhail Degtyaryov, the chief editor of that magazine, kindly provided us the rights to use the content.

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!

Continuing on from where we left off yesterday, in this article we’ll address the arguments that center around the Sturmgewehr’s designer – Hugo Schmeisser – and his career in Izhevsk. Let’s get on with it:

Kalashnikov Concern’s newest weapon releases have received quite a lot of attention since they were first shown off at the ARMY 2016 military and technology forum in Moscow, and as the conference winds down, I want to take a more thorough pass through four of these new products from the company. Since we published announcements for three of these new weapons, Maxim Popenker, gun expert and TFB contributor, has published more detailed descriptions of the RPK-16, MA, and SVK rifles on his website, Modern Firearms. Let’s take a look at what he has to teach us about these new weapons:

What happens when you take the two concepts of a traditional, full-power rifle and machine gun round, and a small-caliber, high-velocity round, and smash them together? You get one of the most extreme military small arms calibers ever developed, and one of the last small arms projects from the twilight of the Soviet Union.

The Russian Army will be upgrading its automatic infantry support weapons soon. The legacy 7.65x54mmR PKM belt-fed general purpose machine gun will be supplanted in the dismounted role by the PKP “Pecheneg” automatic rifle designed at the end of the 20th Century, reports ArmyRecognition.com:

Polish gun magazine Broń i Amunicja posted two photos of the elusive AN-94 rifle in use with Russian forces recently. The 5.45mm hyperburst rifles are seen equipped with optics mounted via rails to the Soviet-era dovetail scope mount integral to the receiver of the weapon.

After the decision to create a new family of infantry weapons for the then-new intermediate 7.62x41mm obr.1943 cartridge (the precursor to 7.62×39), Soviet designers were tasked with creating new kinds of weapons in this chambering, including machine guns, selfloading rifles, assault rifles, and bolt-action carbines. This last category was apparently given a low priority, as it was only after the war had ended that any development in this area becomes evident. By this time, the 7.62x41mm cartridge had been replaced by the now-familiar 7.62x39mm round, which had a slightly shorter neck, longer bullet ogive, and steel bullet core.