Recently, information has often appeared that one or another manufacturer has begun the development of a new ammunition, or has already finished, which will replace one of the common cartridges, transferring the weapon that uses it to a new level. Against this background, our "breakthroughs" in the arms business look a little pale, but we also have something to brag about. True, in most cases, you can boast of something that was developed during the Soviet Union and for various reasons was thrown into the far corner. Nevertheless, if you clean up everything that has accumulated in the attics and basements of a great country, you can find a lot of not only interesting, but also useful things that themselves ask for revision and immediate launch into mass production. One of such examples can be our domestic sniper rifles with a caliber of 6 mm, which I would like to talk about in this article.
It is probably worth starting with a description of the ammunition that is used in this weapon, because it is the cartridge that forms the basis of any weapon, setting its basic characteristics, and the weapon itself is only a means of realizing the potential of the ammunition. So if the cartridge is initially not the best, then you cannot jump over your head with all your efforts, but you can always "ditch" a good ammunition using it in a weapon of not the best quality, which has already been repeatedly proven by many would-be gunsmiths. So, a cartridge with a caliber of 6 millimeters, designed for use in self-loading sniper rifles. This ammunition has a caliber of 6 millimeters, has a sleeve, the length of which is 49 millimeters, is a clear competitor to the cartridge 7, 62x54, while, despite its more compact dimensions, it has a clear advantage in all parameters, except for the destructive effect, but it copes well with individual means of personal body armor, but more on that below. The idea of creating such an ammunition was born a long time ago, the main prerequisite for this was the samples of Japanese production, which retain their fairly high characteristics since the beginning of the twentieth century, even by modern standards. For one reason or another, they saw all this advantage, but could not do anything, only in the 80s of the last century an ammunition was created, which was even more successful than its counterparts. With a bullet weight of 5 grams, this cartridge accelerated to a speed of 1150 meters per second, which made its ballistic characteristics incomparably better than those of 7.62. The bullet's trajectory became more flat, and the high speed of movement made it possible to more accurately hit moving targets. In addition, it was possible to reduce the influence of errors that are made by the shooter when determining the distance to the target and the speed and direction of the wind, which in total significantly increased the accuracy of shooting. Probably, this is one of the few cases when the ammunition itself makes it possible for more accurate shooting by an insufficiently trained shooter. Well, provided that in the event of the start of any large-scale hostilities, those who held it 10-20 years ago for the last time will also receive weapons, this can only be noted as a positive quality of ammunition. It is also important that the 6x49 cartridge showed significantly higher penetration characteristics of personal body armor compared to 7, 62x54, but the damaging effect of the bullet of this cartridge turned out to be lower, which, of course, is a minus, but against the background of everything else, the question quite arises, why is this ammunition and weapons still not in service in the army. However, analyzing other cases when promising developments rested on the fact that it was necessary to rebuild production for them or for some other reason they prevented them from getting at least minimal distribution, nothing is surprising. But back to the ammunition, which has a clear superiority over 7, 62x54.
This cartridge was developed within the walls of TsNIITOCHMASH (Central Scientific Research Institute of Precision Engineering), it is noteworthy that V. N. Dvoryaninov, who was previously engaged in the creation of a sniper version of the cartridge for the SVD sniper rifle. As it was written above, the result of his work really turned out to be impressive and many predicted the most bright future for this ammunition, both when used in sniper weapons and when used in light machine guns, in other words, this cartridge was supposed to completely replace 7, 62x54 in the army. But not everything turned out to be as smooth as we would like. Despite the fact that samples of sniper rifles and even a sample of a light machine gun were created for this ammunition, and all samples showed the most remarkable characteristics, although they needed minor file processing, no one was interested in such a weapon, although it could help make a big enough step forward, well, or at least show all the prospects of weapons using such ammunition. The difficulties that the country experienced at that time, closed the doors to both ammunition and the samples of weapons that use it, as a result, these samples are not even remembered now. I think that it will not be a secret for anyone that domestic gunsmiths have always been ahead of their time, so it happened in this case, because our "probable enemy" started talking about new cartridges much later, and existing models have appeared recently. It turns out that now the time of the 6x49 cartridge and weapons for it has long come, and the samples are still samples. At least, it would be possible to take at least ammunition and weapons as a basis and create a new model on their basis that would meet absolutely all the requirements, but forgetting about the existence of both a cartridge and a weapon is apparently easier than developing it, because for some reason no one is interested in development. Although, for the fact that such samples are forgotten and do not receive development, one should not even plant, in my opinion, but put them against the wall, since burying a promising development, without even trying to give it at least a minimal spread, can be safely equated with treason. However, it is clear that no one will punish their “colleagues”, at least until they cross the road. In the end, if, according to the results of a full analysis of weapons and with the maximum efforts made to improve them, there would be no obvious advantages, which in this case is unlikely, or replacement would be inappropriate due to the small superiority of weapons, then there will always be a civilian market and export. In general, I personally do not understand how you can forget about the old developments in weapons, which remain relevant now, and at the same time say that there are no talented designers, there is no base, and so on. If really not, then why not use what is and can still be used? Or you need to wait until all this is implemented by others, and then bite your elbows, wondering how it is that we had everything, but we did nothing? Somehow sad from all this. But let's not deviate from the topic of the article and nevertheless we will get acquainted with samples of self-loading sniper rifles chambered for 6x49, and there really is something to get to know, well, everyone can independently compare with what is now in service, and decide whether it was necessary we have such a weapon and do we need it at the moment.
While TsNIITOCHMASH was working on a new 6x49 ammunition, work on a weapon for this cartridge was in full swing in Izhevsk. The new weapon was not taken from the ceiling at all, it was created exactly according to the requirements that were sent to the designers, that is, they really planned to make this sample the main one and replace the SVD rifle in service with it, but, as we know, it did not grow together. The main requirements that were imposed on the new weapon were mainly related to its dimensions, and these requirements were quite stringent and the designers had to work hard to keep within them. So, the length of the weapon was limited to only 1225 millimeters, and this despite the fact that the barrel length had to be 720 millimeters, for optimal use of the potential of the new ammunition. Initially, it was planned to adapt the SVD sniper rifle to a new cartridge, but in fact it turned out that it was impossible with a barrel of this length, since the weapon scheme did not allow the length of the receiver to be reduced. With a barrel length of 620 millimeters, the SVD has a total length of 1220 millimeters, but the required barrel was 10 centimeters longer, respectively, and the total length of the weapon increased. For this reason, they decided to abandon adaptation and create their own weapon model from scratch, which turned out to be quite interesting and, naturally, in some moments surpassed the SVD even without taking into account the use of 6x49 ammunition.
This is how such weapons appeared as SVK and SVK-S sniper rifles, a model of a rifle with a folding stock. The work on the creation of a new type of weapon was entrusted to 4 designers at once: A. I. Nesterov, V. Yu. Simonenko, A. S. Lomaev and O. N. the fact that the rifle did not wait for mass production, some of its elements can be found in other samples. Since the main task was to meet the requirements for the length of the weapon, a lot of attention was paid to this issue. The designers could not reduce the length of the barrel and butt, for obvious reasons, but the rest of the parts were thoroughly reworked. The basis for the new rifle was the automation scheme, built on the removal of powder gases from the barrel bore, with the barrel bore locking with a bolt on two lugs. The weapon store was as close as possible to the chamber, which reduced the total length of the weapon by a couple of millimeters. A few more millimeters were saved due to the fact that the bolt carrier in the receiver is mounted on the guide protrusions in the rear of the receiver, and in the front it has a hole through which the guide rod of the return spring passes. Thus, the total length of the receiver was only 273 millimeters, in comparison with the SVD 315 millimeters. But that's not all that affected the overall length of the weapon. In principle, it was possible to stop after reducing the length of the receiver, but it's not that interesting. Therefore, a new slotted flash suppressor was developed for the new weapon, the working length of which is only 29 millimeters, in comparison with the same SVD - 78 millimeters. It is also important that the 6x49 ammunition itself has a total length less than that of 7.62x54, which also had a positive effect on reducing the length of the weapon. That's right, millimeter by millimeter, the designers reduced the length of the new SVK sniper rifle and its folding version of the SVK-S. It was thanks to these millimeters that it was possible to reduce the length of the weapon to the maximum, and it was 1188 millimeters, and for SVK-S with a folded butt of 960 millimeters. So, the designers managed to meet the basic requirements for this weapon and even make the weapon more compact than they were originally required to do. But this is not all that has been done to make the new sniper rifles look better than the SVD.
In order to improve the accuracy of the weapon, the designers have performed work that may initially seem completely absurd. The fact is that the barrel of SVK and SVK-S rifles is reinforced only in the receiver and does not touch the forend anywhere, that is, it is, in fact, "freely hung", however, the weapon is self-loading and is built according to a scheme with the removal of powder gases from the barrel bore, that is, a device for removing the powder gases is also located above the barrel. In other words, the barrel of a rifle cannot be called "free hanging", and the fact that it does not touch the forend of the weapon is a whim of the designers. All this is true in a superficial theory, in practice, however, such a move significantly increased the accuracy of the weapon, which is especially noticeable when shooting at a distance longer than average. So, you can cite these figures, which are taken from the proving grounds tests of weapons.
At a distance of 630 meters, the SVK sniper rifle proved to be 1.33 times more accurate than the SVD. At a distance of 770 meters, this parameter increased to 1.73. At distances of 970 and 1030 meters, the weapon showed 3.89 times more accurate shooting in comparison with the SVD. The overall advantage over the SVD was 2, 32. Of course, the merit here is not only the rifle, but also the ammunition that is used in it. In addition, at distances of up to 400 meters, the accuracy advantage over the SVD is not so noticeable for the SVK, which, against the background of the smaller damaging effect of the bullet, somewhat smoothes the indicators of the weapon, however, there is nothing wrong with increasing the effective firing range, and there cannot be, yes and for bulletproof vests, the bullet of the 6x49 cartridge works more efficiently than 7, 62x54, which has recently become more and more important. Since we have already touched on the topic of weapon accuracy at closer distances, the following indicators should be noted when firing. At a distance of 100 meters, three series of shots, 10 each, were fired. All bullets fit into a circle with a diameter of 5, 5 centimeters, while 50 percent of hits fit into a circle of 2, 3 centimeters, which is quite good results. At the same time, it was also noted that in the case of an increase in the quality of the 6x49 cartridge, these indicators would improve significantly, but, in my opinion, for a self-loading rifle of this class, these results are quite good, especially since the weapon itself has not yet been finalized completely, but was presented as a prototype, the characteristics of which could still change. True, they could change for the worse, as is usually the case with mass production, but we will think positively.
However, not everything was as smooth in this weapon as we would like, there were also negative aspects that were visible in comparison with the same SVD sniper rifle. One of the main negative qualities of the weapon was its weight, which was equal to 4, 2 kilograms for the SVK and 4.3 kilograms for the SVK-S, while for the SVD, the weight is only 3, 8 kilograms. Of course, if it were a rifle of a slightly different class, then the measly 0.5 kilograms could simply be missed, but in this case such a difference in weight matters. On the other hand, this is, one might say, the only weapon parameter that you can poke your finger at and say "bad", everything else causes only positive emotions, here is the length of the sighting line of open sights, increased by 80 millimeters, which allows for more efficient use weapons in the event that the optical sight was damaged in battle, and a more effective range for the use of weapons, and so on, and so on. So there is no doubt that if it were not for the rather difficult economic situation in the country at the end of the 80s, then this weapon would have seen the light already in the form of a serial sample, it is not clear only why, when the situation more or less improved, about this weapon do not remember and do not even take as a basis for something new.
In fire control, the SVK sniper rifle and its variant with a folding buttstock SVK-S are in many ways similar to the SVD. Despite the fact that the designers significantly reduced the length of the receiver, they left the location of the main controls in those places where they have already become familiar to many shooters. On the right side of the weapon there is a slightly reduced weapon safety switch, which in its lower position removes the weapon from the safety catch, while in the upper position it is impossible to shoot from a rifle. The small window for ejection of spent cartridges also looks somewhat unusual, however, the shutter handle is located in its usual place and those who "communicated" with the SVD can intuitively find it. The rifle magazine holder is located immediately behind the magazine, which is also quite familiar and cannot cause any complaints. The weapon magazine itself is made by stamping, has a capacity equal to 10 rounds, while it is smaller in size than the SVD magazine, which also only positively affects the convenience of working with the weapon. The handle of a rifle in the version with a folding stock looks a little strange, the fact is that the handle does not have a very neat appearance and seems completely uncomfortable, but after all, the weapon is not a Christmas tree to be beautiful, so there can be no complaints about this either … Quite an interesting point is that many note as a negative quality of the weapon that the rear sight is mounted on the rifle forend. In fact, this is not true. The rifle's sight is mounted on the receiver of the weapon, and the plastic forend simply passes under it, which creates the illusion that the target is mounted on the plastic forend. Naturally, now this rifle looks outdated, after all, it was created almost thirty years ago, and then no one thought about any "picatinny" -type rails that were hung on all sides of modern weapons, they created the simplest weapon that was it is only suitable to shoot, and not to amaze the inhabitants with its beauty, by the way, for some reason, for some reason it is such a weapon that seems to me personally more beautiful. Despite this, the main parameters of the weapon remain quite good today. Well, making it possible to install a wide variety of sighting devices and other things, in my opinion, is not a particularly big problem, especially for weapons previously not mass-produced, for Kalashnikov assault rifles, separate kits have been developed that can significantly expand the number of additional installed devices.
According to the results of field tests carried out after the presentation of the SVK and SVK-S, the weapon was noted as quite promising and was sent for revision, the same also applied to the 6x49 cartridge, which, although it could compete with 7, 62x54, had some drawbacks, which are the fastest were associated with accuracy at distances up to 400 meters. Still, the weapon that was supposed to replace the SVD had to "beat" it in all respects. Despite the fact that both the weapon and the patron had prospects, all further work was stopped due to a decrease in funding. Moreover, they covered not one project on the SVK and SVK-S sniper rifle, but also on 6x49 ammunition in general, that is, on other types of weapons, many of which have just begun to design. They covered it temporarily, but, as can be seen now, forever, at least nothing is heard about the further fate of either the rifles or the 6x49 cartridge. In the future, the developments of the designers were used to create a flame arrester for the Bizon-2 submachine gun, the butt was received by the SVD-S, the same flame arrester is also used in it and in the civilian Tiger-9, but of course it cannot be considered as using the developments of the designers. In fact, we can say that all the funds that were spent on the development of the weapon itself and the ammunition for it were simply wasted, since these costs did not bring tangible benefits. Moreover, it should be noted once again that there was no benefit not through the fault of the weapon, but simply because at first all the work was postponed until better times, and then they simply forgot or did not want to remember what was most likely. Honestly, I will never be surprised if this weapon and this cartridge, but in a different wrapping, will emerge ten years later, as a proposal from some "friendly" private arms company to replace SVD sniper rifles in the army, although who can - to come to his senses and instead of looking for folk talents he will take an interest in what is in the bins of the research institute, and there is a lot of interesting and most importantly useful, but is wasted.
However, speaking about the fact that they have completely forgotten about ammunition and weapons, I was somewhat cunning. In fact, there is a continuation of this story, although the continuation is quite short and with a rather sad ending. The fact is that they tried to "reanimate" the 6x49 ammunition in the late nineties in the Tula TsKIB, but this attempt was quite modest and ended back only with an experimental sample, which, however, managed to make war, albeit for a short time. We are talking about the TKB-0145K sniper rifle, all chambered for the same 6x49 cartridge.
The "father" of this weapon is the designer A. B. Adov, he decided in his own way to make the new weapon more compact, and most importantly lighter, however, the weapon did not become lighter than the SVD. The main "feature" of this weapon is that it is made in a bullpup arrangement, which gives more freedom to the mechanisms while maintaining the minimum length of the weapon. So, the length of the rifle is only 1060 millimeters, which makes it possible to transport it without much difficulty both in armored vehicles and directly by the shooter himself. The weight of the weapon is exactly 4 kilograms without sights and cartridges. The barrel length remained the same as that of the SVK - 720 millimeters, in order to ensure the most efficient use of the 6x49 cartridge. This decision to reduce the length of the weapon has both positive and negative sides. On the one hand, the reduction in length is quite significant, on the other hand, the bullpup layout has a number of disadvantages, which it was not possible to simply solve in this weapon. On the other hand, a sniper rifle is one of those types of weapons in which the bullpup layout is most acceptable, since a low rate of fire eliminates such an unpleasant drawback as irritation of the shooter's mucous membrane by powder gases. However, despite the low rate of fire, it is rather difficult to use such a weapon when firing from the left shoulder, not only will the spent cartridges flicker before your eyes, and the controls are located only on the right side of the weapon, so the bolt handle will also be in close proximity to the shooter, and this is at least annoying, and makes you think about your safety.
In addition to the fact that the TKB-0145K sniper rifle is made in a bullpup layout, it also has a number of features that are not inherent in other weapons. So, an interesting feature of the weapon was how the powder gases are removed to ensure the operation of the weapon's automation. In most weapons that use an automation scheme with the removal of powder gases from the bore, the removal of powder gases occurs from the bore through a hole in the barrel, which at the moment the piston hits and starts to move, affects the accuracy of the weapon. In the case of TKB-0145K, the removal of powder gases from the bore occurs at the muzzle of the weapon, which virtually completely eliminates the effect of automatic operation on firing accuracy. Due to such a system for removing powder gases, the use of a gas regulator turned out to be impossible, which, however, is not necessary in this case, since ensuring the normal operation of automation in a variety of operating conditions is achieved by a mass of individual elements of the weapon mechanism, which is the reason why that the TKB-0145K sniper rifle is 200 grams heavier than the SVD. But in my opinion, this is a completely justified price for the higher accuracy of the weapon and the fact that it will work flawlessly in a wide range of temperatures and other conditions. An important role in the reliability of the weapon was also the fact that it is maximally protected from dust and even more sand inside the receiver. The rifle is fed from detachable box magazines with a capacity of 10 6x49 rounds. In addition to open sighting devices, the weapon is equipped with a POSP 8x42 or PSO-1 optical sight, of course, the possibility of installing other devices is not excluded.
All weapon controls are located on the right side of the rifle, which creates an additional obstacle for left-handed use of this weapon. In addition, the fuse switch is located on the right side of the weapon, but much further than the store, which makes it very convenient to switch to, so this weapon has some drawbacks. The rest of the elements are not satisfactory: the trigger, safety guard and magazine retainer are made quite familiarly, of course, adjusted for the layout of the weapon. In general, for ease of use, this weapon does not cause any complaints, except for the fuse switch, which is almost under the armpit of the shooter, since it does not need to be switched after each shot.
If we compare the TKB-0145K sniper rifle with the SVK sniper rifle, then it is quite difficult to give unconditional preference to any one sample, if only because there is very little information on this weapon, and it is thankless to compare experimental models, but of course you can try. In terms of the weight of the weapon, naturally, the TKB-0145K is in the lead, but at the same time, the SVK is more convenient to operate, despite its large dimensions. In TKB-0145K, an original scheme for the intake of powder gases at the muzzle is used, which increases the accuracy of the weapon, at the same time, the SVK also gets the same result thanks to the designers' attempt to freely hang the rifle barrel. In terms of their combat characteristics, the weapon is very, very close to each other, so in principle we can say that both models are equal in front of each other, if not for one "but". SVK and its version with a folding butt SVK-S are more convenient when shooting from the left shoulder, and such a need may arise not only due to the fact that the shooter is used to eating with his left hand, but also due to the fact that his shelter turned out to be on the right you can only fire from it on the left side. That is, when shooting from the right shoulder in such a situation, the shooter will be as in the palm of the enemy's sight, but to hit him if he fires from the left shoulder will be much more difficult. In addition, the SVK-S with a folded butt has a shorter length than the TKB-0145K, which can be quite critical in some situations. In general, in my humble opinion, the SVK is a more suitable weapon for widespread distribution in the army in comparison with the TKB-0145K. However, here the TKB-0145K has one indisputable advantage in the form of combat experience and positive feedback, which the SVK self-loading sniper rifle cannot boast of.
In 2001, the TKB-0145K self-loading sniper rifle was used in hostilities in the North Caucasus, where it received a lot of positive feedback. One of the most important factors that I liked about this rifle was, as you might guess, the 6x49 ammunition, which was superior in its characteristics to the 7.62x54 sniper cartridge. It was also important that the high accuracy of the weapon was noted in comparison with the SVD, which was confirmed by the fact that enemy snipers armed with the SVD were repeatedly hit from TKB-0145K, while they could not respond with accurate fire from their larger-caliber rifles. Separately, it was also noted that this weapon is more convenient for use on moving targets, but this is not the merit of the weapon, but just the high speed of the bullet, that is, the ammunition that was used in it. Separately, the unusualness of the weapon and its compact size were noted. The TKB-0145K rifle earned such positive reviews during the period from February to September 2001. On the basis of these reviews about the weapon, a proposal was put forward as soon as possible to establish mass production of this sample and organize its delivery, first of all, to the places of hostilities, which would reduce losses among personnel and gain a clear advantage over the enemy. Nevertheless, neither the reviews, nor the recommendations of people who happened to entrust their lives to this weapon did not have any effect, and the weapon and the cartridge were again forgotten. At the time of this writing, no one remembers that there is such ammunition and weapons that were a step away from mass production and mass deliveries to the army.
Of course, we can say that the new ammunition and the new sniper rifle are too bold, but, nevertheless, history has repeatedly proved that a sniper acting as part of a company can radically change the course of the battle and save on his weapons is tantamount to a crime. However, this can be said about any soldier, so, ultimately, saving on weapons and equipment of the army is a crime. But we have 3-4 promising models of pistols, with which they cannot decide who to give and to whom to give, this is still omitting the fact that one of them, the most advertised in general, can be considered foreign. We have a large-caliber machine gun, the tasks of which in most cases can be performed by a smoothbore with the correct cartridges. We have a lot of things, but absolutely not what is really needed. As proof, my favorite example can be cited - replacing the AKS74U with submachine guns at the PPS. They promise, they promise, they even name specific models of weapons and timeframes, but they cannot "give birth" in any way. In the end, you can not promise, but say right now "there is no opportunity and financial resources as soon as the issue will be resolved", of course, provided that it is actually resolved. And so it turns out that people are armed with things that cannot be fired from, since a short burst in the city is likely to catch someone else 200-300 meters away. Armed with something from which it is scary to shoot indoors, fearing ricochets and so on. At the same time, it is especially surprising that they are looking for "talents" who will offer ideas for the development of the military industry for free. No, the undertaking, of course, is excellent, and one can only welcome it, but why not first implement some of the most promising developments that were abandoned before they completely lost their relevance. In the end, after all, you can stay "with a nose", the designers have proposed a complex and expensive - we will not do it, folk craftsmen offer either the same thing, or nonsense - it will not work either. Have you forgotten the saying about chasing two hares?
