The arms designer Vladimir Grigorievich Fedorov entered Russian history as the creator of the first machine gun in history. Initially, a weapon chambered for 6, 5-mm caliber was called a "machine gun", the word "automatic" familiar to all of us appeared later. At the front, the new weapon appeared in December 1916, but was produced in a very limited series. Serial production of new weapons began after the end of the First World War. In total, until 1924, approximately 3400 Fedorov assault rifles were produced. Initially, for his model of automatic weapons, the designer was going to use his own cartridge of 6, 5 mm caliber, but already during the war, in order to quickly launch the machine into production, the choice was made in favor of the Japanese cartridge 6, 5x50 mm Arisaka.
The advent of 6.5mm ammunition
The Russian army met the 20th century with the famous Mosin three-line system of the 1891 model. The name "three-line", which entered into mass use, directly referred to the caliber of this weapon, which was equal to three lines. The line is an outdated measure of length, which was 0.1 inches or 2.54 mm, and the caliber of the Mosin rifle was, respectively, 7.62 mm. At that time, the main ammunition for small arms of the Russian imperial army was the cartridge 7, 62x54 mm R. The rifle itself, like the cartridge for it, was a completely modern weapon, comparable in capabilities with the best foreign counterparts. Fate prepared a long life for the Mosin rifle, it was the main weapon of the Russian infantryman in both the First and Second World War, and in total about 37 million such rifles were produced.
Despite the fact that the 7.62 mm cartridge satisfied the Russian military, the search for alternative ammunition was always carried out. Young officers of the GAU, among whom was the outstanding in the future Russian and Soviet designer Vladimir Fedorov, followed the novelties of the arms world and current trends. The fact that a new cartridge of 6, 5-mm caliber appeared already at the end of the 19th century did not pass by them. The Italians were the first to adopt such ammunition. We are talking about a cartridge 6, 5 × 52 mm Mannlicher-Carcano, for the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle of the same name, which became sadly famous all over the world after the shots in Dallas on November 22, 1963. It is believed that it was from the Mannlicher-Carcano M91 / 38 carbine of caliber 6, 5 mm that Lee Harvey Oswald shot the American President John F. Kennedy. Following Italy, the Scandinavian countries also turned to the new patron. A few years later, the 6, 5 × 55 mm Swedish Mauser cartridge appeared in Sweden and Norway. For the Scandinavians, the Greeks and Romanians drew attention to the new cartridge, who also switched to 6, 5 × 52 mm Mannlicher-Carcano.
At the same time, the 6.5 mm cartridge 6, 5 × 50 SR, or Arisaka, adopted by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1897, had the greatest connection with Russia. Russian troops faced a new caliber for them during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and already during the First World War, the tsarist government signed a contract with the Japanese for the supply of Arisaka rifles and carbines and cartridges for them. This was done due to the lack of their own small arms. Arisaka rifles and carbines were actively used in the navy, on the Caucasian and Northern fronts. At the same time, more than 780 million cartridges were purchased for them. Also, the production of such cartridges was started in St. Petersburg, where the St. Petersburg Cartridge Plant produced up to 200 thousand of such ammunition every month.
Do the 6.5mm cartridges have sufficient destructive power?
The transition to a new caliber, which was reduced in relation to all cartridges and shooting systems common at that time, was considered quite obvious. Ammunition of caliber 6, 5 mm was distinguished by the best ballistics, which was manifested even when using blunt bullets of that time period. In addition to this, there were other very important advantages: a decrease in the weight of the ammunition carried by a fighter and a better suitability of reduced-caliber ammunition for use with automatic weapons, which began to make themselves known more and more loudly. The only question that aroused controversy and doubts among the military was the question of the sufficient lethality of the new cartridges.
It was Vladimir Fedorov who studied this issue based on the experience of the Russian-Japanese War, who for this purpose looked through the doctors' reports on the injuries received by soldiers and officers on the battlefields. After analyzing and processing what he read, the young officer of the GAU Artillery Committee came to the conclusion that the new Japanese 6, 5-mm rifles, like the old 8-mm rifles of the Murata system, were not particularly distinguished by their destructive ability. This was especially true for wounds received at medium or long distances. At the same time, in a collision at short distances, a 6, 5-mm bullet left terrible wounds. It was noted that the new bullet had a higher flight speed and at close distances, hitting a person, could deform and somersault already in the tissues, causing severe damage to internal organs. The main condition for the explosive action of such bullets was speed, which made it possible to destroy small bodies, which included, for example, a human skull. In this sense, the destructive power of a 6, 5 mm bullet at close range was higher than that of an 8 mm bullet.
These conclusions, which were formulated by Fedorov, in 1911 were confirmed by tests of ammunition of a new caliber in Russia. That year, 6-mm, 6, 5-mm and 7-mm cartridges were tested in our country. To assess the destructive power of new ammunition, shooting was carried out both at horse carcasses and human bodies, and at boards, brickwork, etc. The tests carried out showed that 6, 5-mm and 7-mm cartridges have sufficient destructive power, while there was no significant difference between them, but the 6-mm cartridge was rejected by the GAU commission.
6.5mm Fedorov cartridge
Vladimir Grigorievich Fedorov graduated from the Mikhailovskaya Artillery Academy in 1900 and almost immediately was appointed to serve in the Artillery Committee of the GAU. The young design engineer worked a lot to study the features of the use of new ammunition in different countries. During the development and adoption of the modernized cartridge 7, 62x54 mm with a light bullet, the young designer presented his own concept of a new rifle ammunition of 6, 5 mm caliber. The new cartridge of reduced power was distinguished by a promising design and should have been ideal for firing from automatic weapons. Fedorov was largely inspired by the experience of the Russo-Japanese War and the use of the 6, 5x50 mm cartridge by the Japanese to create ammunition of this caliber.
Already in 1911, Vladimir Fedorov presented his 5-round automatic rifle chambered for the usual cartridge 7, 62x54 mm (in modern terminology - a self-loading rifle). In 1912, the new weapon passed the testing stage at the range, and the artillery committee decided to purchase a batch of new rifles. At the same time, the designer worked on the creation of a full-fledged machine gun chambered for 6, 5 mm of his own design. The cartridge created by Fedorov was supposed to be more powerful than the Japanese ammunition - 6, 5x57 mm. Especially for him, it was planned to produce three types of pointed bullets: two with a lead core (length 31, 37 mm and 32, 13 mm, respectively) and an armor-piercing bullet with a tungsten core (length 30, 56 mm). The mass of the cartridge was approximately 21 grams.
The cartridge designed by Vladimir Fedorov had a bottle-shaped sleeve and did not have a protruding rim, the sleeve itself was quite long (57, 1 mm) and was made of brass. In terms of the shape and design of the sleeve, the cartridge was similar to the German cartridge of caliber 7, 92x57 mm (Mauser). The main advantage of a cartridge of reduced power and caliber was a decrease in recoil when firing, which made the ammunition more convenient when used in automatic weapons, in particular an automatic rifle, on which the designer worked (compared to ordinary rifle cartridges of those years). In fact, Vladimir Fedorov immediately created a system - "weapon-cartridge". Taking as a basis a bottle-shaped sleeve without a protruding rim, the designer provided himself with the groundwork for creating a simplified system for feeding cartridges and extracting spent cartridges, as well as roomy magazines, which had already been brought to 25 rounds in the 1920s.
The work that Fedorov began in the 1910s anticipated the appearance in the future of an intermediate cartridge for automatic weapons and was the first step in this direction. The machine gun created by Fedorov and the cartridge for it were put out for testing in 1913 a year before the start of the First World War. As weapons historian Andrei Ulanov notes, under normal conditions, the test shot amounted to 3200 cartridges, for the entire test period, 1, 18 percent of delays were noted, for that period of time and the stage of testing this was recognized as a good result. The designer himself wrote that the work on the new cartridge was recognized as valuable and important, and the preliminary tests of the machine gun and the cartridge for it turned out to be so favorable that according to the drawings developed by Fedorov, it was planned to produce 200 thousand cartridges at once for a comprehensive check of the new ammunition for further tests.
Unfortunately, the First World War, which began in 1914, prevented the finalization of the machine gun and the cartridge for it. Wartime no longer allowed experimenting and improving weapons, experimental work at factories was stopped. At the same time, the Russian Empire faced a serious shortage of conventional rifles and cartridges for them, which was the reason for the purchase of the corresponding products abroad. It is for this reason that in 1916 Vladimir Fedorov remade his machine gun for the Japanese cartridge 6, 5x50 mm Arisaka, there were already a sufficient number of cartridges of this type in Russia at that moment.
More than 100 years have passed since the events described, but the cartridge of caliber 6, 5 mm is again becoming relevant and in demand. At the beginning of 2019, information began to appear in various media that the small arms of the American army were waiting for a radical transformation. The main transformation will be the replacement of 5, 56x45 mm NATO cartridges with new cartridges of 6, 5 mm. The first samples of new ammunition are planned to be tested by the end of 2019, and new automatic rifles and light machine guns will have to go for military tests in the 2020s.
