Conventional weapons can be created both for self-defense and in order to simply scare or stop the enemy. But silent weapons are always created solely for the purpose of killing. Two main methods aimed at combating the sound of a shot were invented and patented at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, but the military and special services of different countries seriously paid attention to these inventions only before the outbreak of World War II.
So in 1929 in the USSR the brothers Ivan and Vasily Mitin received a patent for a revolver "for silent shooting", created on the basis of the Nagant system. The revolver of the Mitin brothers used cartridges with sub-caliber bullets, and the gap between the sleeve and the bullet filled a cylindrical pan, which played the role of a piston. An additional drum with chambers was installed at the end of the barrel of the revolver, which passed a small-caliber bullet, but stopped the pan by locking powder gases in the barrel of the pistol (after firing, they were vented through the gaps). The pallets remaining in the second drum were removed manually after firing using a ramrod. Another invention, which also used the principle of cutting off powder gases, was a revolver and silent cartridges of Gurevich, created already during the Great Patriotic War.
Gurevich proposed the following solution: the gunpowder in the sleeve was covered with a steel wad, which was filled with paraffin, and distilled water was poured from above, and only then the sleeve with a bullet was inserted. At the time of the shot, the steel wad squeezed out water, which dispersed the bullet in the barrel of the revolver, and the wad was jammed inside the sleeve. This weapon has undergone extensive testing, but has shown itself to be not a very reliable model. The testers noted liner ruptures, the bushing falling out along with the bullet, and the fact that the water could simply freeze in frosty weather. Many of these remarks were eliminated, for example, the issue with the freezing of the liquid was resolved. In any case, we can say that Gurevich's silent revolver was a rather unusual example of small arms.
It is noteworthy that the author of the development was an engineer related to the NKVD. Moreover, this attitude was twofold - he also happened to be prisoners, while earlier Yevgeny Samoilovich Gurevich himself worked for a long time in various structures of the Cheka-GPU and was even personally acquainted with Dzerzhinsky. In 1941, he again went to work in the NKVD, this time as a gunsmith engineer. Initially, he was engaged in the finalization of 50-mm mortars, but quickly enough received a new assignment.
Evgeny Samoilovich Gurevich
The designer himself later recalled. “In 1942, while working in the Arkhangelsk NKVD for the development and production of company 50-mm mortars of my design, I received a new assignment from G. P. Shnyukov, the deputy head of the NKVD department, to develop silent ammunition, since various silencers and rubber tips of the Bramit type did not meet the needs of special weapons. As a result, I had to break my head hard, trying dozens of different options, in order to present in May 1943 a cartridge that fired without smoke, smell, recoil and without noise. My work was helped by the fact that, since 1936, I have been engaged in inventions, having accumulated a lot of experience in this area. Three models of pistols and ammunition for them were manufactured in Arkhangelsk. At the end of 1943, Malenkov was personally reported on the invention and, on his direct instructions, the samples were comprehensively studied and tested. As a result, GAU KA - the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army developed a tactical and technical task, and in Tula, in TsKB-14, where I was sent on a business trip, 53 revolvers, two pistols and about 1000 cartridges for them were produced. A sample of the new weapon and ammunition passed in 1944, field tests at the Shchurovsky test site, where they received a positive response and were put into service. Evgeny Gurevich himself received a commendation for his development in an order from Marshal of Artillery Voronov.
We can say that in May 1943, Yevgeny Gurevich made a real breakthrough in the development of silent weapons, using the cutoff of powder gases in the cartridge case, he applied the principle of "liquid pusher" in practice. There was fluid between the piston and the bullet in his revolver, which pushed the bullet through the bore of the revolver. The volume of the liquid was comparable to the volume of the barrel bore, and the piston, having made a movement to the muzzle of the sleeve, rested against it and locked the powder gases inside the closed volume of the sleeve. At the same time, the wad displaced water from the sleeve, for this reason the bullet moved along the barrel of Gurevich's revolver at the rate of fluid flow. Since water, like other liquids, is practically incompressible, the speed of the bullet will be as many times greater than the speed of the wad, how many times the cross-sectional area of the barrel of the revolver is less than the cross-sectional area of the sleeve (the principle of a hydraulic reducer is implemented).
As a result of the proposed design solutions, there was no sound shock wave when fired, and the low initial velocity of the bullet (189-239 m / s) also excluded the possibility of a ballistic wave. Due to this, almost complete noiselessness of the shot was ensured, but the resulting large cloud of "water spray" could be given out by the shooter. Moreover, the use of water as a bullet pusher made it difficult to use weapons in winter at subzero temperatures. The disadvantages also included a large loss of energy of the powder gases, the energy was spent on overcoming the resistance when the liquid was flowing. For firing his silent cartridges, Gurevich designed two single-shot pistols of 5, 6-mm and 6.5-mm caliber, which worked on the principle of a conventional hunting rifle, and a five-shot revolver of 7, 62-mm caliber.
Revolver Gurevich
Both single-shot pistols were not full-fledged combat models of small arms, but rather experimental models for practicing the very idea of a "cartridge on the principle of hydraulic transmission", as this decision was described in the documents of those years. Both single-shot pistols were tested in November 1943, demonstrating a number of problems with extraction and case strength. Despite the shortcomings, the test officers emphasized that the principle applied by Yevgeny Gurevich was quite suitable for the development of special purpose hand weapons.
The next step of the designer was the development of a real combat system - a revolver. It was a five-shot weapon with a double-action trigger mechanism. It is worth noting that the axis of the revolver drum could be twisted, this made it possible to relatively quickly replace the drum with a new loaded one, in the event that in the first drum the swollen sleeves were stuck in the chambers. It should be noted that Gurevich could not solve this problem without deteriorating the characteristics of the ammunition used.
The revolver turned out to be quite large, and its appearance could not be called elegant. Looking at the weapon, there was a feeling that the revolver was too cluttered, the contrast between the revolver itself and its handle was seen very great. The appearance of the revolver could be explained by the fact that the weapon was fed by not the smallest cartridges in size, which in turn determined the size of the drum, and therefore the entire model as a whole.
At Shchurovsky test site 7, Gurevich's 62-mm revolver, along with special ammunition, came to him in July 1944. For comparative tests, a Nagant system revolver with a Bramit silencer and also with special cartridges (with a pointed bullet) was used at that time. With the same mass of samples, the Gurevich revolver was distinguished by its smaller dimensions and at the same time stood out with a longer aiming line than the Nagant revolver with a silencer. There were three types of cartridges for Yevgeny Gurevich's revolver, which differed in the amount of gunpowder and the length of the choke. The liquid used was a mixture of 40 percent glycerin and 60 percent alcohol.
First, the revolvers were checked "for audibility" - one drum was shot from both samples. For the observer, or rather, the listener, who was located 40 steps from the shooter, the sounds of shots from a Nagant with a silencer were perceived as distant shots from a small-caliber rifle. At the same time, the sound of shots from Gurevich's revolver was weaker, moreover, it did not look like a shot. The report indicated that it sounded more like the sound of opening a bottle. For two compared revolvers, observers who were at the target heard only the sound of a bullet flying and hitting the target itself. At the same time, the bullets fired from the revolver of the Nagant system made a stronger buzzing sound, and the bullets from the Gurevich revolver made a quiet hiss, which was not heard with every shot. Also, observers noted that Gurevich's revolver was more stable and fired more accurately, although at a distance of 50 meters the second revolver showed itself slightly better.
For Nagant, there was also a test for bullet penetration. At a distance of the same 50 meters, a bullet fired from it stably pierced four rows of lead boards, and in some cases the penetration of the fifth board was also recorded. At the same time, bullets from Gurevich's revolver got stuck in the third board. However, as it was recorded in the report, this was enough for a bullet at a distance of 50 meters to have energy capable of incapacitating a person.
But the silent revolver presented by Gurevich managed to win back in shooting in difficult conditions. During the tests by firing when the weapon was frozen, the Barmit muffler knocked out the front plug with the first shot - the frozen rubber lost its elastic properties. At the same time, it was no longer possible to talk about some kind of accuracy of shooting - the bullets even at a distance of 8-10 meters went to the side by about 60 centimeters, and the inspection of the holes showed the testers that they flew into the target sideways. At the same time, Gurevich's revolver proved to be a reliable weapon even after freezing. Experiments carried out with bullets have shown that the 40/60 mixture (glycerin / alcohol) used remains fully operational at temperatures down to -75 degrees Celsius. Actually, the only thing that Yevgeny Gurevich's silent revolver did not suit the military was its weight and size characteristics. Then the army dreamed of getting a more compact and light weapon, fortunately, the prospects for improvements in this direction were clearly distinguishable.
In the final conclusion of the Main Artillery Directorate based on the results of field tests, it was said that the Artkom GAU KA considers it necessary to produce at TsKB-14 NKV a series of silent Gurevich revolvers in the amount of 50 copies, as well as 5 thousand cartridges for them for conducting comprehensive tests at the NIPSMVO, and also in special units of the Red Army and on Shot courses. In addition, it was proposed to check the cartridges for the revolver for tightness during long-term storage, as well as under various operating conditions.
However, with the end of World War II, interest in this model of weapons disappeared. They seriously returned to the development of such cartridges only in the late 1950s, however, it was decided to abandon the liquid that served as a pusher. In the USSR, a fairly large number of cartridge samples were created, including: 7, 62-mm Zmeya IZ, PZA, PZAM cartridges for C-4 and C-4M Groza double-barreled pistols; 7, 62-mm cartridges SP-2 and SP-3 - for small-sized pistol MSP and shooting knife NRS; 7, 62-mm cartridge SP-4 - for the PSS self-loading pistol and the NRS-2 shooting knife and a number of other samples.
Revolver Gurevich
In any case, today we can already say that Gurevich's design was most likely really the world's first silent cartridge, which was brought to the stage of a working model, passed state tests, was put into service and was produced in series, albeit in a small batch.
