In the United States, a huge number of new models of small arms appear every year, so it is rather difficult to surprise someone with the release of another rifle. Any designer of small arms, if desired, can try to realize himself in the American market, which is ready to accept all competent specialists. In the spring of 2018, an article appeared on the website of The Firearm Blog that announced the appearance of a new modular rifle. This rifle is of interest at least because its developer is a native of the former USSR, Konstantin Konev.
He gained fame in the arms world in the early 2000s thanks to the created sniper rifle. The Konev VK-003 sniper rifle (known as SVK) was an example of high-precision weapons created in the territory of the post-Soviet space.
The development of the Belarusian arms designer Konstantin Konev was first shown to the general public in Minsk in 2003. Later, the rifle was demonstrated in Moscow, in particular at the exhibitions "Interpolitech-2005" and "Arms and Hunting", where it received quite high marks from experts.
The VK-003 sniper rifle was positioned by the manufacturer as a high-precision sniper rifle for match (sports) shooting, hunting, as well as weapons for special units (army and police). It is worth noting that the bright debut of the rifle at exhibitions at the beginning and middle of the "noughties" was preceded by a rather long path of its creation. The designer himself noted that he began to participate in the development of small arms since 1992. This is largely due to the fact that life brought Konev together with the outstanding gunsmith Vladimir Alexandrovich Razoryonov, a legendary man in the history of Russian sports weapons.
Sniper rifle VK-003 (SVK)
When firing at a distance of 100 meters, five bullets of 7, 62 NATO (.308 Win) caliber fired from a VK-003 rifle fit into a circle with a diameter of 15 mm. This result could be safely called excellent, the rifle was quite competitive against the background of foreign counterparts from more eminent manufacturers. The rifle itself was a classic "bolt" - a sniper rifle with manual reloading and a sliding bolt. But even then, the rifle was built according to a modular scheme, which allowed for the possibility of changing the caliber by replacing the barrel and bolt group. At the time of its creation, it was the only Belarusian-made sniper rifle.
However, the Konev rifle in Belarus never reached mass production or adoption. At the same time, she nevertheless found her consumer, but already in a neighboring country. To some extent, its successor was the Ukrainian rifle Zbroyar Z-008, developed and produced by the private arms company Zbroyar (Gunsmith), founded in 2006, before his departure to the United States, Konstantin Konev was its chief designer and executive director. The Zbroyar Z-008 rifle was based on the Z-008 bolt group, which was designed by Konev. Later, on the basis of this model, a whole family of Zbroyar high-precision rifles for various purposes was created. The Zbroyar Z-008 rifle has been produced in Ukraine for over 10 years. Konev himself worked in the company for 7 years, after which he moved to the UAE, where he worked for Caracal, until he moved to the United States in 2015.
Over the past few years, the gunsmith designer seemed to have disappeared from the field of attention of the thematic media, only to reappear on the scene in 2018. The silence was broken by news from overseas about a new modular high-precision rifle under the laconic designation Konev Modular Rifle. The journalist of the news site The Firearm Blog noted that, going to get acquainted with the new product, I expected to see the next version of the rifle, which would be based on AR or AK, but was pleasantly surprised to see a new development with a set of interesting functions and features.
Konev Modular Rifle
In recent years, one of the main areas of work of designers around the world has become the creation of modular or multi-caliber rifles, which today are quite popular and in demand on the market. Such rifles allow the shooter to quickly change the caliber and switch to using a different cartridge by simply changing the barrel and bolt. There are also samples of modular high-precision rifles in Russia, both from private manufacturers - the ORSIS company, and from large manufacturers with state participation, for example, the Kalashnikov concern.
But back to the Konev Modular Rifle, the main feature of which is modularity. In order to change the caliber of the weapon, the shooter needs to replace the barrel, bolt cup and magazine neck, all this happens relatively quickly. The peculiarities of the weapon include the fact that in the version of the assault rifle, the shooter gets the opportunity to use various magazines, both from AK chambered for 7, 62x39 mm, and from NATO stores of the STANAG 5, 56x45 mm standard. It is also possible to use cartridges.308 Win and 7, 62x54R with magazines from AR-10 or SVD, respectively. For those who find this not enough, there is an option for transforming the rifle into a full-fledged sniper version chambered for the high-power.300 Win Mag cartridge (7, 62x67 mm). This ammunition is currently quite actively used in the sniper weapons of NATO countries, providing an effective range of sniper fire up to 1100-1200 meters.
The lower receiver of the Konev Modular Rifle is made of durable fiberglass-reinforced polymer and consists of two parts, as the neck of the magazine is detachable, which allows the rifle to be powered from different magazines. The upper part of the receiver is monolithic, it is made of aluminum alloy and is a reliable basis for installing different types of sights. For this, special M-LOK slots (modular fastening system, which was created by Magpul Industries) are placed on the receiver and the forend of the weapon. Unlike other modern shooting systems, in which problems are sometimes encountered - for example, when combining an optical sight with a nozzle for night shooting - the Konev modular rifle does not have such a problem.
All versions of the Konev modular rifle are based on gas-operated short-stroke automation. At the current time, such a scheme is considered the most suitable - for example, the German HK416 assault rifle has the same automation, this solution is called its important advantage over the American M16 / M4 rifles in terms of greater reliability and resistance to pollution. At the same time, among Americans today there is still a sufficient number of fans of the original Stoner scheme - with the direct effect of the powder gases discharged during firing on the bolt carrier. This scheme provides greater accuracy, albeit at the cost of less reliability.
At the same time, Konstantin Konev believes that in the piston scheme there are opportunities for increasing the accuracy of shooting, these possibilities have not yet been fully exhausted and the field for experiments with this scheme is open. The thing is that when gases enter the gas outlet tube, a process occurs that is somewhat opposite to the shot. The difference lies in the fact that the piston moves in the direction opposite to the direction of movement of the bullet, but the "recoil" moves to the front wall of the gas outlet. Of course, such recoil is much weaker than that experienced by a person shooting from a rifle, however, for the appearance of parasitic vibrations of the barrel, it also happens. In this case, the higher the gas outlet is located relative to the barrel, the stronger the barrel vibration will be when firing.
In the new Konev Modular Rifle, the influence of this factor has been significantly reduced. This was achieved by rigidly fixing the rifle's gas vent system in the receiver. In addition, the gas outlet was made as low as possible in order to minimize the appearance of parasitic vibrations of the barrel when firing. Taking into account the wide range of ammunition used with the rifle, the gas system of the weapon has a regulator with three manually set positions.
Konstantin Konev and his rifle
The Konev Modular Rifle uses a three-lug bolt action that is slightly chamfered. The designer used a locking system with three large lugs and a 60-degree rotation. In addition to greater reliability, such a solution made it possible to implement a "pre-extraction" mechanism in the model, when the sleeve in the chamber begins to move even when the bolt is turned. This solution made it possible to ensure reliable extraction of spent cartridges even with a dirty chamber or using cartridges with low quality cartridges.
For many Americans, who are accustomed to the design of numerous clone AR rifles, the availability of a full-fledged folding stock will be another pleasant surprise. One more feature of Stoner's rifles should be noted here - the location of the return spring in the butt. Because of this feature, even shortened versions of the M16 or rifles with a similar scheme never received a full-fledged folding stock, content only with telescopic stocks, which could only be folded to a certain length.
The Konev rifle has a full-fledged folding stock, which in some way has become a good feature for many models of modern small arms. The Konev Modular Rifle folding stock is made of aluminum and is non-adjustable. It folds down simply by pressing the large lever. You can fire from a rifle with a folded stock. Soon, the weapon will also have a "Marksman" butt, adjustable in height of the cheek pad and reach. In the version chambered for.308 Win the length of the rifle is 986.5 mm, and with the stock folded - 775.8 mm, the height of the weapon is 203.5 mm.
Konev Modular Rifle with folded stock
The cocking handle on the Konev Modular Rifle is located on the left side of the receiver. So far, it cannot be rearranged to the other side, and when firing, it does not remain stationary. However, its design will soon be improved. Despite the fact that Konev's development differs significantly from the AR-15 rifle, they have exactly the same trigger mechanism with the same location of the slide delay and safety catch. The rifle is also fully compatible with pistol grips from the still popular AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in the United States.
The capabilities of the new rifle are best demonstrated by the fired targets that were shown in the demo video. When firing at 100 yards with American Federal cartridges with a Sierra MatchKing bullet, Konev's rifle showed an accuracy of 20.4 mm in five holes, with four of them keeping within 10 mm. Even more interesting is the target with the results of shooting with Russian TulAmmo cartridges - accuracy of 30 and 15 mm, respectively, the result is only 1.5 times higher. Finally, a series of 10 shots with ordinary army "machine-gun" M80 cartridges was also shown, which fit into 35.8 mm - a very decent result, no doubt about it.
Results of test firing with different cartridges
Currently, Konstantin Konev plans to produce his rifle in the USA and is looking for a suitable company to which he is ready to sell the rights to its serial production. However, if this plan fails, Konev is ready to start producing his rifle on his own. Its main goal is so far the civilian weapons market, but the designer does not exclude that in the future he will present his brainchild to the military for comprehensive tests.
