Dimka Okhotnikov for his birthday.
- How difficult it is, Venichka, how subtle it is!
- Still would!
- What clarity of thinking! And it's all?!
V. Erofeev, Moscow - Petushki
In love psychiatry, the phenomenon is known when the object of adoration is endowed with some positive qualities or supernatural properties that actually do not exist. A similar phenomenon is inherent in weapon fetishism. For example, from the magical powers of "Excalibur" (the sword of King Arthur) to the "advanced ergonomics" of the stormgower. Let's talk about him. Rather, about one detail, referred to in a certain environment as a "gas regulator".
One shooter from the Sturmgewer, among other advantages of this weapon, recalled the remarkable work of the "gas regulator", tested in various temperature conditions. The program and test report, of course, are classified and not available to mere mortals. Let's try to figure it out ourselves.
First, let's take a look at the official Gebrauchsanleitung. At number 6b, this part is called "dichtungschrauben", which in the terminology of domestic plumbers means nothing more than a "plug". That is, a conventional plug with a threaded connection for blind closure of the hole. In the Sturmgever itself, there is a distance of at least 7 mm from the cut of the plug to the “overlapped gas outlet” opening of the gas chamber, so there can be no question of any “regulation” by changing the cross section of the gas outlet. The only purpose of this part is to provide periodic access to the cavity of the gas chamber for cleaning it.
Obviously, its location, the presence of a visible threaded section, a hole for the rod for ease of unscrewing and the shadow of a gloomy Teutonic genius played the exaltation of an ordinary plug to the degree of a "gas regulator". But.
Anyone who is a student of a locksmith at least three will immediately say that there should be no clean screw connections in mechanical engineering in principle. There must be an anti-unscrewing (counter) device, at least in the form of a Grover washer, and on such vibrodynamically stressed products as weapons, no washers help. Most often, the device is made in the form of a spring-loaded pin - a retainer, as is done in the AK-74 for a muzzle brake-compensator. By the way, all gas regulators on the weapon are discrete, that is, two-, three-position with rigid fixation. But the last question arises, if this is the case, then where is the retainer for this part on the assault gun? Unfortunately, this is a difficult question for the current descendants of representatives of the once most reading nation. Now for this you will have to contact the plumber, Uncle Vasya. He will answer with a shrug: “Conventional tapered thread, GOST 6211-81”. Yes, tapered threads have two remarkable properties - self-locking and sealing. Such a thread is mainly used only in plumbing, and its use on weapons is of academic interest, since there is no way to verify in practice how it actually worked. The extension on the cork serves only one purpose - ease of loosening. The tightening and initial unscrewing of the plug was done with an auxiliary rod - "lesedorn", since the reliability of the locking was ensured by the tightening force, and further unscrewing was done for lengthening on the plug. Ergonomics. But how!
Remark. There is another interesting point about the threaded connection. If the thread is not tapered, then micro-gaps remain in the thread, into which gases with carbon particles break through. If you twist the plug back and forth, then over time the thread will wear off to such an extent that such a plug will be knocked out from the first shot along with a bullet.
I think everything is clear with the Stg-44, although we will return to it later. But there is also the Mkb-42 (H). Didn't it ever occur to anyone that for a gas regulator or for a simple plug, such a structure - in the form of a pipe from the gas chamber to the base of the front sight - looks too cumbersome? For a weapon that did not fit into the requirements of the technical assignment in terms of weight, the array of such a pipe looks ridiculous. By the way, here you are - the retainer is in place.
In the technical description and in the manual for the Mkb-42 (H), which Handrich gives, the pipe between the gas chamber and the base of the front sight is called "dichtungschraube", i.e. an ordinary plug. Here is such an interesting ending in the evolution of this part:
You can, of course, be ironic, but there is a moment of "respect" in this. The latest version of the plug was manufactured using powder metallurgy!
Something has become boring. Let's talk better about the beauty of an engineering solution. But first about physics. This is what happens in the Stg-44 gas chamber:
Gases from the gas outlet collide with great speed with a transverse obstacle - the wall of the gas chamber. Soot particle velocity drops to zero. Since the movement of gases will be directed towards the moving piston, these particles will be ejected together with the pressure into the atmosphere. And those particles that end up at the wall of the plug at point A will gradually accumulate, forming an accumulation on the surface of the chamber and plug, which will eventually clog the gas outlet, with all the ensuing consequences. And here is the solution in the Kalashnikov assault rifle:
Gases from the gas outlet do not meet the obstacle at a right angle, which means that the speed of carbon deposits does not drop to zero, and settling on the walls is less. In addition, the blow of the gas jet is directed directly to the piston, and not to the chamber wall. This means that the energy of gases directed to the operation of automation is saved. When multiple problems are solved with one answer, it is a sign of the beauty of an engineering solution. That is, the designer has talent. Well, or genius, if you like.
Question. Did Schmeisser know about such an engineering solution and why did he not apply it in his stormgear? I can say with a high percentage of certainty that I knew. Substantiation of this conclusion a little later. Why didn't I use it in the Stg-44? Here is one possible explanation. At the request of the customer, the stormgower was to be equipped with a mortar for throwing grenades. The energy for throwing the grenade was generated by a special cartridge from the Polte company.
Since part of the energy of the powder gases was spent on the operation of the automation, it was proposed to use a two-position plug, which, when working with a grenade launcher, blocked the gas outlet.
The principle of operation of such a plug is clear from the photograph courtesy of Dieter Handrich. Due to complexity, this technical solution was rejected.
Please note: the taper of the thread is clearly visible on the standard plug. Clearly. So, perhaps, only because of the customer's desire to have a mortar on the assault gun, the characteristic beveled profile of the gas chamber did not appear on it. Then the stormgower would look even more like an AK and (oh, mother!) Our brother would have given unnecessary worries to wipe off the foam from the mouth of the zealous supporters of the Kalashnikov version of plagiarism with the Stg-44.
so what? Is it Kalashnikov's merit that he invented an inclined gas outlet in a machine? No. This solution was found even before Mikhail Timofeevich. Perhaps the first to use it was Vaclav Holek in the ZB-26 - sixteen years before the stormgewer.
But. In the Holek machine gun, the barrel was drilled perpendicularly (and you try to drill at least the handle from the mop with a drill at an angle), and the gas jet was tilted in the gas chamber itself. But oblique drilling in the barrel at an angle that ensures the direction of gases directly into the piston - this, it seems, was the first time in the AK. Although I do not presume to judge, there may have been somewhere else. But the point is not, for the first time - not for the first time. This is not a sport. It is not important here who first came up with the idea, it is important who brought it to mind. And to bring this idea to mind, it was necessary to solve more than one problem. It was necessary to eliminate the drift of the drill when drilling on a round surface, it was necessary to bring the drill exactly to the bottom of the rifling (it is impossible in the rifling field, the bullet will be planed), it is necessary to ensure the exact fit of the chamber, ensuring the alignment of the barrel and chamber holes. Moreover, this must be done so that it costs everything as cheaply as possible. All these issues were resolved at the Izhevsk Motorcycle Plant in 1948 during the manufacture of an experimental batch for military trials.
Before this (feat?), You can silently take off your hats and simply and modestly pay tribute to the chief designer, under whose leadership these tasks were solved, and to all those engineers and workers who participated in this. And let's leave all the arguments about "genius", "predetermination" and "fundamentality" to kitchen experts and sofa analysts.
Here is what AA Malimon writes in his book about that time: “Long-term practice of domestic arms production shows that in the past it was not always possible to achieve a successful
industrial development of new weapons designs. For Simonov's light machine guns (RPS-46), mass-produced in 1945-1946, it was not possible to achieve satisfactory operation of box magazines for a rifle cartridge with a protruding rim of the sleeve (Inventory 11007PR-48). The Degtyarev heavy machine gun (DS-39) was even adopted into service, but due to the presence of serious design flaws that reduce the reliability of the system, it was replaced already during the war with the Goryunov machine gun (SG-43), which also overcame a thorny path when mastering in mass production. The Tokarev self-loading rifle (SVT-40) also did not stand the test of time. The success of the case in many cases was determined by the level of technical rationality of the chosen constructive scheme of weapons and the presence in it of reserves for further improvement. "
Forgive me, I forgot to explain why Schmeisser could not have been unaware of the inclined gas outlet according to the scheme used by Cholek in his machine gun. Here is the locking diagram for the ZB-26:
Does she remind you of anything?
(c) Andrey Kulikov, Izhevsk, June 17, 2014.
Thanks to: Andrey Timofeev.
Literature:
Malimon A. A.
Blagonravov A. A. (ed.). The material part of small arms.
Handrich Dieter. Sturmgewehr-44.
Dear Readers! Thanks to outside help, I was able to acquire several foreign books on weapons. I was struck by the richness and quality of the material. In particular, only on the German cartridge 7, 92x33, a whole book was written by the respected doctor Dieter Kapell on 400 pages. And even on these pages I did not find very important and interesting information for me and for you. Although interesting and informative in this book - above the roof. For example, the experiments of the Polte company in the creation of double-bullet cartridges, steel bullets and caseless (!) Ammunition.
And a terrible worm of envy hit me. Envy of the fact that someone has access to information resources can afford to calmly work in this topic and, bringing facts together, enjoy the discoveries. It cannot be said that our Russian literature is lagging behind in this. There are many good books and articles out there, but they all suffer from one-sided presentation. And, as a consequence, if a historian writes a book, then he makes terrible technical mistakes. If a techie writes, then you start falling asleep on the third page. If this is a memoir, then a certain part of the population immediately has doubts about the veracity and sincerity of the author. So I decided what I would do after retirement.
Thanks.
