Back in the days of the USSR, it was decided to abandon the 7.62 mm ammunition to ensure automatic firing. This was due to the fact that the use of a 7.62 mm cartridge caused a large recoil, which negatively affected the accuracy of fire, in addition, the recoil impulse constantly knocked down the sight, and the shooter was very tired, which led to a decrease in shooting accuracy. There have been attempts to remove negative characteristics using various technical solutions. But these attempts turned out to be rather ineffective. Therefore, in order to eliminate the shortcomings, we went the simplest way - we reduced the used cartridge caliber to 5.45 mm. Compared with the use of 7.62 caliber ammunition, the destructive characteristics have become much worse. To increase the striking characteristics, they began to use fixed queues in weapons - that is, they began to take not "quality", but quantity. The implementation of technical innovations to compensate for recoil using a 7.62 mm caliber or an increase in damage characteristics when using a 5.45 mm caliber was characterized by the complication of the design of automatic weapons, which ultimately reduced the reliability and raised the cost of weapon production. This situation leads to a logical decision to create a weapon that could produce automatic firing with 7.62 mm ammunition and would not have the above negative consequences that arise when firing 7.62 mm ammunition.
Project "Equalizer"
The promising Ukrainian assault rifle functions due to the useful recoil of the short stroke of the barrel. Before the shot, the barrel with the bolt and the bolt carrier looks like a single unit. When firing, the "single unit" starts to move backward under the influence of the acquired recoil impulse. Having passed a distance of 10 mm, the barrel and the bolt stop and pass a certain distance forward, where they completely stop, being in a kind of intermediate position. The bolt frame, having separated, continues to roll back, at this time, the bolt finger, touching, slides into the copier-type groove on the bolt carrier. The groove, in turn, causes the shutter to rotate, which ultimately leads to the unlocking of the latter. 0.5 cm before the end of the stroke of the bolt frame, the bolt hook interacts with the protrusion of the barrel, which is in an intermediate state and the last 5 mm they pass in one bundle. The moving parts of the machine have sufficient mass to reduce the impact force when rolling back into the rear position. When the movable unit returns forward, the barrel again becomes in an intermediate state, the bolt frame pushes the bolt itself, and it, in turn, sends the next ammunition to the chamber. The bolt carrier continues to move forward, there is a reverse rotational movement of the bolt due to the interaction of the bolt pin and the slot of the frame. It leads to the locking of the barrel. At the end of the movement, all moving parts of the machine again form the appearance of a single unit. Parts move forward together, and at this time the trigger interacts with the drummer, and a shot is fired. The recoil of the shot prevents the movement of the "single unit" forward, which reduces the "roll-out effect" - the impact of moving parts when returning to the extreme forward position. To give higher reliability and increase the rate of fire, the weapon was equipped with a gas booster - the removal of a certain amount of gas from the barrel channel. Powder gases act on the piston rod, and it, in turn, imparts an impulse to the bolt frame. The accelerator has a faucet that can be opened or closed by the user of the weapon at his discretion. The trigger is made of the trigger type. You can fire both single shots and bursts. The fire translator plays an additional fuse role. In addition, a promising machine gun is provided with a shutter delay.
Main characteristics:
- layout diagram of the machine - bullpup;
- the total weight of the machine - 3.8 kilograms;
- length - 78.2 centimeters;
- trunk - 50 centimeters.
- the weight of the "Equalizer" with a loaded magazine, a bayonet-knife, an unloaded grenade launcher - 5.8 kilograms.
Based on such a scheme for creating an automaton, we can confidently assume that:
- the use of the "single unit" scheme and its movement, reduce the possibility of displacement of the arm of the submachine gunner when firing a shot;
- 2-fold use of the barrel weight will greatly reduce the recoil when firing;
- hitting the cartridge capsule before the arrival of the "single unit" system will effectively reduce the possibility of the machine gun nodding when firing in bursts;
- providing the machine with a gas accelerator will increase the reliability of the machine as a whole.
The peculiarity of this machine is the use of a barrel lodgment instead of the standard barrel box. This makes it possible to more evenly distribute the arising loads during firing. The butt of the assault rifle does not take on the load when firing and is simply a shoulder rest. Additionally serves as a key for disassembling the machine. The bottom and top covers protect the machine from dirt getting inside. The cover of the lower version is not removed, but leans back, this gives access to the trigger without disassembling the weapon. The barrel of the "Equalizer" is attached in 2 places - with the rear end on the inner radius of the barrel lodgement and in the middle, in the bushing, which is located at the base of the front sight bracket. A gas accelerator was located in the gas pipe; it is attached in the front area of the handle to move the machine. The bayonet-knife is mounted above the barrel; there is the prospect of attaching a grenade launcher instead.
At the moment, the grenade launcher is installed on the Picatinny rail, which is located under the barrel on a plastic forend. Not only a grenade launcher can be attached to the bar, but also other additional equipment - a laser designator, a flashlight, rangefinders of various types and an additional handle. The handle makes the holding of the machine much more comfortable. Based on the design of the machine - the use of a short stroke of the barrel, mounting on the barrel of an underbarrel-type grenade launcher became impossible. The frame of the grenade launcher is its supporting part. Therefore, the grenade launcher was limited to the length of the grenade table at 18 centimeters. Loading the grenade launcher occurs by breaking the rear of the barrel down. By the way, such a scheme for loading the grenade launcher made it possible to use grenades of different lengths for firing from it. The grenade launcher is locked with a simple retainer, it is located in the immediate vicinity near the trigger. This arrangement makes it possible to prepare the grenade launcher for firing with one hand. USM self-cocking grenade launcher. Pulling on the hook causes the rod to move, which forces the cocking lever to move. The lever sets the hook to the calculated angle for charging the combat type spring. At the top of the movement, the trigger comes off the lever and, under the influence of a spring, strikes the grenade primer. The cocking lever also locks the barrel lock, which completely excludes the possibility of arbitrary opening of the barrel when firing. The sight of the remote-type grenade launcher is mounted on the left of the supporting frame. The aiming bar is spring-loaded and held by a latch.
