Civilian Firearms Market

Why do you need to carry that much ammo when hunting?

I don't normally carry 30 rounds but being able to carry 20 is handy if I am shooting groups of goats or pigs.

Actually, a 9 x 53R cartridge is available. But that is no longer popular.

That calibre was largely created for use in export rifles for European countries that banned hunting with "military" calibres. It is simply a necked out 7.62 x 54mm round for the Medvedev which from memory was a sporterised SVD for export.

Hunters are not interested in subsonic 9 x 39 subsonic rounds...they want to be loud

In NZ where suppressors are legal I am sure the low noise of the 9 x 39mm would be appreciated.

There are plenty aftermarket Mosin stocks such as this one: http://www.amazon.com/ATI-Mosin-Nagant-7-62x54R-Monte/dp/B000HOT2SK

Got it... to plasticy...

And already got several in original military stocks. I like the look of this new stock because it is both sporty and good looking.

So I have been thinking, and I think a Russian rifle company should come up with a range of guns for civilian shooters that are not semi automatic.

My idea is to make the weapons as compact as possible by making them bullpups.

The advantage is a short compact weapon that is nicely balanced and easy to carry.

The problem is the mechanism as a bolt action would be awkward in a bullpup.

So I think the best solution would be a bullpup with a straight pull mechanism, but instead of having a cocking handle sticking out the side of the gun they could use a pump sliding forearm like a pump action shotgun.

I have been looking at the muzzle velocities of the 5.45mm round from different barrel lengths and thanks to the AK-100 series and the upgraded RPKs I can see the muzzle velocities of the 5.45mm and 5.56mm rounds in different barrel lengths and it appears to me that as the barrel lengths get longer the 5.45mm rounds get better.

I should point out that in theory the longer the barrel the higher the muzzle velocity, but the law of diminished returns always applies. Adding barrel length increases weight and makes the weapon less "handy" so the designer has to decide how much velocity they want.

For instance the little .22lr round has a small propellent case so with .22 cal rifles a barrel length of more than about 43cms does not increase velocity very much because of the powder capacity of the round.

There are lots of .22LR calibre rifles with barrels of greater length but that is to cater to the average shooters belief that a longer barrel is needed for velocity and accuracy.

Where rounds that don't rely on velocity for effect like the 7.62 x 39mm rifle your focus is on having as short a barrel as practical, because having a longer barrel does increase velocity but also makes the weapon less handy and being shorter and handier is more valuable than a few extra mps in muzzle velocity.

For the 5.45mm round however velocity is important because it uses a small light projectile so much of its effect is from its speed.

Using a bullpup layout you could use a 60-61cm barrel yet still not have a long awkward weapon, and the straight pull mechanism would be smoother than a pumpaction. The fact that it is not an automatic weapon means in New Zealand you would not be limited to 7 shot magazines, and of course without an automatic mechanism that needs to cope with recoil then it would be much easier to develop multi calibre versions... a long barrel 5.45mm weapon that would give you .223 level performance at lower ammo cost, a shorter barrel 7.62x39mm option that takes standard AK magazines... perhaps fitted with a suppressor that could be used on Goats and Pigs, a 7.62 x 54mm for larger game like deer or smaller game to longer ranges, and a 12 gauge model that uses Saiga magazines with a range of barrels and chokes.

I would make the design so that the empty shell case was ejected down through an ejection port directly behind the magazine, so with the mechanism closed on an empty chamber you simply pump the slide back so the bolt rides over the top round in the mag and back to the rear and hits a buffer to stop it. The buffer will be far back behind the mag to allow a full live round to be ejected with a cutout in the roof that would hit the base of any round held in place on the bolt and flip it down and out of the weapon... in this case the chamber was empty so nothing is ejected. On the forward stroke the bolt and bolt carrier move forward and strip the top round off the magazine as it passes and rams the round into the chamber ready to fire. The trigger is pulled and the round is fired but the mechanism remains closed and locked. The shooter then slides the pump back which unlocks the bolt and drags the empty shell case out of the chamber over the magazine and back past the mag where the cutout projection hits the top of the shell base and flips the empty case down and out of the ejection port.

If a round is loaded into the chamber but the shooter decides not to fire, the round can be ejected by pulling the pump back unlocking the bolt and extracting the round from the chamber over the magazine and the cutout hits the top of the base of the shell and ejects the live round down and out of the rifle... with the pump slide held back the chamber remains empty so removing the mag and sliding the pump forward and reinserting the mag gives you a rifle with a loaded mag but an empty chamber. Obviously you would want a manual safety lever as well.

With downward ejection you can use the weapon left or right handed without adjustment.

With the bullpup design you can fit iron sights to the barrels, plus picatinny rails so each barrel can be individually zeroed plus you can have a scope for each calibre (the different calibres probably justify different scopes because different scopes are better for different types of hunting.

For long range rounds a high power scope is essential, but for shotguns a red dot scope with x1 magnification is best as it gives a wide field of view. Shotguns are not much use at more than about 40m except when using slugs, but then when using slugs a rifle is generally more useful.

For 5.45mm round use on goats or even rabbits out to 300m or so you will need a high power scope like a 3-9x, while for the 7.62 x 39mm out to 150m on goats then a decent x4 or x6 would be ideal. For the 12 gauge a low power red dot sight would give a wide clear view of the target even at very close range.

Certainly for export then .223 and 7.62 x 51 models make sense as well.

I would say I hope that Russias entry into the WTO might lift a lot of restrictions to trade that have been put up in the past, but New Zealand has been in the WTO for years and we are still considering free trade agreements with countries also in the WTO, so I think there is something broken with the WTO agreement that was supposed to be about free trade.

Was just looking through this site: http://www.tulatskib.ru/HTML_a/ohota_prod_a.html

and found the OTs-48 rifle, which appears to be a Mosin Nagant 1891/30 rifle with a modern sporting rifle stock... I am interested!

They include an advert for the stock for 7,000 rubles which by my calculations works out at about $280 NZ.

Not sure how much it would cost to ship to NZ but it is well worth looking into.

Well, I sent them a message to find out how much two stocks would cost to send to New Zealand and it was 1100 Euros!

That means instead of about $300 NZ it would cost about $850 NZ per stock.

The rifle I want to put it on is not in great condition, so it is hard to justify spending another $850 on a rifle that cost $65 dollars to buy in the first place.

I have asked them about another rifle they advertise that looks a lot like the Yastreb revolver rifle.

It is based on the Nagant revolver but has a carbine length barrel and stock and can hold 9 rounds of ammo, either .22LR or .22WMR, which I find very intriguing. .22LR makes it a cheap (to fire) compact little rifle, while the .22WMR would make it a potent weapon out to 100m or so. The revolver action and with subsonic ammo it could be a very quiet weapon with a suppressor fitted.

Even if it is quite expensive I will likely just save up and buy it, the main problem will be getting it into the country (legally of course).

BTW thanks for the site link TheArmenian.

Not really very Russian though is it?

It wont fit in a standard holster, and uses nonstandard ammo (for Russia).

You would be much better off with something like Klin or Kedr or Kashtan.

Nice, thanks for posting.
Specifically the molot rifles in 9mm, and 5.45mm.

The main barrier on the domestic military market is that their rifles are RPK based, and therefore would not be totally suitable as the basis for an AK-74 upgrade.

Well technically it is firing 16 shots, as it fires two shots with each pull of the trigger... the obvious problem is that for a minor increase in size and weight they could have made a SMG with a 30 shot mag in 45 calibre that will get bullets down range faster and be easier to control, easier to clean etc etc.

I am sure if hollywood ever sees this it might appear in some movie as a bad guy boss weapon, but as a standard side arm it only has the capacity to be popular in the US.

Lets face it... in the US there are gun magazines that have never had any pistol other than the 1911 Colt on their cover for the last 50 years and they will still sell in the US, but outside the US such magazines would not sell so well.

I think the company making it think of it as a new type of weapon that is to be used in the field.

In a way it is quite logical as often with pistol training many users prefer the double tap to try to hit the target with two bullets instead of just one to increase lethality. In this case two shots are fired and with shots to centre of mass should both hit.

Of course in my opinion it would make rather more sense to just go for a 357 magnum pistol with a large capacity mag with hollow point bullets.

The makers of this pistol are the same company that makes the new Strike One pistol and it has a joint relationship with a European small arms company.

I must admit I have a serious soft spot for the old Soviet triple barrel assault rifle...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TKB-059

Considering the title of this thread I should really mention this weapon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP-82_Russian_Space_Pistol

This is a weapon that is basically a very large pistol with two main barrels that can fire 12.7mm x 76mm shotgun like shells (note that makes it a 40 gauge shot gun calibre) or it can fire custom made flare rounds. Under these two barrels there is another barrel chambered for the standard Russian 5.45 x 39mm assault rifle round.

The purpose of these weapons was as a defence for the cosmonauts after they land for the period of time between when they land and when they are found and rescued.

There was at least one case where the cosmonauts had to spend a night in the cold before being found and rescued, so these pistols are not fancy toys taken for fun, they are serious pieces of equipment that include the capacity to launch flares, and to hunt or protect themselves. The stock of the pistol is a machette.

Note one of the main reasons they stopped using them was because the special ammo was expensive and hard to get for the two shotgun barrels/flare launcher tubes.

I am actually rather surprised they didn't change the design to use two .410 calibre tubes along with the 5.45mm rounds as much cheaper more widely used alternative calibres. The combination of solid slug loads from two .410 barrels and a 5.45mm high velocity round would suffice in driving off even a pack of wolves.