The second life of the SVD: the legendary rifle and its future
Recently, unusual automatic sniper rifles began to appear at exhibitions, shooting ranges and in combat units, in which only a professional recognizes the good old SVD - the Dragunov sniper rifle, which was adopted by 1963 in the distant year. The rifle is legendary, but so old that many people have long thought it right to send it to the museum together with the 7,62 x 54 mm cartridge, which was put into service in the 19th century. Some time ago, Valentin Vlasenko agreed with this. Why his opinion has changed, let him tell.
For a long time with varying degrees of success, I am engaged in shooting from a carbine. After shooting to the master of sports in practical shooting, he discovered for himself a high-precision shooting. In this case, the love of semi-automatic rifles remained. But when the price for match ammunition .308 caliber went too high for 200 rubles per shot, I decided that I needed import substitution - a Russian semiautomatic device for the domestic cartridge 7,62 x 54 mm. This cartridge suited me - it worked perfectly from bolted (with a longitudinally sliding rotary bolt) rifles, for example, CB-98 and MT116. Having taken revenge on advertising, I bought a civilian version of the SVD - “native”, all in factory stamps, 1967 year of release. This is a legend, with her older brothers classmates in Afghanistan fought. Put a sight on it and on 100 m assembled a group in 9, see AK-47 collects better. In general, I was very upset because I bought a rifle for $ 3000 - legends are not cheap. I wrote to the seller, to which I received the answer that I simply do not know how to shoot. He laughed at the answer. We had to do something, especially since tuning weapons I have been doing it for a long time - I started with CFRP rifle stocks, and then I took up aluminum forend for Heckler & Koch HK417. Dismantled, began to look what can be done. The two main problems of the SVD are the not hung barrel and the side mount of the optics, on which even the most ideal bracket "walks".
On the first problem, the picture was not very joyful - ideally, the trunk should not touch anything, except for the receiver, to which it is attached. It is impossible to get rid of the gas chamber, but each additional attachment point introduces its own parasitic vibrations when firing, which adversely affects the accuracy of shooting.
When Evgeny Dragunov developed his rifle, he proceeded from the fact that all the iron fittings fastened on the barrel should be seated on the barrel with minimal tension. Unfortunately, for civilian products, the tolerances for the manufacture of fittings may not be observed in order. And as a result, a “sausage” with five clamping is obtained from the barrel - when the barrel heats up, all these clamping begin to work differently from shot to shot.
Valentin Vlasenko - a man who breathed a second life into the SVD. Now you know him in person. And not just snipers.
Not relying on others
The problem with clamping the barrel was quite effectively treated by the famous Russian gunsmith Gennady Kozhaev, whom the shooters respectfully call “Mikhalych”. For his work, Gennady Mikhailovich called the price, commensurate with the price of a rifle, and a period of six months. If it was still possible to put up with the price, then the dates did not suit categorically. In addition, the second problem of the SVD, the installation of optics on the side rail, was not solved. This problem is familiar to everyone who is trying to shoot accurately from the SVD for long distances: the rifle gathers a group, but every day this group may find itself in a new place, the average hit point - STF - “walks” on the target. So I had to get down to business myself. Worn out, removed all the accessories from the trunk of his SVD, and I still had a bare trunk. The first version of his rifle was made in draft form, using welding, pieces of steel and forearm from HK417. This Frankenstein weighed six pounds, but the main thing - he started shooting!
For the next three months, I painted a kit - a set of parts that replace the factory ones and eliminate the problems described. Then I looked for another three months who would undertake to do it and, finally, milled the first version of the chassis. Initially I thought of making the SAGE EBR chassis for the American M14 automatic rifle, which was in service with the US Army in 1950 — 1960. It is a large "cup", which puts a rifle. But for this, we would have to change a lot of additional details: the lid check, the fuse box — in essence, the number of parts to be changed was “pulled” to a new rifle and exactly crossed out the possibility of self-installation of the chassis. And it was one of the fundamental moments, the user should be able to put the chassis himself with the help of improvised tools without affecting the main parts.
An earlier version of the SVD Vlasenko,
in which you can still guess the donor - SIDS with a folding butt. Demon's robotic thermal sight gives you at night a multiple advantage over an opponent who doesn't have such a sight. True, he stands like a few sniper rifles.
Therefore, I settled on a three-component chassis. Its central element is a supporting steel coupling mounted on a ledge from the receiver. When this barrel passes through the clutch. The second main element is the upper “bar” (in terms of shooters from AR15 - “Upper”). This element is an aluminum cup with a Picatinny rail with a length of 460 mm on top, having a mount on the regular lateral tail tail and simultaneous mounting over / from the sides on an already installed steel coupling. This turns the “Upper” into a two-arch supporting structure for optics, at the same time adding rigidity to the receiver. The third element of the chassis is the lower hemisphere, which is connected to the clutch and the upper one. Since the top bar for attaching optics has dropped, the base cover requires cutting — after all, it now can be locked butted with an apper. These sacrifices had to be made to ensure the best ergonomics of the final product - the overall vertical size of the rifle did not change. In this case, incomplete disassembly for cleaning and maintenance of the rifle is performed as usual, but without the need to dismantle the optics. Patenting has suddenly become a serious block of design work: not to violate someone else's intellectual property, but at the same time protecting your ideas is just as important as making the product available for sale.
Happened!
The process is carried away - now the eighth version of our chassis will go into production. Constantly we find that we can still improve. For example, it turned out that the majority of SVD trunk looks left and down. And if we make the top bar coaxially with the box, then in some “extreme” cases the corrections at the sight for long-range shooting begin to be lacking and specialized brackets are required for mounting the sight. Therefore, in the new version, the entire plank is milled with a bevel for the necessary 20 angular minutes. This jamb was shown to us, by the way, by the guys serving in special units who are now chasing the samples provided to them "both in the tail and in the mane."
One of the latest versions of SVD Vlasenko
can be identified by the adapter, which raises the axis of the butt, aligning it with the axis of the bore. According to the store, experts can also guess that this model was created under the NATO cartridge .308 (7,62 x 51), the release of which was successfully mastered by our ammunition factories.
The height of the Picatinny rail is made so that the shooter can use standard AR-brackets (made for the AR-15 rifle) for a sight or collimator and he doesn’t need to adjust anything - everything will fit in height. For the chassis kit, we made an adapter that lifts the stock axis, aligning it with the barrel bore axis, so that the recoil does not twist the rifle up and sideways. Plus, we developed and released a gas chamber with the ability to adjust the volume of gas going to recharge. For many civilian shooters, this function was necessary.
At first I thought that I would make ten whales for myself and my friends, But no production was taken for a lot in less than 50 kits. I had to do 50 kits. Taking into account the cost of development, patenting, installation details, errors and unscrupulous suppliers, this batch was “golden”. Part of it was given to the military for tests, part to their riflemen, but, fortunately, the whole game was sold out in a couple of months. The second batch was disassembled by friends of friends. Part of the sets went to the prizes of the arrows at the competitions. Now we are making the fourth batch specifically for the military.
The best compliment for us was that the SVD in our chassis is compared to the Heckler & Koch HK417. Economic calculations are also in our favor. "German" is now cheaper than 360 rubles in Russia can not be bought. The civilian version of the SVD (“Tiger” carbine) costs from 000 rubles, our kit - 40. Total: 000 rubles. You can put a whale in a workshop - three hours of work and 60 rubles. Cartridges are seven to ten times cheaper (!).
Now about the shooting. The Heckler & Koch HK417 gives 1,5 minutes of arc (weapon accuracy) for ten rounds of army match ammunition, but weighs under 5 kg with a 20-inch barrel. Ours with a 24-inch barrel weighs 4,2 kg. At the same time, she puts 10 7N14 sniper cartridges in 1,2-1,5 arc minutes. Gross ammunition - in 1,5-2 arc minutes. And it allows, without dismantling the main sight, to use the entire range of night and thermal imaging attachments, rangefinders and other accessories, without which a modern semi-automatic complex for long-range shooting is unthinkable. So it is too early to write off the legendary SVD for retirement - I hope it will still shoot well.
The Dragunov sniper rifle was not created for snipers in the modern sense of the word, but for the most accurate, accurate shooters in an ordinary military unit.
The main task of modern snipers, working, as a rule, in pairs or groups, is the defeat of important targets with the minimum consumption of ammunition at the maximum range. They are mainly used rifles with a tilt-and-slide shutter with manual reloading, very powerful ammunition, expensive sight complexes, range finders and weather stations. The well-aimed arrows work straight off, in combat formations, at distances up to 600 meters, and the main requirements for their weapons are accuracy and high density of fire. It is under these characteristics and created SVD.
How you can adapt the SVD for new realities, to increase accuracy, can be seen on the example of the Vlasenko rifle. And the company IWT (“Innovative Weapon Technologies”) offers sights, which in modern combat are no less important than the weapons and ammunition itself. And for well-aimed shooters, their value can hardly be overestimated, since they are much inferior to professional snipers in high-precision shooting skills.
Vampire ST is a lightweight and compact recessed ballistic calculator of the new generation.
It easily integrates with a tactical optical sight (in the photo with one of Dedal DH 3 − 12 x 50, one of the best domestic sights), it mates with the vertical correction input mechanism and provides instant automatic calculation of vertical and horizontal corrections. The built-in OLED-display shows the calculated value of the corrections, the distance to the target, as well as the distance of the exact shot for the current position of the drum of vertical corrections. The shooter has two options: if time permits, make the necessary corrections or instantly make the necessary takeaway, guided by the picture on the display.
Vampire ST is optionally equipped with an IWT laser rangefinder, which communicates with the ballistic module via cable or radio channel. As a result, the shooter needs only to aim at the target, press the range-finder button, enter corrections or place the crosshair on the desired values and pull the trigger.
Demon is the younger brother of the automated Sheitan thermal imaging system, about which we have repeatedly told on the pages of our magazine.
And if Sheitan is designed for high-profile snipers (and not all of them can afford this technical miracle), then Demon is the ideal solution for our accurate shooters. In a small complex fit thermal imaging sight, highly selective laser range finder, a device for photo and video fixation, a ballistic calculator, a navigation system and (optionally) a weather station. The list of everything the Demon is capable of takes up a whole page, but in practice it looks like this: you point at a crosshair at the target, pull the trigger, and the bullet hits exactly where the crosshair was. The calculation of the external ballistics, the distance to the target, the elevation angle of the target, the influence of weather conditions, wind and even derivation and the Coriolis effect - all this is done instantly by Demon himself. It looks like a fantasy, but we shot - this is reality. But why then is this not a real sniper device? The fact is that the Demon detects a target at a distance of 1500 m, but it can reliably identify it only on 180 m. Precisely, at such distances in complete darkness, exact arrows work.
For a long time with varying degrees of success, I am engaged in shooting from a carbine. After shooting to the master of sports in practical shooting, he discovered for himself a high-precision shooting. In this case, the love of semi-automatic rifles remained. But when the price for match ammunition .308 caliber went too high for 200 rubles per shot, I decided that I needed import substitution - a Russian semiautomatic device for the domestic cartridge 7,62 x 54 mm. This cartridge suited me - it worked perfectly from bolted (with a longitudinally sliding rotary bolt) rifles, for example, CB-98 and MT116. Having taken revenge on advertising, I bought a civilian version of the SVD - “native”, all in factory stamps, 1967 year of release. This is a legend, with her older brothers classmates in Afghanistan fought. Put a sight on it and on 100 m assembled a group in 9, see AK-47 collects better. In general, I was very upset because I bought a rifle for $ 3000 - legends are not cheap. I wrote to the seller, to which I received the answer that I simply do not know how to shoot. He laughed at the answer. We had to do something, especially since tuning weapons I have been doing it for a long time - I started with CFRP rifle stocks, and then I took up aluminum forend for Heckler & Koch HK417. Dismantled, began to look what can be done. The two main problems of the SVD are the not hung barrel and the side mount of the optics, on which even the most ideal bracket "walks".
On the first problem, the picture was not very joyful - ideally, the trunk should not touch anything, except for the receiver, to which it is attached. It is impossible to get rid of the gas chamber, but each additional attachment point introduces its own parasitic vibrations when firing, which adversely affects the accuracy of shooting.
When Evgeny Dragunov developed his rifle, he proceeded from the fact that all the iron fittings fastened on the barrel should be seated on the barrel with minimal tension. Unfortunately, for civilian products, the tolerances for the manufacture of fittings may not be observed in order. And as a result, a “sausage” with five clamping is obtained from the barrel - when the barrel heats up, all these clamping begin to work differently from shot to shot.
Valentin Vlasenko - a man who breathed a second life into the SVD. Now you know him in person. And not just snipers.
Not relying on others
The problem with clamping the barrel was quite effectively treated by the famous Russian gunsmith Gennady Kozhaev, whom the shooters respectfully call “Mikhalych”. For his work, Gennady Mikhailovich called the price, commensurate with the price of a rifle, and a period of six months. If it was still possible to put up with the price, then the dates did not suit categorically. In addition, the second problem of the SVD, the installation of optics on the side rail, was not solved. This problem is familiar to everyone who is trying to shoot accurately from the SVD for long distances: the rifle gathers a group, but every day this group may find itself in a new place, the average hit point - STF - “walks” on the target. So I had to get down to business myself. Worn out, removed all the accessories from the trunk of his SVD, and I still had a bare trunk. The first version of his rifle was made in draft form, using welding, pieces of steel and forearm from HK417. This Frankenstein weighed six pounds, but the main thing - he started shooting!
For the next three months, I painted a kit - a set of parts that replace the factory ones and eliminate the problems described. Then I looked for another three months who would undertake to do it and, finally, milled the first version of the chassis. Initially I thought of making the SAGE EBR chassis for the American M14 automatic rifle, which was in service with the US Army in 1950 — 1960. It is a large "cup", which puts a rifle. But for this, we would have to change a lot of additional details: the lid check, the fuse box — in essence, the number of parts to be changed was “pulled” to a new rifle and exactly crossed out the possibility of self-installation of the chassis. And it was one of the fundamental moments, the user should be able to put the chassis himself with the help of improvised tools without affecting the main parts.
An earlier version of the SVD Vlasenko,
in which you can still guess the donor - SIDS with a folding butt. Demon's robotic thermal sight gives you at night a multiple advantage over an opponent who doesn't have such a sight. True, he stands like a few sniper rifles.
Therefore, I settled on a three-component chassis. Its central element is a supporting steel coupling mounted on a ledge from the receiver. When this barrel passes through the clutch. The second main element is the upper “bar” (in terms of shooters from AR15 - “Upper”). This element is an aluminum cup with a Picatinny rail with a length of 460 mm on top, having a mount on the regular lateral tail tail and simultaneous mounting over / from the sides on an already installed steel coupling. This turns the “Upper” into a two-arch supporting structure for optics, at the same time adding rigidity to the receiver. The third element of the chassis is the lower hemisphere, which is connected to the clutch and the upper one. Since the top bar for attaching optics has dropped, the base cover requires cutting — after all, it now can be locked butted with an apper. These sacrifices had to be made to ensure the best ergonomics of the final product - the overall vertical size of the rifle did not change. In this case, incomplete disassembly for cleaning and maintenance of the rifle is performed as usual, but without the need to dismantle the optics. Patenting has suddenly become a serious block of design work: not to violate someone else's intellectual property, but at the same time protecting your ideas is just as important as making the product available for sale.
Happened!
The process is carried away - now the eighth version of our chassis will go into production. Constantly we find that we can still improve. For example, it turned out that the majority of SVD trunk looks left and down. And if we make the top bar coaxially with the box, then in some “extreme” cases the corrections at the sight for long-range shooting begin to be lacking and specialized brackets are required for mounting the sight. Therefore, in the new version, the entire plank is milled with a bevel for the necessary 20 angular minutes. This jamb was shown to us, by the way, by the guys serving in special units who are now chasing the samples provided to them "both in the tail and in the mane."
One of the latest versions of SVD Vlasenko
can be identified by the adapter, which raises the axis of the butt, aligning it with the axis of the bore. According to the store, experts can also guess that this model was created under the NATO cartridge .308 (7,62 x 51), the release of which was successfully mastered by our ammunition factories.
The height of the Picatinny rail is made so that the shooter can use standard AR-brackets (made for the AR-15 rifle) for a sight or collimator and he doesn’t need to adjust anything - everything will fit in height. For the chassis kit, we made an adapter that lifts the stock axis, aligning it with the barrel bore axis, so that the recoil does not twist the rifle up and sideways. Plus, we developed and released a gas chamber with the ability to adjust the volume of gas going to recharge. For many civilian shooters, this function was necessary.
At first I thought that I would make ten whales for myself and my friends, But no production was taken for a lot in less than 50 kits. I had to do 50 kits. Taking into account the cost of development, patenting, installation details, errors and unscrupulous suppliers, this batch was “golden”. Part of it was given to the military for tests, part to their riflemen, but, fortunately, the whole game was sold out in a couple of months. The second batch was disassembled by friends of friends. Part of the sets went to the prizes of the arrows at the competitions. Now we are making the fourth batch specifically for the military.
The best compliment for us was that the SVD in our chassis is compared to the Heckler & Koch HK417. Economic calculations are also in our favor. "German" is now cheaper than 360 rubles in Russia can not be bought. The civilian version of the SVD (“Tiger” carbine) costs from 000 rubles, our kit - 40. Total: 000 rubles. You can put a whale in a workshop - three hours of work and 60 rubles. Cartridges are seven to ten times cheaper (!).
Now about the shooting. The Heckler & Koch HK417 gives 1,5 minutes of arc (weapon accuracy) for ten rounds of army match ammunition, but weighs under 5 kg with a 20-inch barrel. Ours with a 24-inch barrel weighs 4,2 kg. At the same time, she puts 10 7N14 sniper cartridges in 1,2-1,5 arc minutes. Gross ammunition - in 1,5-2 arc minutes. And it allows, without dismantling the main sight, to use the entire range of night and thermal imaging attachments, rangefinders and other accessories, without which a modern semi-automatic complex for long-range shooting is unthinkable. So it is too early to write off the legendary SVD for retirement - I hope it will still shoot well.
The Dragunov sniper rifle was not created for snipers in the modern sense of the word, but for the most accurate, accurate shooters in an ordinary military unit.
The main task of modern snipers, working, as a rule, in pairs or groups, is the defeat of important targets with the minimum consumption of ammunition at the maximum range. They are mainly used rifles with a tilt-and-slide shutter with manual reloading, very powerful ammunition, expensive sight complexes, range finders and weather stations. The well-aimed arrows work straight off, in combat formations, at distances up to 600 meters, and the main requirements for their weapons are accuracy and high density of fire. It is under these characteristics and created SVD.
How you can adapt the SVD for new realities, to increase accuracy, can be seen on the example of the Vlasenko rifle. And the company IWT (“Innovative Weapon Technologies”) offers sights, which in modern combat are no less important than the weapons and ammunition itself. And for well-aimed shooters, their value can hardly be overestimated, since they are much inferior to professional snipers in high-precision shooting skills.
Vampire ST is a lightweight and compact recessed ballistic calculator of the new generation.
It easily integrates with a tactical optical sight (in the photo with one of Dedal DH 3 − 12 x 50, one of the best domestic sights), it mates with the vertical correction input mechanism and provides instant automatic calculation of vertical and horizontal corrections. The built-in OLED-display shows the calculated value of the corrections, the distance to the target, as well as the distance of the exact shot for the current position of the drum of vertical corrections. The shooter has two options: if time permits, make the necessary corrections or instantly make the necessary takeaway, guided by the picture on the display.
Vampire ST is optionally equipped with an IWT laser rangefinder, which communicates with the ballistic module via cable or radio channel. As a result, the shooter needs only to aim at the target, press the range-finder button, enter corrections or place the crosshair on the desired values and pull the trigger.
Demon is the younger brother of the automated Sheitan thermal imaging system, about which we have repeatedly told on the pages of our magazine.
And if Sheitan is designed for high-profile snipers (and not all of them can afford this technical miracle), then Demon is the ideal solution for our accurate shooters. In a small complex fit thermal imaging sight, highly selective laser range finder, a device for photo and video fixation, a ballistic calculator, a navigation system and (optionally) a weather station. The list of everything the Demon is capable of takes up a whole page, but in practice it looks like this: you point at a crosshair at the target, pull the trigger, and the bullet hits exactly where the crosshair was. The calculation of the external ballistics, the distance to the target, the elevation angle of the target, the influence of weather conditions, wind and even derivation and the Coriolis effect - all this is done instantly by Demon himself. It looks like a fantasy, but we shot - this is reality. But why then is this not a real sniper device? The fact is that the Demon detects a target at a distance of 1500 m, but it can reliably identify it only on 180 m. Precisely, at such distances in complete darkness, exact arrows work.
Information