Experimental Ukrainian firearms. Part 5. GOPAK and Askoria sniper rifles
Hopak Sniper Rifle
First of all, you need to make an explanation about the name of the weapon, in fact, this is an abbreviation derived from “Gvintivka is operationally portable based on AK”, so the reasoning that with this weapon you can force someone to dance the Hopak dance is nothing more than not the smartest joke. As is clear from the name of the rifle, the Kalashnikov assault rifle, namely the AKM, served as the basis for it. That is, we are talking back about weapons that were obtained by altering the AK.
In this case, it would be entirely appropriate to leave my personal opinion on what the workers of the Mayak plant did, but with great effort of will, I will refrain from this.
In the process of turning the machine gun into a sniper rifle, the workers of the Mayak plant removed the gas outlet assembly, depriving the weapon of automation and making the reloading process manual. It is not entirely clear what they did with the barrel, however, this is not so important. The standard buttstock was changed to a new one, apparently from a PC, a new landing site for an optical sight and bipod installation appeared. Speaking of the optical sight, in most of the photos of this weapon you can see the Schmidt-Bender optical sight, it is not possible to see exactly which model it is, but we can say with confidence that this sight costs at least $ 2500.
Also, in most of the photographs, a fairly voluminous silent-firing device is installed, in connection with this, the weapon is often perceived as silent-firing, however, in this case, with PBS, this is one of the weapon options, that is, the GOPAK rifle can also be found without a silent-firing device. Very often they draw an analogy with weapons chambered for 9x39 and even with a sniper rifle Exhaust. Perhaps, with the use of a silent shooting device, the niches of application for this weapon coincide, however, in terms of characteristics, such a comparison is absolutely incorrect. GOPAK is distinguished by the 7,62x39 cartridge, which in the subsonic version loses in many respects to the 9x39 cartridge options and, of course, 12,7x55, and in the version with a bullet speed exceeding the sound one, it makes the weapon not as quiet as we would like.
If you try to be objective, then the GOPAK sniper rifle is a very cheap attempt to equip the army with low-noise weapons, at the expense of old Soviet stocks. True, during such an alteration, in the literal sense, fully functional automata are destroyed. In addition, the question arises of a sufficient amount of ammunition with a subsonic bullet, but this is already on the conscience of those who came up with such an upgrade.
GOPAK sniper rifle design
As mentioned above, the weapon is obtained by removing the vapor node from AKM. The machine becomes a rifle with a manual reload, and the bolt group itself is not affected. The shutter handle has also been changed to a more comfortable one, according to Mayak plant workers.
The first question, which suggests itself, is to ensure the silent reloading of weapons when using PBS. Since the bolt group remains the same, and the weapon is essentially AK, it turns out that for silent recharging you will have to hold the bolt group in the process of moving forward, with all the consequences, or risk unmasking yourself before the shot.
The second question concerns the removal of the powder gases removal unit from the bore. Was it really necessary to solve the problem so drastically? It would be much more logical to install a gas regulator that allows you to completely block the removal of powder gases, but at the same time leaving the opportunity to use weapons with the original modes of operation. By the way, many have done such a “feint with their ears” and even with a positive result.
GOPAK sniper rifle features
The weight of the GOPAK sniper rifle is 4,7 kilograms, along with the device for silent shooting, without it - 3 kilograms. The total length of 720 millimeters without CBE, with CBE - 870 millimeters. Weapons can be fed from stores with a capacity of 5,10 or 30 7,62x39 cartridges.
Сonclusion
At the moment, the weapon is being tested in the army, it is likely that the GOPAK rifle will be put into service, since when it is created, nothing is added to the design of an already finished weapon, but only taken away. That is, the speed of conversion from AKM is very high and with a minimum of costs. Perhaps, given the lack of such weapons in the army, such a step is really justified, but still it is somehow wrong.
About Ascoria's sniper rifle and similar weapons in general
Unlike the previous rifle, this weapon is more interesting, but there is very little information about it. But there was a lot of tales and legends around, because this part of the article is not so much about a particular rifle, but about weapons with similar ammunition in general.
First of all, you need to start with the ammunition that is used in this weapon, and this is a cartridge with an arrow-shaped bullet based on the 13,2x99 cartridge from the Hotchkiss machine gun, according to one of the versions. It seems to me that the domestic cartridge 12,7x108 served as the basis for the ammunition, which is more logical, since there were a lot of Soviet ammunition, and it would be unprofitable to use "scarce" cartridges in the development of experimental weapons.
Separately, it is worth mentioning that very often in the materials about this weapon you can see images of cartridges that were used when working on the AO-27 project, which is obviously not entirely correct. The only correct image of ammunition for the rifle is in the photo of this weapon and it is obvious that this is a slightly different cartridge than those used to create the Soviet machine gun, for ammunition with arrow-shaped bullets. Based on this, one can safely question the veracity of virtually all sources that mention this rifle.
Does not add confidence in the veracity of the information and constant references either to a friend who saw this weapon in the Caucasus, or to the cousin of the girl's stepbrother, who was lucky enough to hold this weapon in his hands. Based on this, instead of reprinting false information, let's try to give such a weapon an assessment in general, and not specifically the Ascoria sniper rifle.
The main advantage of the weapon chambered with arrow-shaped bullets is the armor-piercing and flat trajectory of the bullet-arrow. Both the first and second are quite good, but arrow-shaped bullets have their drawbacks.
Since the bullet is an arrow, it means that either pallets or leading parts must be used that will cover the body of the arrow, increasing its diameter at least to the size of the plumage. Accordingly, there is a problem of separating these parts after the bullet leaves the bore. Everything is clear with the pallet in the back of the boom, it will somehow affect the position of the boom in space and change its trajectory. The two leading parts, between which the arrow-bullet is sandwiched, look more attractive in this regard, but everything is not so simple with them either, since it is necessary to ensure the simultaneous separation of the arrow from the body during the flight of the bullet. This is easily implemented with new ammunition that was collected a couple of hours ago, the separation occurs almost simultaneously, but what happens if such a cartridge lies in the warehouse for several years? If one of the leading parts “sticks” to the arrow and separates a fraction of a second later, then the arrow will fly in any direction, but not where the shooter was aiming. But, of course, it is possible to solve this problem, no doubt, the question is the cost of the solution.
Another problem is that the arrows of different cartridges must be not just the same, but in fact clones of each other, otherwise it will be very difficult to hit even two shots. Suppose this, too, can be implemented in varying degrees, back, depending on the money spent.
The third problem with such ammunition is a small stopping effect. Due to its high speed and great length, the arrow will not tumble in the body when it hits, as many argue, but will pass right through leaving a straight wound channel, with a temporary cavity, of course, but this is clearly not enough. It was for this reason that Dvoryaninov made an inscription on the body of the arrow of his cartridge so that it would break when it hit soft tissues. That is, there is no longer my reasoning, but a conclusion based on the experience of a gunsmith.
But for this, we get a higher armor-piercing and flat flight path, right?
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of weapons, first of all, you need to determine its niche. In our case, this is clearly not shooting at tanks, and firing at lightly armored vehicles and opponents in heavy body armor. At the moment, large-caliber rifles and machine guns with a caliber of 12,7 millimeters are more than successfully coping with these goals, while the hit efficiency is such that I would not recommend viewing the results of such hits. In this regard, the question is, is increased armor-piercing necessary with a significant increase in the cost of ammunition, if, let's say, the armor-piercing potential is not fully used, and the hit efficiency will be lower?
Well, a significant advantage to allocate a more flat flight path in the modern world is somehow wrong. With an abundance of fairly advanced ballistic calculators, range finders, and so on, this is not so important.
In addition, the cartridge with a swept bullet will be very difficult to make incendiary, tracer, in fact it is only one type of ammunition - armor-piercing. In the case of both domestic and foreign ammunition caliber 12,7 millimeters nomenclature is very extensive.
You can consider this weapon in the perspective of the further development of personal protective equipment. But here there are some nuances. First of all, I hardly see a person who can transfer the bullets of the 12,7x108 cartridge to the armored plate without consequences, at a distance of aiming fire. Of course, progress does not stand still, and periodically skips news about the development of body armor, which redistribute the impact when hit, but so far the development has not been going for a couple of decades, which indicates either low efficiency or the cost of the final product.
Based on this, we can conclude that the weapon is chambered with arrow-shaped bullets, at the moment is certainly interesting. It is interesting to study and develop certain experiences that can be used in the future, with the spread of more advanced means of individual armor. The use of such ammunition in combat handguns does not make sense yet. However, the type of ammunition itself has a considerable prospect in the civilian market when used in smooth-bore guns, significantly expanding the effective range of use of the latter, even with a low quality of manufacturing bullets, to several hundred meters.
As for the Ascoria rifle, then, as I see it, after calculating the cost of ammunition, the project was simply closed, and it cannot be said that this decision was wrong.
Sources:
infogun.ru
silovik.net
zbroya.com.ua
modernfirearms.net
zonwar.ru
112.ua
- Mark Poddubny
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Experimental Ukrainian firearms. Part of 2. Pistols "Khortytsya" and KBS-1 "Viy"
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Experimental Ukrainian firearms. Part of 4. The Vepr, Vulkan and Malyuk submachine guns
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