6,5-mm cartridge Fedorov
In domestic history designer gunsmith Vladimir Grigorievich Fedorov entered as the creator of the first in the history of the machine. Originally weapon chambered for the caliber 6,5-mm, it was called a “machine gun”, the word “automatic” that we all used to use appeared later. At the front, the new weapon turned out to be in December 1916, but was released in a very limited series. The serial production of new weapons began after the end of the First World War. In total, up to 1924, approximately 3400 Fedorov machines were produced. Initially, for his model of automatic weapons, the designer was going to use his own cartridge of the caliber 6,5 mm, but already during the war in order to quickly launch the machine into production, the choice was made in favor of the Japanese cartridge 6,5x50 mm Arisaka.
XX century Russian army met with the famous three-line Mosin system 1891 model year. The name of the “three-way line” that entered into mass use directly referred to the caliber of this weapon, which was equal to three lines. The line is an outdated measure of length, which was 0,1 inches or 2,54 mm, and the caliber of the Mosin rifle was respectively 7,62-mm. At that time, the main ammunition for small arms of the Russian imperial army was the cartridge 7,62x54 mm R. The rifle itself, like the cartridge for it, was a completely modern weapon, comparable in capabilities with the best foreign counterparts. Fate prepared the Mosin rifle a long life, it was the main weapon of the Russian infantryman both in the First and in the Second World War, and in total about 37 million pieces of such rifles were fired.
Despite the fact that the cartridge caliber 7,62 mm satisfied Russian military, the search for alternative ammunition has always been. Young officers of the State Agrarian University, among whom was the outstanding Russian and Soviet designer Vladimir Fyodorov in the future, followed the novelties of the arms world and current trends. The fact that a new 6,5-mm caliber cartridge appeared at the end of the 19th century did not pass by them. The first such weapon was adopted by the Italians. We are talking about the cartridge 6,5 × 52 mm Mannlicher-Carcano, to the eponymous Manlicher-Carcano rifle, sadly famous throughout the world after the shots in Dallas 22 November 1963 of the year. Mannlicher-Carcano M91 / 38 6,5-mm Lee Harvey Oswald is believed to have shot and killed American President John F. Kennedy. Following Italy, the Scandinavian countries turned to the new patron. In Sweden and Norway, a few years later the 6,5 × 55 mm Swedish Mauser cartridge appeared. For the Scandinavians, the Greeks and Romanians paid attention to the new cartridge, and they also switched to 6,5 × 52 mm Mannlicher-Carcano.
At the same time, the 6,5-mm cartridge 6,5 × 50 SR, or Arisaka, adopted by the Japanese imperial army in 1897, had the greatest connection with Russia. Russian troops were faced with a new caliber for them during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and already during the First World War, the tsarist government signed a contract with the Japanese to supply Arisak rifles and carbines and cartridges for them. This was done due to the lack of their own small arms. Arisaka rifles and carbines were used extensively on navy, on the Caucasian and Northern fronts. At the same time, more than 780 million rounds of ammunition were purchased for them. Also, the production of such cartridges was started in St. Petersburg, where the St. Petersburg Cartridge Plant monthly produced up to 200 thousand of such ammunition.
The transition to a new caliber, which in relation to all the cartridges and rifle systems that were common at that time, was reduced, was considered quite obvious. Ammunition caliber 6,5 mm differed best ballistics, which manifested itself even with the use of blunt bullets of that time period. In addition, there were other very important advantages: reducing the weight of the ammunition wearable and the better fitness of reduced-caliber ammunition for use with automatic weapons, which began to declare themselves louder and louder. The only question that caused disputes and doubts among the military was the question of the sufficient slaughter of the new cartridges.
The study of this issue based on the experience of the Russian-Japanese war was precisely the work of Vladimir Fedorov, who for this looked at the reports of doctors about the wounds received by soldiers and officers on the battlefield. After analyzing and processing the readings, the young officer of the GAU Artillery Committee concluded that the new Japanese 6,5-mm rifles, like the old 8-mm rifles of the Murat system, were not particularly distinguished by their destructive ability. This was especially characteristic of injuries received at medium or long distances. At the same time, in a collision at short distances, the 6,5-mm bullet left terrible injuries. It was noted that the new bullet had a higher flight speed and at close distances, getting into a person could be deformed and tumble in the tissues, causing heavy damage to internal organs. The main condition for the explosive effect of such bullets was the speed that allowed the destruction of medium-sized bodies, which included, for example, the human skull. In this sense, the destructive ability of 6,5-mm bullets at close range combat was higher than that of 8-mm bullets.
These findings, which were formulated by Fedorov, in 1911 year were confirmed on the tests of ammunition of the new caliber in Russia. That year, 6-mm, 6,5-mm and 7-mm cartridges were tested in our country. To assess the destructive power of new ammunition, shooting was carried out both on horse carcasses and human bodies, as well as on boards, masonry, etc. The tests showed that the 6,5-mm and 7-mm cartridges have sufficient destructive power, while there was no significant difference between them, but the XAUM-mm cartridge was rejected by the GAU Commission.
Vladimir Grigorievich Fedorov graduated from the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy in 1900, and almost immediately was appointed to serve in the Artillery Committee of the GAU. The young design engineer worked a lot on studying the specifics of using new ammunition from different countries. During the development and adoption of the upgraded 7,62x54 mm cartridge with a light bullet, the young designer presented his own concept for the 6,5 mm caliber rifle ammunition. The new cartridge of reduced power was distinguished by its perspective design and should have been ideally suited for firing from automatic weapons. The creation of ammunition of such a caliber Fedorov was largely inspired by the experience of the Russian-Japanese war and the use of the 6,5xNNXX mm cartridge by the Japanese.
Already in 1911, Vladimir Fedorov presented his 5-charging automatic rifle under the usual cartridge 7,62x54 mm (in modern terminology - a self-loading rifle). In 1912, the new weapon passed the test stage at the test site, and the artillery committee decided to purchase a batch of new rifles. At the same time, the designer worked on the creation of a fully-fledged automaton chambered for the 6,5 mm cartridge of its own design. The cartridge created by Fedorov was supposed to be more powerful than Japanese ammunition - 6,5x57 mm. Especially for him it was planned to produce three types of pointed bullets: two with a lead core (length 31,37 mm and 32,13 mm, respectively) and an armor-piercing bullet with a core of tungsten (length 30,56 mm). The weight of the cartridge was approximately 21 grams.
The cartridge designed by Vladimir Fedorov had a bottle-shaped sleeve and did not have a protruding rim, the sleeve itself was quite long (57,1 mm) and was made of brass. In form and design of the cartridge case, the cartridge was similar to the German cartridge caliber 7,92x57 mm (Mauser). The main advantage of the cartridge of reduced power and caliber was a reduction in recoil when shooting, which made the ammunition more convenient when used in automatic weapons, in particular the automatic rifle, which the designer worked on (compared to ordinary rifle cartridges of those years). In fact, Vladimir Fedorov immediately created a system - “weapon-cartridge”. Taking the bottle-shaped sleeve without a protruding lip as a basis, the designer secured a groundwork for creating a simplified system for supplying cartridges and extracting spent cartridges, as well as capacious stores, which had already been brought to 1920 cartridges in the 25s.
The works that Fedorov began in 1910-ies, anticipated the emergence in the future of an intermediate cartridge for automatic weapons and were the first step in this direction. The automat created by Fedorov and the cartridge for it were tested in 1913 a year before the start of the First World War. As the weapon historian Andrei Ulanov notes, under normal conditions, the 3200 cartridges were tested during tests, for all the testing time, the percentage of delays for the 1,18 was noted, for that period of time and the testing phase this was considered a good result. The designer himself wrote that the work on the new cartridge was recognized as valuable and important, and the preliminary tests of the machine gun and the cartridge for it turned out to be so favorable that it was planned to make 200 thousands of cartridges for comprehensive testing of the new ammunition for further tests developed by Fedorov.
Unfortunately, the development of the automaton and the cartridge to it was prevented by the First World War, which began in 1914,. The wartime did not allow to experiment and bring weapons, the experimental work at the plants was stopped. At the same time, the Russian Empire was faced with a serious shortage of conventional rifles and cartridges for them, which was the reason for the purchase of relevant products abroad. It is for this reason that in the 1916 year, Vladimir Fedorov remade his submachine gun under the Japanese cartridge 6,5x50 mm Arisaka, there were already enough cartridges of this type in Russia at that time.
More than 100 years have passed since the events described, but the cartridge of the caliber 6,5 mm again becomes relevant and in demand. At the beginning of 2019, information began to appear in various media that the small arms of the American army were waiting for a radical transformation. The main transformation will be the replacement of cartridges caliber 5,56x45 mm NATO with new cartridges caliber 6,5 mm. The first samples of new ammunition are planned to be tested before the end of the 2019 of the year, and new automatic rifles and light machine guns will have to be sent for military trials already in the 2020s.
Fedorov machine in section, 3D model
The appearance of 6,5-mm ammunition
XX century Russian army met with the famous three-line Mosin system 1891 model year. The name of the “three-way line” that entered into mass use directly referred to the caliber of this weapon, which was equal to three lines. The line is an outdated measure of length, which was 0,1 inches or 2,54 mm, and the caliber of the Mosin rifle was respectively 7,62-mm. At that time, the main ammunition for small arms of the Russian imperial army was the cartridge 7,62x54 mm R. The rifle itself, like the cartridge for it, was a completely modern weapon, comparable in capabilities with the best foreign counterparts. Fate prepared the Mosin rifle a long life, it was the main weapon of the Russian infantryman both in the First and in the Second World War, and in total about 37 million pieces of such rifles were fired.
Despite the fact that the cartridge caliber 7,62 mm satisfied Russian military, the search for alternative ammunition has always been. Young officers of the State Agrarian University, among whom was the outstanding Russian and Soviet designer Vladimir Fyodorov in the future, followed the novelties of the arms world and current trends. The fact that a new 6,5-mm caliber cartridge appeared at the end of the 19th century did not pass by them. The first such weapon was adopted by the Italians. We are talking about the cartridge 6,5 × 52 mm Mannlicher-Carcano, to the eponymous Manlicher-Carcano rifle, sadly famous throughout the world after the shots in Dallas 22 November 1963 of the year. Mannlicher-Carcano M91 / 38 6,5-mm Lee Harvey Oswald is believed to have shot and killed American President John F. Kennedy. Following Italy, the Scandinavian countries turned to the new patron. In Sweden and Norway, a few years later the 6,5 × 55 mm Swedish Mauser cartridge appeared. For the Scandinavians, the Greeks and Romanians paid attention to the new cartridge, and they also switched to 6,5 × 52 mm Mannlicher-Carcano.
6,5-mm cartridge 6,5 × 50 SR, Arisaka
At the same time, the 6,5-mm cartridge 6,5 × 50 SR, or Arisaka, adopted by the Japanese imperial army in 1897, had the greatest connection with Russia. Russian troops were faced with a new caliber for them during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and already during the First World War, the tsarist government signed a contract with the Japanese to supply Arisak rifles and carbines and cartridges for them. This was done due to the lack of their own small arms. Arisaka rifles and carbines were used extensively on navy, on the Caucasian and Northern fronts. At the same time, more than 780 million rounds of ammunition were purchased for them. Also, the production of such cartridges was started in St. Petersburg, where the St. Petersburg Cartridge Plant monthly produced up to 200 thousand of such ammunition.
Do cartridges of caliber 6,5-mm have sufficient lethal force?
The transition to a new caliber, which in relation to all the cartridges and rifle systems that were common at that time, was reduced, was considered quite obvious. Ammunition caliber 6,5 mm differed best ballistics, which manifested itself even with the use of blunt bullets of that time period. In addition, there were other very important advantages: reducing the weight of the ammunition wearable and the better fitness of reduced-caliber ammunition for use with automatic weapons, which began to declare themselves louder and louder. The only question that caused disputes and doubts among the military was the question of the sufficient slaughter of the new cartridges.
The study of this issue based on the experience of the Russian-Japanese war was precisely the work of Vladimir Fedorov, who for this looked at the reports of doctors about the wounds received by soldiers and officers on the battlefield. After analyzing and processing the readings, the young officer of the GAU Artillery Committee concluded that the new Japanese 6,5-mm rifles, like the old 8-mm rifles of the Murat system, were not particularly distinguished by their destructive ability. This was especially characteristic of injuries received at medium or long distances. At the same time, in a collision at short distances, the 6,5-mm bullet left terrible injuries. It was noted that the new bullet had a higher flight speed and at close distances, getting into a person could be deformed and tumble in the tissues, causing heavy damage to internal organs. The main condition for the explosive effect of such bullets was the speed that allowed the destruction of medium-sized bodies, which included, for example, the human skull. In this sense, the destructive ability of 6,5-mm bullets at close range combat was higher than that of 8-mm bullets.
Vladimir Grigorievich Fedorov
These findings, which were formulated by Fedorov, in 1911 year were confirmed on the tests of ammunition of the new caliber in Russia. That year, 6-mm, 6,5-mm and 7-mm cartridges were tested in our country. To assess the destructive power of new ammunition, shooting was carried out both on horse carcasses and human bodies, as well as on boards, masonry, etc. The tests showed that the 6,5-mm and 7-mm cartridges have sufficient destructive power, while there was no significant difference between them, but the XAUM-mm cartridge was rejected by the GAU Commission.
6,5-mm cartridge Fedorov
Vladimir Grigorievich Fedorov graduated from the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy in 1900, and almost immediately was appointed to serve in the Artillery Committee of the GAU. The young design engineer worked a lot on studying the specifics of using new ammunition from different countries. During the development and adoption of the upgraded 7,62x54 mm cartridge with a light bullet, the young designer presented his own concept for the 6,5 mm caliber rifle ammunition. The new cartridge of reduced power was distinguished by its perspective design and should have been ideally suited for firing from automatic weapons. The creation of ammunition of such a caliber Fedorov was largely inspired by the experience of the Russian-Japanese war and the use of the 6,5xNNXX mm cartridge by the Japanese.
Fedorov machine model 1919 of the year
Already in 1911, Vladimir Fedorov presented his 5-charging automatic rifle under the usual cartridge 7,62x54 mm (in modern terminology - a self-loading rifle). In 1912, the new weapon passed the test stage at the test site, and the artillery committee decided to purchase a batch of new rifles. At the same time, the designer worked on the creation of a fully-fledged automaton chambered for the 6,5 mm cartridge of its own design. The cartridge created by Fedorov was supposed to be more powerful than Japanese ammunition - 6,5x57 mm. Especially for him it was planned to produce three types of pointed bullets: two with a lead core (length 31,37 mm and 32,13 mm, respectively) and an armor-piercing bullet with a core of tungsten (length 30,56 mm). The weight of the cartridge was approximately 21 grams.
The cartridge designed by Vladimir Fedorov had a bottle-shaped sleeve and did not have a protruding rim, the sleeve itself was quite long (57,1 mm) and was made of brass. In form and design of the cartridge case, the cartridge was similar to the German cartridge caliber 7,92x57 mm (Mauser). The main advantage of the cartridge of reduced power and caliber was a reduction in recoil when shooting, which made the ammunition more convenient when used in automatic weapons, in particular the automatic rifle, which the designer worked on (compared to ordinary rifle cartridges of those years). In fact, Vladimir Fedorov immediately created a system - “weapon-cartridge”. Taking the bottle-shaped sleeve without a protruding lip as a basis, the designer secured a groundwork for creating a simplified system for supplying cartridges and extracting spent cartridges, as well as capacious stores, which had already been brought to 1920 cartridges in the 25s.
The works that Fedorov began in 1910-ies, anticipated the emergence in the future of an intermediate cartridge for automatic weapons and were the first step in this direction. The automat created by Fedorov and the cartridge for it were tested in 1913 a year before the start of the First World War. As the weapon historian Andrei Ulanov notes, under normal conditions, the 3200 cartridges were tested during tests, for all the testing time, the percentage of delays for the 1,18 was noted, for that period of time and the testing phase this was considered a good result. The designer himself wrote that the work on the new cartridge was recognized as valuable and important, and the preliminary tests of the machine gun and the cartridge for it turned out to be so favorable that it was planned to make 200 thousands of cartridges for comprehensive testing of the new ammunition for further tests developed by Fedorov.
6,5-mm cartridge Fedorov
Unfortunately, the development of the automaton and the cartridge to it was prevented by the First World War, which began in 1914,. The wartime did not allow to experiment and bring weapons, the experimental work at the plants was stopped. At the same time, the Russian Empire was faced with a serious shortage of conventional rifles and cartridges for them, which was the reason for the purchase of relevant products abroad. It is for this reason that in the 1916 year, Vladimir Fedorov remade his submachine gun under the Japanese cartridge 6,5x50 mm Arisaka, there were already enough cartridges of this type in Russia at that time.
More than 100 years have passed since the events described, but the cartridge of the caliber 6,5 mm again becomes relevant and in demand. At the beginning of 2019, information began to appear in various media that the small arms of the American army were waiting for a radical transformation. The main transformation will be the replacement of cartridges caliber 5,56x45 mm NATO with new cartridges caliber 6,5 mm. The first samples of new ammunition are planned to be tested before the end of the 2019 of the year, and new automatic rifles and light machine guns will have to be sent for military trials already in the 2020s.
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