Pistols Gerasimenko under the bezgilzovy cartridge
Probably the most interesting specimens among the gunshot weapons at the moment are those that use caseless cartridges. Despite the fact that the development of such weapons has been done for a very long time, and such developments have in fact already been recognized as inexpedient, weapons that use a cartridgeless cartridge are still interesting, first of all because they, even if you don’t take the ammunition themselves, use a lot of bold and quite successful ideas, most of which, unfortunately, are not found in any other weapon, as it uses completely different ammunition. Strange as it may seem, but foreign models of weapons are widely known, few people remember domestic developments, but we will try to correct this injustice and acquaint with a weapon under the cartridgeless cartridge created in the 1972 year.
One of the most noteworthy features is that Vladimir Alexandrovich Gerasimenko worked on his weapon virtually on his own initiative, while his main work was related to aviationbut not with a firearm. How the designer managed to achieve that the authorities turned a blind eye to his "hobby", we will not discuss, and this did not prevent the designer from fulfilling his direct duties. In total, Gerasimenko managed to develop 20 pistols of various designs, including two options for a caseless cartridge of 7,62 caliber, while the weapon retains quite acceptable dimensions, with a magazine capacity of 24 rounds and 48 rounds. Of course, this weapon was very, very crude, basically everything rested on the fact that there was no acceptable shellless munition, on which completely different specialists should work, but Vladimir Alexandrovich was not limited only to weapons under a nonexistent cartridge, which would be stupid, and at the same time developed ammunition, although it was clearly not his profile. The differences between models 72 and 73 are very, very small, we can even say that the weapons are virtually identical, the later model has only a magazine doubled in capacity, and there is no shutter lag in it. So you can restrict yourself to a description of one of the pistols, with a later model, and let's start. But before that, a few words should be said about the cartridges.
They are Gerasimenko's bezgilzovy ammunition nothing more than a bullet from steel, in which a cavity is drilled to accommodate the charge to be charged, and there is also a thread for installing a combustible capsule, none of which has survived. The bullets / bullets were really quite interesting, some of them were even burnished. The individual had a truncated nose, either for the installation of the core, or else for some strange reasons. There is an assumption that these cartridges were only in the form of mock-ups, and not their real variants, since the barrels of both pistols were rifled, and it is easy to imagine what would happen if such a weapon were attempted to fire a steel bullet. However, the combustible capsule could have completely non-combustible parts in its design that could serve as leading corbels for moving a steel bullet along the barrel, but this idea is refuted by the caliber of bullets / cartridges. In general, if Gerasimenko shot pistols most quickly, they were initially with smooth barrels, but due to the low accuracy of the weapon, the designer decided to replace them with rifled ones, but he did not have time to develop new ammunition. But this is only my guess, so it does not claim to be accurate and consistent with reality.
It seems that the ammunition for this weapon was sorted out, it remains only to figure out how the designer managed to fit 48 cartridges in one store, so that the dimensions of the weapon and the store itself increased minimally. Of course, an important role in this was played by the fact that the ammunition did not have cartridges, which significantly reduced their dimensions, however, even under this condition, it would be difficult to place 48 cartridges in one store and at the same time. The design of pistol shops is really quite simple and not quite convenient for weapons, in which the magazine fits in the handle. The fact is that the shops of pistols for the caseless cartridge of the designer Gerasimenko represent two shops standing one after the other, but it is all collected in one case and each row of cartridges has its own feeder and spring. The supply of the same cartridge from the store of this design in the chamber was made as follows. When the casing-bolt was retracted, the cartridges from the first and second magazines entered into engagement with the casing of the bolt, respectively, when moving it forward, both cartridges also moved forward. So, the cartridge from the back of the store took the place of the cartridge in the front of the store, and the cartridge from the front of the cartridge was inserted into the chamber. The next time the casing-shutter is repeated again, so the first cartridge from the front row of the magazine is spent first, then the entire back row is spent completely, and then, there is nothing to cling from the back row, and the front row of cartridges is completely consumed. Needless to say, the design of such a shop, even with the use of sleeveless cartridges, made the pistol's handle wide enough and obviously inconvenient for holding, in the case of using such a shop with classic ammunition, the handle would become enormous at all, although such a system could be used in serial samples, for example, in machine pistols.
Given that the caliber of cartridges was not the largest, and the powder charge was placed inside the bullet / cartridge, it is not surprising that the weapon worked according to the simplest scheme of automation - with a free gate. At the same time, in view of the design of the cartridges, the gate larvae actually entered the breech block. The work of automation is absolutely no different from the automation of the same PM. So, when fired, the bolt received an impulse that forced it to move backwards, while removing the spent cartridge did not occur, simply for the reason that there were no cartridges, and during the time that the bullet passed the barrel and the powder gases equalized with the surrounding Wednesday, the gate larva had time to get out of the chamber. Then the shutter reached its extreme rear position, stopped and under the influence of the return spring began to move forward, moving the cartridge from the back of the magazine to the front and from the front to the chamber. But a weapon that has the capacity of an 48 magazine ammunition does not have the right to be prevented from automatic fire. So VAG-72 and VAG-73 pistols could fire a burst without a cut-off of several rounds. A remarkable point in this was that a weapon with such a light bolt would have developed with automatic firing a very high rate of fire with all the attendant problems. To resolve this issue, the designer applied a pneumatic shutter brake, which is located under the return spring, in front of the safety clip of the weapon. Quite often, this detail is confused with a laser designator, but it is not at all. As you can see from the photos, the design of this pneumatic brake is nowhere easier.
It should be noted that in spite of the seeming “knocked down” of the weapon in the pictures, the gun was not at all a stocky “build”. So, WAG-73 was even larger than full-size models, having a length of more than 235 millimeters, the height of the weapon was already a normal value - 135 millimeters, and the thickness was equal to 28 millimeters. Thus, it is possible to say that the long length of the weapon is due to the fact that the magazine uses a magazine with a sequential arrangement of two rows of cartridges, respectively, the breech must be at the first row, which again speaks in favor of the fact that in the gun stores use is not entirely reasonable. The weight of the weapon was slightly higher than the kilogram 1,2, but this is the weight with an empty magazine, add 48 cartridges and immediately 1,2 will turn into 1,5, if not more. It is clear that the version of the VAG-72 with 24 cartridges was smaller and lighter.
On both sides of the gun there is a weapon fire mode switch, a second switch located next to the fire mode switch on the right side of the weapon is not a fuse switch, but a lock for disassembling the gun. Apparently, the fuse in these prototypes was not provided. Open sights consist of a front sight and a rear sight. In general, if you look at these samples of pistols as a weapon that someone would ever have to produce, you want to regret the manufacturer. One barrel of the pistol, which is made not only as a barrel, but also as a separate part of the frame with guides can drive the machinist to his mind. But let us make an amendment to the fact that a man without a special education designed a weapon, although he was a designer. Perhaps it was for this reason that he turned out to be quite interesting samples, since his head was not burdened with knowledge in a particular subject, and there were no thousands of examples on his hands how to do. The man was engaged in his favorite work, and it is clear that he worked, so to speak, for the soul, and not for his weapon to be adopted. In general, it is surprising that one person could make a perfect model, but a working model of a weapon for a cartridgeless cartridge, and even independently developed some kind of ammunition. It is even more surprising that he openly worked on his weapon, and, moreover, not at a core business, which does not fit into any reasonable framework. However, on many other pistols designed by the designer Gerasimenko, you can see inscriptions about certain dates, such as, for example, “50 years of the USSR” and others. Thus, it can be assumed that, apparently, his “hobby” was supported by the fact that the weapon was actually in a single instance, and even handmade, was used as a premium or gift at the very top, but there are no facts confirming this. Immediately you need to make a reservation that this is not about sleeveless pistols, as already mentioned above, the designer is the author of more than 20 different samples that were fully functional. I think that no one would refuse to have award weapons, and even more so if it is unique in its kind and has no analogues either among domestic or foreign. Although, perhaps, these inscriptions are simply inscriptions and are nothing more than a manifestation of patriotism.
Summing up the article about the VAG-72 and VAG-73 pistols, I would like to note that despite its uniqueness in ammunition and the fact that the weapon did not fit into the series, it has a lot of interesting innovations in the form of the same double magazine or pneumatic shutter . And let the weapon be rather “ugly” and not quite ordinary and convenient, its value as part of the national weapons system stories can not be underestimated. Still, self-taught gunsmiths were always there, but not everyone had the opportunity to embody their ideas, even just in a layout, not to mention a working model. For some reason it seems to me that our people with their creative thinking, if they had the opportunity, and most importantly their interest in designing firearms, would have outdid all the most daring foreign ideas in their ideas for many decades to come. The only question is that at the moment our compatriot can get only the term of several years for the original and even the best design of a pistol or machine gun. Well, and the design itself in such circumstances will either be abandoned, or someone on it will heat the pocket well. In general, everything is somehow sad and not happy.
PS In addition to discussing the design of Gerasimenko's pistols, I would like someone to shed light on how things are developing with the weapon “nuggets” in the countries of the former Soviet Union. From myself I can say on this issue that in Belarus there is an equal sign between the production and design of weapons, at least this is what is written in the Law on Weapons, I did not look at the other documents. In other words, I sketched a sketch on a leaflet - I sat down, as I understood it.
One of the most noteworthy features is that Vladimir Alexandrovich Gerasimenko worked on his weapon virtually on his own initiative, while his main work was related to aviationbut not with a firearm. How the designer managed to achieve that the authorities turned a blind eye to his "hobby", we will not discuss, and this did not prevent the designer from fulfilling his direct duties. In total, Gerasimenko managed to develop 20 pistols of various designs, including two options for a caseless cartridge of 7,62 caliber, while the weapon retains quite acceptable dimensions, with a magazine capacity of 24 rounds and 48 rounds. Of course, this weapon was very, very crude, basically everything rested on the fact that there was no acceptable shellless munition, on which completely different specialists should work, but Vladimir Alexandrovich was not limited only to weapons under a nonexistent cartridge, which would be stupid, and at the same time developed ammunition, although it was clearly not his profile. The differences between models 72 and 73 are very, very small, we can even say that the weapons are virtually identical, the later model has only a magazine doubled in capacity, and there is no shutter lag in it. So you can restrict yourself to a description of one of the pistols, with a later model, and let's start. But before that, a few words should be said about the cartridges.
They are Gerasimenko's bezgilzovy ammunition nothing more than a bullet from steel, in which a cavity is drilled to accommodate the charge to be charged, and there is also a thread for installing a combustible capsule, none of which has survived. The bullets / bullets were really quite interesting, some of them were even burnished. The individual had a truncated nose, either for the installation of the core, or else for some strange reasons. There is an assumption that these cartridges were only in the form of mock-ups, and not their real variants, since the barrels of both pistols were rifled, and it is easy to imagine what would happen if such a weapon were attempted to fire a steel bullet. However, the combustible capsule could have completely non-combustible parts in its design that could serve as leading corbels for moving a steel bullet along the barrel, but this idea is refuted by the caliber of bullets / cartridges. In general, if Gerasimenko shot pistols most quickly, they were initially with smooth barrels, but due to the low accuracy of the weapon, the designer decided to replace them with rifled ones, but he did not have time to develop new ammunition. But this is only my guess, so it does not claim to be accurate and consistent with reality. 
It seems that the ammunition for this weapon was sorted out, it remains only to figure out how the designer managed to fit 48 cartridges in one store, so that the dimensions of the weapon and the store itself increased minimally. Of course, an important role in this was played by the fact that the ammunition did not have cartridges, which significantly reduced their dimensions, however, even under this condition, it would be difficult to place 48 cartridges in one store and at the same time. The design of pistol shops is really quite simple and not quite convenient for weapons, in which the magazine fits in the handle. The fact is that the shops of pistols for the caseless cartridge of the designer Gerasimenko represent two shops standing one after the other, but it is all collected in one case and each row of cartridges has its own feeder and spring. The supply of the same cartridge from the store of this design in the chamber was made as follows. When the casing-bolt was retracted, the cartridges from the first and second magazines entered into engagement with the casing of the bolt, respectively, when moving it forward, both cartridges also moved forward. So, the cartridge from the back of the store took the place of the cartridge in the front of the store, and the cartridge from the front of the cartridge was inserted into the chamber. The next time the casing-shutter is repeated again, so the first cartridge from the front row of the magazine is spent first, then the entire back row is spent completely, and then, there is nothing to cling from the back row, and the front row of cartridges is completely consumed. Needless to say, the design of such a shop, even with the use of sleeveless cartridges, made the pistol's handle wide enough and obviously inconvenient for holding, in the case of using such a shop with classic ammunition, the handle would become enormous at all, although such a system could be used in serial samples, for example, in machine pistols. 
Given that the caliber of cartridges was not the largest, and the powder charge was placed inside the bullet / cartridge, it is not surprising that the weapon worked according to the simplest scheme of automation - with a free gate. At the same time, in view of the design of the cartridges, the gate larvae actually entered the breech block. The work of automation is absolutely no different from the automation of the same PM. So, when fired, the bolt received an impulse that forced it to move backwards, while removing the spent cartridge did not occur, simply for the reason that there were no cartridges, and during the time that the bullet passed the barrel and the powder gases equalized with the surrounding Wednesday, the gate larva had time to get out of the chamber. Then the shutter reached its extreme rear position, stopped and under the influence of the return spring began to move forward, moving the cartridge from the back of the magazine to the front and from the front to the chamber. But a weapon that has the capacity of an 48 magazine ammunition does not have the right to be prevented from automatic fire. So VAG-72 and VAG-73 pistols could fire a burst without a cut-off of several rounds. A remarkable point in this was that a weapon with such a light bolt would have developed with automatic firing a very high rate of fire with all the attendant problems. To resolve this issue, the designer applied a pneumatic shutter brake, which is located under the return spring, in front of the safety clip of the weapon. Quite often, this detail is confused with a laser designator, but it is not at all. As you can see from the photos, the design of this pneumatic brake is nowhere easier.
It should be noted that in spite of the seeming “knocked down” of the weapon in the pictures, the gun was not at all a stocky “build”. So, WAG-73 was even larger than full-size models, having a length of more than 235 millimeters, the height of the weapon was already a normal value - 135 millimeters, and the thickness was equal to 28 millimeters. Thus, it is possible to say that the long length of the weapon is due to the fact that the magazine uses a magazine with a sequential arrangement of two rows of cartridges, respectively, the breech must be at the first row, which again speaks in favor of the fact that in the gun stores use is not entirely reasonable. The weight of the weapon was slightly higher than the kilogram 1,2, but this is the weight with an empty magazine, add 48 cartridges and immediately 1,2 will turn into 1,5, if not more. It is clear that the version of the VAG-72 with 24 cartridges was smaller and lighter.
On both sides of the gun there is a weapon fire mode switch, a second switch located next to the fire mode switch on the right side of the weapon is not a fuse switch, but a lock for disassembling the gun. Apparently, the fuse in these prototypes was not provided. Open sights consist of a front sight and a rear sight. In general, if you look at these samples of pistols as a weapon that someone would ever have to produce, you want to regret the manufacturer. One barrel of the pistol, which is made not only as a barrel, but also as a separate part of the frame with guides can drive the machinist to his mind. But let us make an amendment to the fact that a man without a special education designed a weapon, although he was a designer. Perhaps it was for this reason that he turned out to be quite interesting samples, since his head was not burdened with knowledge in a particular subject, and there were no thousands of examples on his hands how to do. The man was engaged in his favorite work, and it is clear that he worked, so to speak, for the soul, and not for his weapon to be adopted. In general, it is surprising that one person could make a perfect model, but a working model of a weapon for a cartridgeless cartridge, and even independently developed some kind of ammunition. It is even more surprising that he openly worked on his weapon, and, moreover, not at a core business, which does not fit into any reasonable framework. However, on many other pistols designed by the designer Gerasimenko, you can see inscriptions about certain dates, such as, for example, “50 years of the USSR” and others. Thus, it can be assumed that, apparently, his “hobby” was supported by the fact that the weapon was actually in a single instance, and even handmade, was used as a premium or gift at the very top, but there are no facts confirming this. Immediately you need to make a reservation that this is not about sleeveless pistols, as already mentioned above, the designer is the author of more than 20 different samples that were fully functional. I think that no one would refuse to have award weapons, and even more so if it is unique in its kind and has no analogues either among domestic or foreign. Although, perhaps, these inscriptions are simply inscriptions and are nothing more than a manifestation of patriotism. 
Summing up the article about the VAG-72 and VAG-73 pistols, I would like to note that despite its uniqueness in ammunition and the fact that the weapon did not fit into the series, it has a lot of interesting innovations in the form of the same double magazine or pneumatic shutter . And let the weapon be rather “ugly” and not quite ordinary and convenient, its value as part of the national weapons system stories can not be underestimated. Still, self-taught gunsmiths were always there, but not everyone had the opportunity to embody their ideas, even just in a layout, not to mention a working model. For some reason it seems to me that our people with their creative thinking, if they had the opportunity, and most importantly their interest in designing firearms, would have outdid all the most daring foreign ideas in their ideas for many decades to come. The only question is that at the moment our compatriot can get only the term of several years for the original and even the best design of a pistol or machine gun. Well, and the design itself in such circumstances will either be abandoned, or someone on it will heat the pocket well. In general, everything is somehow sad and not happy.PS In addition to discussing the design of Gerasimenko's pistols, I would like someone to shed light on how things are developing with the weapon “nuggets” in the countries of the former Soviet Union. From myself I can say on this issue that in Belarus there is an equal sign between the production and design of weapons, at least this is what is written in the Law on Weapons, I did not look at the other documents. In other words, I sketched a sketch on a leaflet - I sat down, as I understood it.
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