Pistols by David Dardik
Despite the fact that revolvers and pistols are two separate classes weapons and the choice in mass distribution has long been made in favor of the latter, many designers have tried and are trying to combine the qualities of these representatives of the “short bar” in one sample. It turns out that something is not always worthwhile, and no one has yet managed to completely get rid of certain negative features of the revolver when it is combined with a pistol, but, nevertheless, there are interesting and successful samples, such as automatic revolvers mateba, so to speak. Basically, all the work on creating a revolver with the qualities of a pistol or, on the contrary, was completed at the beginning of the twentieth century, but enthusiasts and talented designers still present surprises in the form of a deliberately disastrous weapon, but interesting. In this article we will talk about the drum pistol, created in 1958, by the designer by the name Dardik.
David Dardik in his own way appreciated the advantages and disadvantages of pistols and revolvers and highlighted the small drum capacity as the main disadvantage of the revolver. In pistols, he drew attention to the fact that in case of failure, due to defective ammunition or for some other misfire, for the next shot it is required to manually pull off the bolt, throwing out the failed ammunition, and only after the bolt is released, and the cartridge will be in the chamber, you can make an attempt to re-shot. It was on this basis that the designer began designing his first pistol with a drum.
In order to realize the possibility of the next shot in case of failure of the ammunition without any additional manipulations, except for the next pressing of the trigger, the Darker decided to turn to the revolver scheme of the weapon, but somewhat modified. The main essence of the invention was that the drum with ammunition was not just loaded with cartridges, after which it was possible to use a weapon, but was a kind of intermediate link between the pistol magazine and the gun barrel axis, the same drum served as throwing away the spent cartridge case. It cannot be said that the idea itself was new, something very remotely similar can be observed in machine guns with a rotating block of barrels, where filing a cartridge, a shot and extraction of a spent cartridge case occurs when each individual barrel is moved, but this is similar only to the ideas themselves, they are radically different. David Dardik proposed a fairly simple design that did not require high precision in implementation, nor the accumulation of dozens of individual elements in the weapon, which, naturally, would have affected the durability and reliability, and the designer’s work was aimed at making it even more reliable weapon than a gun.
The designer decided to implement step-by-step charging, firing and ejection of a spent cartridge case in a much simpler way than was realized on machine guns with a rotating barrel unit. In addition, each stage took place in a natural way, without auxiliary mechanisms. It was possible to achieve this by the designer through the use of a drum with open chambers, or rather, simply with grooves for ammunition on the side surface of the drum. There were only three grooves, and during the operation of the weapon all three of them were involved simultaneously after the first shot. So one got a new cartridge from the store, a shot was fired from the other, a shot case was thrown from the third. When you pull the trigger, they swapped. The gun itself worked on the principle of a revolver with a double-action firing mechanism. That is, when cocking the hammer, the drum of the weapon is rotated, and the cocking of the trigger itself can be either preliminary or by pressing the trigger, which significantly increases the pressing force.
Significant difficulties for the designer came out with standard ammunition in the weapon. The fact is that the drum with grooves for ordinary cartridges did not allow to fix ammunition reliably, and this led to misfires when firing. In addition, you should not forget that the absolute majority of cartridges have a bullet protruding significantly beyond the sleeve, and since the drum chamber is not closed on one side, there will be a huge breakthrough of powder gases, which will not only affect the efficiency of using a powder charge , but can just break a weapon. For these reasons, Dardik developed his own ammunition, which could be used in weapons without the harm and risk of destroying a pistol. The main feature of the cartridge was that its sleeve was plastic (aluminum was also tried out initially), and the yard was only 1958 a year. The sleeve itself was not cylindrical, but in the form of a triangular prism, or rather not exactly in this form, since the cross section of the sleeve was in the form of a Reloo triangle, but not the essence. The bullet was completely hidden in the plastic sleeve, and between the bullet itself and the capsule there was the most ordinary piece of gunpowder, in other words, the basic idea of the ammunition did not change at all, only the shape of the sleeve, its material and the bullet landing were changed.
Actually, it all started with this. After the designer patented his invention, very soon the first model appeared under the name Dardick 1100. The gun was fed from a magazine with a capacity of 11 cartridges. Its barrel was a length of 76,2 millimeters, and a caliber of 9 millimeters. The total length of the gun was 152 millimeters, while the weight of the weapon without ammunition was equal to 710 grams. Shop gun integral. It is usually indicated that the shop was single-row, but thanks to the shape of the cartridges they were placed in a staggered manner, although at the same time they occupied as many places as one row. So after all the store is double row. Not quite the usual appearance of the weapon clearly scared off potential buyers, however Dardik did not give up, and immediately after the first model the next one appeared.
As it seems to me, the release of the next model of weapon was a kind of indicative moment already for larger government customers, since this weapon was multi-caliber. That is, the designer decided to show that with a flick of the wrist the pants turn ... the pants turn ... I apologize, the gun easily changes its caliber when replacing the ammunition and barrel. Nothing more was required. This time the weapon was made larger. The pistol magazine already contained 15 cartridges. Plus, the weapon was completed with two barrels and a set that made a small carbine from a pistol. For a nine millimeter chuck, a barrel length of 102 millimeter was used, with the weapon length being equal to 203 millimeters. For the 5,56 caliber of millimeters, the barrel was already longer - 152 of a millimeter, the length of the pistol was 253 of a millimeter. Well, the third caliber was 7,62, this caliber was already used only with a kit that makes a lightweight carbine from a pistol. At the same time, the butt and the barrel were made 508 millimeters long. The weight of the weapon with the shortest barrel was 910 grams without ammunition. Worn this model name Dardick 1500.
Soon a model with the number 2000 appeared. As it is not difficult to guess, this gun already had a magazine with a capacity of 20 cartridges. Actually, the weapon shop became its main feature, since in fact it was two stores. First, the drum picked up cartridges from one store, then from another, the stores were filled with one cartridge, as in the previous versions. This version of the weapon was also multi-caliber and could also easily turn into a carbine. The caliber remained the same, but in the form of a pistol, now the weapon had barrels only 152 millimeter long. The length of this barrel was 229 millimeters. The weight without cartridges was equal to 1100 grams.
In general, all three weapon models had common flaws. The main thing, in my opinion, is that a relatively powerful ammunition cannot be used in a pistol. However, it is possible, and would have been finalized if the weapon had a good distribution. The second drawback is the high barrel of the pistol, although with relatively weak ammunition it is not so critical, and the weight of the weapon is “good” in this case. Among the positive qualities in the first place, the complete absence of moving parts, moving at the expense of the energy of powder gases, transferred in some way, which should have a positive impact on the durability of the weapon. In general, the weapon itself turned out to be really interesting from a technical point of view, but ammunition to it is not the most ordinary.
The nine-millimeter version of the cartridge was loaded with a bullet weighing from 10 to 13 grams, the initial speed of this ammunition did not exceed 260 meters per second, but when hit, this bullet was very effective due to its mass and caliber. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find the bullets with which versions of the bullets, although it seemed that the weapon was not so old, although it was very rare. The version of the cartridge caliber 5,56 had a bullet weighing 2,6 gram, which was moving at a speed of about 320 meters per second, respectively, its kinetic energy somewhere around 140 Joule. Roughly speaking, it is possible to draw an analogy to this patron with .22 LR. The 7,62 caliber cartridge was loaded with a bullet weighing about 6,2 grams, unfortunately, it was not possible to find data on the bullet speed. It is noteworthy that all the cartridges had the opportunity to reload, it was enough to install a new capsule, fill the powder and insert a new bullet, but this did not save either the pistols or ammunition.
Weapons and ammunition were sold very poorly, or rather, they were not sold at all, since in the 4 year of production, about fifty pistols were released. In 1962, the production and work on the weapon was stopped, but Dardik did not give up and continued to create, however, for the most part, on paper. So, behind him there is a monster capable of shooting with a rate of fire of almost a million shots per minute, and the fire was fired simultaneously from fifty barrels. Keep silence about the dimensions and weight of this monster, since even my aching head hardly presents such a miracle, since it remains only on paper. The main idea of this super-fast machine gun was that the two gears, interacting with each other, formed the chamber, from which the shot was made. The cartridges were all the same in the form of a triangular prism, however, the primer now ignited powder through an electric current.
In general, David Dardik has a lot of interesting developments, most of which may seem complete nonsense, however, in fact, it is thanks to such bold ideas that science and technology are moving forward. One of the last known works of the designer was the collaboration with the company H & K, for which Dardik developed the ammunition back with a sleeve in the form of a triangular prism, but equipped with three sub-caliber arrows at once. Thus, the problem of such projectile projectiles for a small stopping effect should have been solved, but you can get acquainted with the armor-piercing qualities of such ammunition here in this article... In addition to all this, Heckler & Koch also attracted the fact that with such ammunition it was possible to get a new more reliable and flexible weapon automation system, but this was all done within the framework of the US Department of Defense SPIW project.
Despite the rather bold ideas, many of which were implemented in metal, the designer did not achieve public recognition. Nevertheless, those models of weapons that were created by Dardik worked and worked very well. Yes, they were unusual, perhaps they were inferior to more common samples, but never did anyone manage to make the perfect weapon, and not only the weapon, the first time. Perhaps the designer was in a hurry to create and start distributing his samples, and it would be worthwhile to work on them a little more, and maybe then they would be known now. In any case, it is through such experimenters that everything new appears, and humanity does not stand still. I am more than confident that someday and somewhere the workings of David Dardik will be applied, and will be applied quite successfully. The main thing is that the next, “which has no analogues in the world,” is associated with the name of the original constructor.
David Dardik in his own way appreciated the advantages and disadvantages of pistols and revolvers and highlighted the small drum capacity as the main disadvantage of the revolver. In pistols, he drew attention to the fact that in case of failure, due to defective ammunition or for some other misfire, for the next shot it is required to manually pull off the bolt, throwing out the failed ammunition, and only after the bolt is released, and the cartridge will be in the chamber, you can make an attempt to re-shot. It was on this basis that the designer began designing his first pistol with a drum.In order to realize the possibility of the next shot in case of failure of the ammunition without any additional manipulations, except for the next pressing of the trigger, the Darker decided to turn to the revolver scheme of the weapon, but somewhat modified. The main essence of the invention was that the drum with ammunition was not just loaded with cartridges, after which it was possible to use a weapon, but was a kind of intermediate link between the pistol magazine and the gun barrel axis, the same drum served as throwing away the spent cartridge case. It cannot be said that the idea itself was new, something very remotely similar can be observed in machine guns with a rotating block of barrels, where filing a cartridge, a shot and extraction of a spent cartridge case occurs when each individual barrel is moved, but this is similar only to the ideas themselves, they are radically different. David Dardik proposed a fairly simple design that did not require high precision in implementation, nor the accumulation of dozens of individual elements in the weapon, which, naturally, would have affected the durability and reliability, and the designer’s work was aimed at making it even more reliable weapon than a gun.
The designer decided to implement step-by-step charging, firing and ejection of a spent cartridge case in a much simpler way than was realized on machine guns with a rotating barrel unit. In addition, each stage took place in a natural way, without auxiliary mechanisms. It was possible to achieve this by the designer through the use of a drum with open chambers, or rather, simply with grooves for ammunition on the side surface of the drum. There were only three grooves, and during the operation of the weapon all three of them were involved simultaneously after the first shot. So one got a new cartridge from the store, a shot was fired from the other, a shot case was thrown from the third. When you pull the trigger, they swapped. The gun itself worked on the principle of a revolver with a double-action firing mechanism. That is, when cocking the hammer, the drum of the weapon is rotated, and the cocking of the trigger itself can be either preliminary or by pressing the trigger, which significantly increases the pressing force. 
Significant difficulties for the designer came out with standard ammunition in the weapon. The fact is that the drum with grooves for ordinary cartridges did not allow to fix ammunition reliably, and this led to misfires when firing. In addition, you should not forget that the absolute majority of cartridges have a bullet protruding significantly beyond the sleeve, and since the drum chamber is not closed on one side, there will be a huge breakthrough of powder gases, which will not only affect the efficiency of using a powder charge , but can just break a weapon. For these reasons, Dardik developed his own ammunition, which could be used in weapons without the harm and risk of destroying a pistol. The main feature of the cartridge was that its sleeve was plastic (aluminum was also tried out initially), and the yard was only 1958 a year. The sleeve itself was not cylindrical, but in the form of a triangular prism, or rather not exactly in this form, since the cross section of the sleeve was in the form of a Reloo triangle, but not the essence. The bullet was completely hidden in the plastic sleeve, and between the bullet itself and the capsule there was the most ordinary piece of gunpowder, in other words, the basic idea of the ammunition did not change at all, only the shape of the sleeve, its material and the bullet landing were changed. Actually, it all started with this. After the designer patented his invention, very soon the first model appeared under the name Dardick 1100. The gun was fed from a magazine with a capacity of 11 cartridges. Its barrel was a length of 76,2 millimeters, and a caliber of 9 millimeters. The total length of the gun was 152 millimeters, while the weight of the weapon without ammunition was equal to 710 grams. Shop gun integral. It is usually indicated that the shop was single-row, but thanks to the shape of the cartridges they were placed in a staggered manner, although at the same time they occupied as many places as one row. So after all the store is double row. Not quite the usual appearance of the weapon clearly scared off potential buyers, however Dardik did not give up, and immediately after the first model the next one appeared.
As it seems to me, the release of the next model of weapon was a kind of indicative moment already for larger government customers, since this weapon was multi-caliber. That is, the designer decided to show that with a flick of the wrist the pants turn ... the pants turn ... I apologize, the gun easily changes its caliber when replacing the ammunition and barrel. Nothing more was required. This time the weapon was made larger. The pistol magazine already contained 15 cartridges. Plus, the weapon was completed with two barrels and a set that made a small carbine from a pistol. For a nine millimeter chuck, a barrel length of 102 millimeter was used, with the weapon length being equal to 203 millimeters. For the 5,56 caliber of millimeters, the barrel was already longer - 152 of a millimeter, the length of the pistol was 253 of a millimeter. Well, the third caliber was 7,62, this caliber was already used only with a kit that makes a lightweight carbine from a pistol. At the same time, the butt and the barrel were made 508 millimeters long. The weight of the weapon with the shortest barrel was 910 grams without ammunition. Worn this model name Dardick 1500.
Soon a model with the number 2000 appeared. As it is not difficult to guess, this gun already had a magazine with a capacity of 20 cartridges. Actually, the weapon shop became its main feature, since in fact it was two stores. First, the drum picked up cartridges from one store, then from another, the stores were filled with one cartridge, as in the previous versions. This version of the weapon was also multi-caliber and could also easily turn into a carbine. The caliber remained the same, but in the form of a pistol, now the weapon had barrels only 152 millimeter long. The length of this barrel was 229 millimeters. The weight without cartridges was equal to 1100 grams.In general, all three weapon models had common flaws. The main thing, in my opinion, is that a relatively powerful ammunition cannot be used in a pistol. However, it is possible, and would have been finalized if the weapon had a good distribution. The second drawback is the high barrel of the pistol, although with relatively weak ammunition it is not so critical, and the weight of the weapon is “good” in this case. Among the positive qualities in the first place, the complete absence of moving parts, moving at the expense of the energy of powder gases, transferred in some way, which should have a positive impact on the durability of the weapon. In general, the weapon itself turned out to be really interesting from a technical point of view, but ammunition to it is not the most ordinary.
The nine-millimeter version of the cartridge was loaded with a bullet weighing from 10 to 13 grams, the initial speed of this ammunition did not exceed 260 meters per second, but when hit, this bullet was very effective due to its mass and caliber. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find the bullets with which versions of the bullets, although it seemed that the weapon was not so old, although it was very rare. The version of the cartridge caliber 5,56 had a bullet weighing 2,6 gram, which was moving at a speed of about 320 meters per second, respectively, its kinetic energy somewhere around 140 Joule. Roughly speaking, it is possible to draw an analogy to this patron with .22 LR. The 7,62 caliber cartridge was loaded with a bullet weighing about 6,2 grams, unfortunately, it was not possible to find data on the bullet speed. It is noteworthy that all the cartridges had the opportunity to reload, it was enough to install a new capsule, fill the powder and insert a new bullet, but this did not save either the pistols or ammunition.
Weapons and ammunition were sold very poorly, or rather, they were not sold at all, since in the 4 year of production, about fifty pistols were released. In 1962, the production and work on the weapon was stopped, but Dardik did not give up and continued to create, however, for the most part, on paper. So, behind him there is a monster capable of shooting with a rate of fire of almost a million shots per minute, and the fire was fired simultaneously from fifty barrels. Keep silence about the dimensions and weight of this monster, since even my aching head hardly presents such a miracle, since it remains only on paper. The main idea of this super-fast machine gun was that the two gears, interacting with each other, formed the chamber, from which the shot was made. The cartridges were all the same in the form of a triangular prism, however, the primer now ignited powder through an electric current. In general, David Dardik has a lot of interesting developments, most of which may seem complete nonsense, however, in fact, it is thanks to such bold ideas that science and technology are moving forward. One of the last known works of the designer was the collaboration with the company H & K, for which Dardik developed the ammunition back with a sleeve in the form of a triangular prism, but equipped with three sub-caliber arrows at once. Thus, the problem of such projectile projectiles for a small stopping effect should have been solved, but you can get acquainted with the armor-piercing qualities of such ammunition here in this article... In addition to all this, Heckler & Koch also attracted the fact that with such ammunition it was possible to get a new more reliable and flexible weapon automation system, but this was all done within the framework of the US Department of Defense SPIW project.
Despite the rather bold ideas, many of which were implemented in metal, the designer did not achieve public recognition. Nevertheless, those models of weapons that were created by Dardik worked and worked very well. Yes, they were unusual, perhaps they were inferior to more common samples, but never did anyone manage to make the perfect weapon, and not only the weapon, the first time. Perhaps the designer was in a hurry to create and start distributing his samples, and it would be worthwhile to work on them a little more, and maybe then they would be known now. In any case, it is through such experimenters that everything new appears, and humanity does not stand still. I am more than confident that someday and somewhere the workings of David Dardik will be applied, and will be applied quite successfully. The main thing is that the next, “which has no analogues in the world,” is associated with the name of the original constructor.
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