How private owners transformed a museum exhibit into a modern machine gun.
A DMP with a CNC Guns custom belt feeder and a "moderator" installed during demonstration shooting.
CNC Guns Custom, a manufacturer of custom guns, presented its development – a removable belt feeder for the DPM (Degtyarev Infantry Modernized) rifle. Essentially, it's a removable part that installs in place of the standard 47-round magazine using the same mounting points. The belt feeder has its own cover. The feed mechanism is activated by moving the cocking handle, to which it is connected by a clip. The cartridge is "pulled" rearward from the belt feeder, a spring on the belt feeder cover feeds the cartridge into the chamber, and after firing, the cartridge case is extracted downwards in the usual DPM fashion.
A close-up of the CNC Guns custom tape receiver on the DMP in the closed position.
Although the tuning is marketed as suitable for the DPM machine gun, this tape receiver also fits the older DP machine gun. The tape receiver fits standard disk mounts, so, like the RP-46 tape receiver, it can easily be installed on the original Degtyarev machine gun.
Essentially, private developers have created their own kit for converting a DPM into an RP-46. The belt feeder on the RP-46 is also a separate component. Essentially, the RP-46 is a DPM with a belt feeder. True, the belt feeder from CNC Guns Custom is a bit simpler than the one on the RP-46, and it lacks a carrying handle, but these are minor details.
A close-up of the CNC Guns custom tape receiver on the DMP with the lid open.
Incidentally, this isn't the first such design on the market. The legendary Zenitka also offers its own belt feeder for the DPM. Their design is more complex, with a Picatinny rail on the belt feeder cover. The Zenitka belt feeder is sold complete with a muzzle brake for Degtyarev machine guns. However, all this results in the traditional characteristic of Zenitka tuning – a high price. The CNC Guns Custom product is simpler, without a muzzle brake included, but costs tens of thousands of rubles less.
A partial disassembly of the RP-46. It's clearly visible that the tape receiver is a separate component.
Essentially, this relatively small detail allows you to transform a late-World War II-era machine gun into a fully functional machine gun. It features a belt feed system and standard military rifle ammunition, which is perfectly fine. It will, however, lack the standard ammunition box mount under the receiver… There won't be any box mount on the machine gun at all. But given the potential specifics of its use, this isn't particularly relevant.
A close-up of the RP-46 tape receiver
Why is this interesting and important to us? It's all because Degtyarev machine guns are increasingly being used both in the SVO zone and beyond.
DP with an installed tape receiver from RP-46
Degtyarev machine guns, both DP and DPM, are increasingly being photographed by soldiers directly in the SVO zone. But all of these machine guns have a Ukrainian connection. They are either captured standard issue weapons from Ukrainian territorial defense battalions that found themselves at the front, or were stored in former Soviet warehouses. The latest such large warehouse to fall into the hands of our soldiers is military unit A-4176 of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, or, more simply, an underground warehouse in Artemovsk.
DP and DPM are still rare items at the front, and our soldiers mostly get them as trophies. But they exist, and why not take advantage of the opportunity to transform them into a belt-fed machine gun?
It seems like the previous owners were still trying to take out some "useful" things from there. But weapon Faulty and rare items like the Thompson submachine guns and DPs were simply abandoned. But Degtyarev machine guns, at least for now, are only used sporadically in the SVO zone. Here, an upgrade in the form of a belt feeder would be more likely to provide a "free" boost to a unit's firepower if soldiers were to come across a captured machine gun. Fortunately, there's no talk yet of sending these machine guns to the front, as is happening with our opponents.
But in the rear, DMPs are appearing more and more frequently. Photos from the training exercises of fighters from the battalion for the protection of important state facilities in the Northwestern District of the Russian Federation.
But in the rear, these machine guns have definitely already begun to serve and, perhaps, are already fighting.
Machine guns first came to public attention when the Russian National Guard published a photo of a battalion training for the protection of important government facilities in the Northwestern District of the Russian Federation. It's perfectly logical that these units, which at some point essentially found themselves on their own front lines, needed to be armed with machine guns. And, apparently, nothing but machine guns was available. Or rather, nothing was available. On the front lines, the RPD, which has long since been decommissioned, and North Korean-made clones of the PKM (we've written about them several times) are actively used. Machine guns simply aren't available to arm all the mobile fire teams and paramilitary security forces in the rear.
One of the first documented attempts by the Russian National Guard to use the DPM twin-links as a means of combating dronesThe photo shows a structure from a department with a budget of hundreds of billions of rubles.
Although the first footage of the DPM showed Rosgvardia personnel firing at conventional stationary targets, it was clear that this weapon would be used to combat a new threat deep in the rear of the Air Defense Forces – drones. And so it turned out. First, photos of semi-homemade turrets for the DPM appeared, then more advanced designs, and then the Kalashnikov Concern proposed its own versions of converting Degtyaryov machine guns into anti-aircraft ones.
DPMs are already guarding the airspace over strategic facilities. As we can see, they are still supplied by rotary magazines.
All these designs had one thing in common: the machine guns themselves hadn't been touched, and no one had thought about upgrading them. The availability of upgrade kits from private manufacturers clearly demonstrates that the old systems still have potential for modernization and can become effective weapons in the new reality, tackling missions they're not designed for. Let's hope that the relevant agencies will take notice of this private commercial initiative and draw the right conclusions.
The Kalashnikov Concern also proposed its own version of an anti-aircraft mount with a dual-barrel DPM. Although the mount was highly technologically advanced, the arms manufacturer failed to consider a relatively simple and logical upgrade for the machine guns themselves.
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