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USA: Russia has good weapons, but bad ammunition

Russian-made small arms are widely known for their reliability. AK and PKM are recognized worldwide for their durability in extreme environments. Much of this is due to their powerful and long bolt carrier with a gas piston. Experts from the website warhead.su agree that even if these weapons let the soldiers down, the problem lies not in the design, but in the ammunition being fired.

There is nothing new here. The cartridges that the US purchases in Russia are always classified as "budget", as the quality of them is not constant. And it is understandable that the same problems are inherent in Russian military ammunition.

The publication on the website dedicated to weapons begins with a story about how one of the servicemen fired from a machine gun "Cord", the caliber of 12,7 mm. He noticed that the tape for the machine gun had become slightly lighter than usual, after pulling the trigger the bullet got stuck in the trunk, without even passing the gas outlet. The reason for this was the low quality of Russian gunpowder. Bullets often get stuck in the trunk, and the trunk itself sometimes heats up more than usual, and even breaks if there is too much powder in it. Therefore it is quite logical that Russian fans of accurate shooting and snipers rarely prefer to use cartridges of local production.

Bullet stuck in the bore causes serious problems for all types of small arms. The soldier may not understand that the bullet is stuck, and if he pulls the trigger again, the barrel may break. With the Russians preferring to fire in bursts, the problem is compounded by the fact that the soldier will not have time to react before firing the second round.

Then the article tells about the problems with the capsule. Capsule-igniter is a small explosive component located in the back of the cartridge. It detonates when heated from the impactor, then undermines the powder charge in the shell. Usually it is installed in the nest in the back of the cartridge, and then fixed with varnish, so as not to fall out. Russian cartridges are often performed very poorly - the capsule in them can be inserted sideways, by the other side, or there is no more to be found.

But this is by far not the most significant problem, since it can be easily discerned. Usually, before loading the store, the soldier checks the ammunition: he notices the marriage and throws out unsuitable ammunition. The big danger is that it's harder to notice. These are manufacturing defects or flaws in the bulging capsule. The bulging capsule is dangerous for the soldier in that it can get stuck in the store and provoke detonation. This can happen with some Russian cartridges, for example, from a Makarov pistol of the caliber 9 mm, which are often stuck in the store. Another vulnerability of Russian capsules is their weak protection from accidental pricking.

This is the reason that as a result of the explosion all the gaseous gases break out in the opposite direction, which can cause serious damage to the gates and to the weapons themselves. In addition, the capsules drop out of the nest when removing the fired sleeve and fall down into the cavity of the bolt rum, which can cause misfiring or jamming of the weapon.

There are other problems, for example, the inconsistent depth of pressing the bullet. As a result, it creates an excessive pressure, which adds even more heterogeneity to Russian cartridges. Some cartridges do not correspond to the specified characteristics, for example, they can be unduly long. The results of such a loss of quality can become a catastrophe, especially when dealing with open-cut weapons, such as Shpagin's machine. Because of the fixation of the bolt of the recluse on the bolt, the cartridge can detonate even before the moment of complete locking, and the machine will come to malfunction.

All these issues are covered not only by the warhead.su website. Special Forces veterans often post videos online and discuss the ammunition problems that plague their service weapons. One special forces soldier tells about the poor quality of 9 × 19 mm 7N21 and 7N31 cartridges, which causes problems with the reliability of the Yarygin pistol. On one of the thematic sites there is a photo of a 7N21 bullet sticking out of the barrel. Other experts believe that only a few manufacturers' cartridges are stuck in the barrel of Yarygin's pistol. In fact, this indicates inadequate measures for standardization and quality control at manufacturing enterprises that produce ammunition for the Russian army and police.
The best situation was described by a veteran of the Russian infantry: "The Russian arms industry makes a simple and reliable weapon, but the quality of ammunition reduces its effectiveness to no."

 

The material is published in The National Interest under the authorship Charlie Gao

It seems that not only in Russian models of small arms can there be ruptures of the barrel from poor quality of cartridges, but also in Western weapons, and to speak of reliability when fighting in extreme or close conditions, the reliability of Western small arms can be on the order is lower than that of the Russian one.

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