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Former Soviet RPD light machine gun

RPD is an A-class light machine gun designed by Jaegelev of the Soviet Union. After World War II, it was officially equipped with Soviet troops to replace the original DP-27 light machine gun. However, since 1960, the Soviet Union and some eastern European countries have replaced the gun with an RPK light machine gun of the same caliber.

Infantry class of Soviet Marine Corps, the rifle was an early AKM, and the supporting firepower was RPD light machine gun, but it was quickly replaced by RPK.

1943, when the Soviet military identified the 7.62×39mm medium-power ammunition commonly known as M43, it began two infantry weapons research projects using this ammunition, one of which was the later SKS semi-automatic rifle, and the other was the development of the corresponding class light machine gun.

Three Soviet engineers were asked to submit their own designs, including Vasily Jie gref, Sergei simonov and Alexei Sudayev. 1944 compares and tests the prototype guns of the three schemes, and finds that the design of Jegalov is the best, so it is finally determined as 1944 RPD.

RPD is the Roman spelling of рпд in Russian, which is called ручнойпулемётдег.

Because it was the last stage of World War II, the war was over when RPD was preparing for mass production, so it was too late to participate in the war.

After the war, the Soviet Union was busy with all kinds of reconstruction work, so it was not until around 1953 that mass production began and weapons were delivered to the troops.

However, when Kalashnikov's RPK light machine gun and PK general machine gun were equipped with troops, RPD began to withdraw from most of the front-line troops of the former Warsaw Pact countries, so like SKS, RPD was not equipped in the Soviet army for a long time.

However, RPD is widely used in many African and Asian countries and used in wars. For example, during the Vietnam War, a large number of RPD retired from the Soviet army were provided to the Viet Cong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese army (but there were also imitations provided by China).

In addition to the former Soviet Union, other countries also produce RPD. For example, Type 56 light machine gun produced in China, Type 62 light machine gun produced in North Korea, and other countries such as Egypt and Poland also began to produce RPD in the mid-1960s.

The automatic mode of RPD is air guidance, and its locking system is basically the same as DP-27 light machine gun. The difference is that the gun does not rely on the inclined shoulder on the firing pin to open the locking plate, but uses the locking inclined planes on both sides of the shoe hammer on the frame to knock the locking plate open and make it enter the locking groove on the shell.

Other main working parts are also improved from DP-27 light machine gun, but the ammunition supply mode is changed to an inseparable ammunition chain.

The whole gun structure is not novel, but it is simple and easy to use. Because the gun uses "intermediate" bullets, it is a light machine gun with a bullet chain.

There are several models of RPD machine guns, but each model has little change, namely:

The first type-the piston is sleeved on the air duct without dust cover, the handle is rigidly connected with the frame, and the frame moves back and forth randomly, and the wind deflection adjusting screw is on the right side of the instrument;

The second type-the piston head is placed in the piston barrel, and the wind deflection adjusting screw is on the left side of the gauge;

The third type-the piston head is placed in the piston barrel, the handle is folded, the frame does not move back and forth at will, and the bullet conveying port and the bullet chain outlet are provided with dust covers;

The fourth type-officially defined as RPDM type, the piston head is placed in a fully enclosed piston cylinder, and the piston cylinder is lengthened. There is a roller behind the bolt to reduce the friction resistance during movement and prevent the bolt from bouncing and unlocking. A dust cover is arranged at the ammunition conveying port and the ammunition chain outlet, and a buffer is arranged in the gunstock;

The fifth type-basically the same as RPDM type, the magazine bracket is changed into a folding type, which is usually used as a dust cover to fix the magazine when shooting. A plurality of sections of through bars are arranged in the crystal attachment cylinder of the blank.

RPD light machine gun consists of barrel, shell and bolt. Rack, lock, machine handle, air guide device, reentry device, ammunition supply device, gun stock handle assembly (including launcher), sight, bullet chain and bullet chain box, etc.

There are four cylindrical parts outside the cylinder, which respectively fix the quasi-constellation, the air guide hoop and the piston cylinder. RPD is not designed to change the barrel quickly, so its barrel wall is very thick, and it can shoot 300 rounds continuously without cooling the barrel.

The cartridge case is a machined part, the front end of which is fixedly connected with the barrel through threads, and the rear end of which is connected with the stock through connecting pins. There are locking bearing surfaces, locking grooves and frame guide grooves on both sides inside the shell, and a shell-throwing tappet is fixed above it. There is a groove for connecting the transmitter base, magazine rack, etc.

The firing mechanism of RPD is hammer translation type, which consists of needle and hammer on the frame. The launching mechanism comprises a trigger; Trigger shaft, ferroresistor, ferroresistor spring and transmitter base, etc. This gun can only fire automatically.

Usually, due to the elastic force of the iron resistance spring, the back end of the iron resistance is raised. When the frame retreats, it overtakes the iron resistance, and the iron resistance just snaps into the firing iron resistance slot of the frame, buckles the frame and stops at the rear, forming a ready-to-go situation.

After the trigger is pressed, the front end of the trigger presses down the stopper, and the stopper rotates downward with its front protrusion as the fulcrum, and the firing stopper groove on the upper frame is released, and the frame moves forward under the action of the return spring, and the automatic cycle begins.

The sight consists of a sight and a scale. The sight consists of quasi-constellation, quasi-constellation snail, sight wing and sight. The crosshair tip is cylindrical. When it returns to zero, the height and horizontal adjustment are aimed at the sight. The graduation spacing on the crosshair base is 1 mm, and the crosshair spacing is 1 mm.. The arc scale consists of a scale base, a scale plate, a scale spring, a U-shaped notch door, a cursor and a horizontal scale.

The scale board is engraved with scales with the length of 10, and each scale represents the distance of 100 meters. There are short squares between every two long squares, representing a distance of 50 meters. In order to set the gauge conveniently, the back of the gauge plate is also engraved with scales; The horizontal ruler is used to correct the direction, and the photo door can be moved left and right by moving the screw. There are seven squares on the left and right of the "0" scribe line of the spirit level, and the aiming point offset of each square is 200mm at 100m, 400mm at 200m, and so on.

Most of the decomposition of RPD light machine gun is very simple, according to the following four steps:

1) Push the bamboo shoots at the back of the receiver cover and lift the receiver cover;

2) Remove the bullet chain from the gun, check whether there are bullets in the bore, and then send the bolt back to the front;

3) Dismantle the connecting pin, gun stock and transmitter assembly at the back end of the pressure box;

4) Pull the handle back, remove the frame and bolts, and further decompose.