Yugoslav M84 PKM: History, Mechanics, and Disassembly
Medium & GPMGs
•
20m
The PK machine gun was developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov's engineering team right about the time they were putting the finishing touches on the AKM. The PK is in many ways an AK rifle action enlarged, flipped upside-down, and mated with a belt feed mechanism. It uses the same belt design as the previous Soviet 7.62x54R machine guns (the Maxim, SG43, and RP46).
The PK was improved in a few relatively minor ways to become the PKM, and the Yugoslav military put it into production in 1984. The weapon is rugged, reliable, relatively lightweight, and arguably the best universal machine gun design ever produced.
Thanks to Marstar for letting me examine and shoot their M84!
Up Next in Medium & GPMGs
-
UK vz.59 Czech Universal Machine Gun:...
In 1952, Czechoslovakia adopted a whole new family of small arms, including the vz.52 pistol, vz.52 rifle, and vz.52 light machine gun. The rifle and LMG were both chambered in the Czech 7.62x45mm cartridge, and both would be adapted to the Soviet standard 7.62x39mm a few years later, in 1957. Ve...
-
UK vz.59 Czech Universal Machine Gun:...
In 1952, Czechoslovakia adopted a whole new family of small arms, including the vz.52 pistol, vz.52 rifle, and vz.52 light machine gun. The rifle and LMG were both chambered in the Czech 7.62x45mm cartridge, and both would be adapted to the Soviet standard 7.62x39mm a few years later, in 1957. Ve...
-
M60: Its Purpose, Mechanics, and Deve...
The concept for the M60 began at the end of World War Two, when US Ordnance officers became very interested in the German concept of a universal machine gun (originally conceived by the Danes, but first put into large-scale use by the Germans). This was the idea of having a single machine gun tha...
