AVS-36: The First Soviet Infantry Battle Rifle
Russia / USSR
•
25m
The AVS-36 was the first self-loading rifle adopted by the Soviet Union to be a standard infantry rifle, and it was not just semiautomatic, but also capable of fully automatic fire. Designed by Sergei Simonov over the course of about ten years, it would only last a short time in service before being replaced by the Tokarev SVT-38 and then SVT-40.
The AVS-36 uses a short stroke gas piston system that remains popular to this day, and a quite unusual locking system incorporating two asymmetrical locking flaps and a vertically traveling locking block. It is striker fired, with semi and full auto selector positions and a 15-round detachable magazine (plus stripper clip guide). In total, 65,800 were made between 1934 and 1940, with true mass production beginning in 1937.
Up Next in Russia / USSR
-
Germany Adopts the PPSh in 9mm: the M...
During World War Two, both German and Russian soldiers often thought that the other side's weapons were better than their own. In particular, both sides often preferred their opponents' SMGs. In late 1941, a group of German officers formally requested that Germany simply copy and produce the PPSh...
-
Semiauto DShKM "Dushka" in .50 Browning
Developed by the Soviet Union primarily as an antiaircraft weapon (and used to good effect in that role through World War Two), the DShK heavy machine gun was modernized almost immediately upon adoption. The first batch of new DShKM guns entered production in February of 1945. The final pattern w...
-
Russia's Big Fifty on the Range: DShK-38
Yesterday we looked at the history and the mechanics of the Soviet heavy machine guns from World War Two, the DShK-38. Today, we are taking it out to the range!
