Rostec State Corporation has compiled the top of the most unusual cartridges produced by its constituent enterprises. Among the ammunition, the quietest, longest, miniature, luminous and a sample with two bullets were singled out, the Rostec press service reports.
The quietest cartridges were developed by designer Igor Stechkin in the middle of the last century by order of the KGB for a special silent firing device, which was disguised as a cigarette case. There was no silencer in it, so special cartridges were used. They were named SP-1. These cartridges did not go into mass production. But on their basis, more powerful SP-3 and SP-4 were made, they were adopted.
The longest needle bullets were made for the APS underwater submachine gun. They look like an arrow, the length is 15 centimeters, the caliber is 5.66 millimeters. This is three times more than the usual cartridge of a Kalashnikov assault rifle. At the maximum firing range, such a bullet will hit an enemy in a wetsuit or break through organic glass up to five millimeters thick.
The smallest cartridge is 5.45×18 mm caliber. He is able to penetrate bulletproof vests up to the second class of protection. And they created it for a small-sized self-loading pistol - PSM. It is still considered to be the flattest serial pistol in the world, its width is 18 millimeters.
The next in the ranking is a cartridge with two bullets. The developers of Tsniitochmash gave the name of this project "Theorist". The result is cartridges 12.7×108 mm 1SL and 1SLT (tracer). They were adopted in 1984. They were not widely distributed, because the military was not satisfied with the reduced penetration capacity and large dispersion of bullets.
The first hunting cartridge with a light element was created by engineers of the Technodinamika holding. It was named "Loop Vector". According to the developers, it has no Russian and foreign analogues. The light element allows you to visualize the flight of a shotgun shell and adjust the accuracy of the shot. This is its uniqueness. The "Loop-Vector" is used for shooting not only from classic single-barrel, double-barrel or pump-action rifles, but also from smoothbore weapons with gas-discharge or inertial automation. Suitable for 12 gauge weapons.
Svetlana Tsygankova
