50 years of legend of SVD sniper gun

Introduced in 1963 for 50 years, the SVD sniper rifle has shown its excellent performance.

SVD sniper rifle is a product of designer Yevgeny Dragunov. It won the design competition for long range firepower support weapons. SVD stands for Snayperskaya Vintovka Dragunova (Russian transliteration) which means Dragunova's sniper rifle.

SVD is a semi-automatic assault rifle that operates on the principle of short air extraction with a barrel-locked pedestal fitted with a rotating barrel lock.

Yevgeny Dragunov's design defeated two designs by Sergei Simonov, Aleksandr Konstantinov in the final competition and became the standard sniper gun for the Soviet army.

After undergoing rigorous tests, the prototype was accepted for Soviet military service in 1963. The first experimental SVD sniper rifle batch was conducted in 1963 with 200 .

The gun was mass-produced by the Izhmash rifle factory in 1964, and since then SVD has become the standard sniper rifle for Warsaw militaries.

SVD is a semi-automatic assault rifle that operates on the principle of short air extraction with a barrel-locked pedestal fitted with a rotating barrel lock. The SVD's barrel lock has 3 slots for use in pushing the shell out and loading new bullets into the chamber.

The SVD's barrel is long and thin to reduce weight, increase range

The SVD's barrel is long and thin to reduce weight, increase range. The inside of the barrel is crome-plated to prevent corrosion. The barrel has four slots, the bullet comes out of the barrel at a 320mm twist, the upgraded variant in the 1970s reduces the twist to 240mm.

SVD has a hole-in-the-wood wooden lining to reduce weight and increase heat dissipation for the gun. Firearm and handle are in place and the gun is made of solid wood on the top with a cheek to watch. The SVD-S variant is designed with a foldable gun grip for use in the paratroopers, shorter gun barrels, and a new short-barreled flame shield.

SVD uses 7.62x54mm bullet size, 10-bullet ammunition box. Gun equipped with removable optical viewfinder PSO-1. This short glass is available with a fastener that can be mounted or removed from the gun quickly.

PSO-1 has 4x amplification with maximum target sight range of 1,200 meters, the upgraded PSO-1M2 variant has a target sight range of 1,300 meters.

Optical viewfinder of SVD

SVD has an overall length of 1225mm. The barrel is 620mm long with standard SVD, 565mm with SVD-S, 600mm with SVU.

Weight includes combat of guns from 4.3-5.02kg depending on the variant. The effective range of SVD is 800m, while the maximum range with the optical viewfinder is 1200-1300m. The gun has a quick start, the barrel is relatively fast about 830m / s. The time from when the bullet left the barrel until it hit the target at a distance of 1,300 meters only took about 1.5 seconds.

SVD has proven to be a high-precision sniper gun. On the other hand, guns show high reliability, ease of use and storage in battlefield conditions. SVD has been equipped for Vietnamese army sniper forces since the war against the US to play an important part in consuming enemy forces lurking in remote fortifications.

The time from when the bullet left the barrel until it hit the target at a distance of 1,300 meters only took about 1.5 seconds.

Although built in the 1960s technology, the gun's features and accuracy have not declined over the years. Later upgraded variants such as SVD-S with a number of gun barrel improvements and barrel-head flares make the gun more accurate.