Ian: Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on forgottenweapons.com, once again, I'm Ian McCollum and I'm joined by Max Popenker our resident small arms expert from Russia and uh, also Author, or uh, Administrator, Editor, Creator — The guy who does everything with modernfirearms.net, which uh, some of you maybe used to know as world.guns.ru And today, I think we're going to talk about the 9x39 cartridge, and all of the guns that are associated with it. Right Max? Max: Yeah. Hello. Ian: All right, okay take it away Max: Yeah, so basically today we are talking about... this... little guy. See? *Ian nods* It's a 9-millimeter subsonic cartridge designed in Soviet Union for, specifically, suppressed weapons. [or] Weapon. So the story actually started in about 1960. At that time the Soviet Spetznaz --- Soviet Special Forces, Used standard AK or AKM — new AKM assault rifles, equipped with suppressor. Those were called PBS, or later on, PBS-1. And, they shoot a special 7.62 US... Ammunition. But it was not like, [US as in] United States. It was US for [Уменьшенная Скорость/Umen'shennaya Skorost'] Reduced Velocity So its cartridge loaded with 12 grams. It's about 185 grain bullet with subsonic velocity, Ian: Hmm.
Max: and it was effective to, say, 200 meters. So if you need to go from standard operation to subsonic — to suppressed — you just had to screw on suppressor on your AKM and change magazine with US ammunition and go hunt enemy sentries or guard dogs, so on... Problem was that, ehh, to actually be able to cycle the AK action — subsonic ammunition had a low pressure. So the suppressor had rubber baffles — rubber washers — without holes, so bullet went through when a rubber sealed up creating sufficient back pressure to cycle the action so in best circumstances the service life of a single rubber baffle was about two hundred rounds. If it had to shoot in full auto, or in winter when it's cold, it significantly decreased so you had to change it often. Also because of different properties of rubber, the accuracy suffered. So basically dispersion increased by 2x It was not really good accuracy. So, about 1960 Soviet Spetznaz asked for something more accurate. Better accuracy. And, Initial work was, "Okay. Well, let's design specific subsonic cartridge." So they actually loaded 7.62 Tokarev cartridge, pistol cartridge with same 12 gram bullet and designed some special subsonic only suppressed weapon. But, the problem was it was not so accurate, not so effective so about 1962 we began - decided - "Okay, what if we, eh, suppress the SVD sniper rifle So it's pretty accurate. So it's sniper, so what [can we] do?" so first they experimented with subsonic ammunition, but the accuracy was so-so and range was limited. Then they thought: okay, can we suppress a supersonic ammunition — just a standard sniper ammunition. So they built a pretty big suppressor, something like a meter long *Ian chuckles* Yes. Cartridge is pretty powerful and start to shoot it, and they found that the edge of the muzzle blast Creates less sound and a ballistic wave of a supersonic bullet So, Suppressor on a supersonic weapon is good for protecting hearing of a shooter or the guys who are behind or besides them. So — but it does not cover the sound of shooting from the enemy So it's not a good idea. So it's not a covert operation. So, yes, you'll save your hearing. But it's not covert shooting. So they abandoned the idea of suppressing supersonic ammunition and went back to subsonics. So by about 1966 they did some calculation, and military wanted to be able to go through contemporary bulletproof vests like soft Kevlar vests and calculations showed that you needed 9-millimeter bullet with velocity of about 300 meters per second. And so was all work going in this direction, but when in mid 60s A lot of work — a lot of effort was put into development of small caliber — 5.45 Caliber cartridge so the military said, "Okay, forget it. So we have a new cartridge. We want a new subsonic cartridge that's based on the same cases. Same caliber like our new one, 5.45, problem was they never were able to get a good effective small caliber subsonic cartridge They did one and they tried to use it in Afghanistan, but it failed because it literally was — It was a five gram bullet, so its killing power was poor... so its accuracy was bad and so on. So following initial experience in Afghanistan standing in need for Spetznaz operation, special forces operation — covert operation behind the Mujaheddin lines, and inside Mujaheddin controlled territory Military, again, asked, "We need a dedicated subsonic suppressed weapon for long-range shooting." Basically... so we started in... 1983, military started 'Vintorez research and development program.' Vintorez in Russian is 'Thread Cutter'. But it has no specific sense It just one of endless list of code names to confuse the CIA, MI6 and all the rest of international services who may heard the term. So we wanted a subsonic Effective sniper rifle, semi-automatic at least And they started for finalize dev- research at TsNIITochMash [Central Research Institute of Precision Engineering] in the city of Klimovsk the prime organization which works on Special Forces weapons in Soviet Union. Two years later, military thought, "Okay, maybe we'll need not hunt only Mujaheddin. Also, we may be operating against NATO forces and those guys are wearing body armour, helmets, and we also need a suppressed weapon to deal with like, guards at some NATO installations in Europe, or everywhere else, And we need to silently kill guys with big steel helmets and body armour. So we need suppressed assault rifle with armor-piercing capability." And they started "VAL" research program, with request that it should be should have as much commonality with Vintorez as possible because Vintorez was a joint program for KGB and military. Because KGB was operating 'in-country', like say the FBI in the United States and 'out-of-country' like say the CIA? "...so we need suppressed weapons for anti-terrorism work inside the country, and for some specific work outside the country" Military wanted the same but only 'out-of-country,' but we need to operate against not a military But maybe some third world militaries So it was interlocked program with different interested parties agreeing on some common requirements. Ian: Gets really difficult when you want both subsonic velocity and armor-piercing. Max: Yeah, so it took a lot of effort and development. So basically in the first was the sniper rifle So in 1985 design was finalized. it was a 9-millimeter cartridge weighing about 16 grams, 250 grains Jacketed bullet, boat-tail bullet, at about 295 m/s or 970 feet/s so it was.. this is...*holds it up* See? This is it.
Ian: Okay. It's jacketed bullet. It's not It's sniper bullet, but it has a steel deep inside It's mild steel weighing about 3 and a half grams, or 50 grains, and the rest is lead. So see it's pointed, boat-tailed, and was loaded into the case based on 7.62x39 But necked up to 9-millimeter. You see if I put it This way Side by side you see the same case length, but you won't be able to Chamber 9 millimeter into 7. millimeter because the same case length. It won't chamber in the same points. The reverse is possible. You can occasionally chamber 7.62 cartridge into 9-millimeter weapon and it should fire it. But the worst thing you can achieve is the bullet, it will not touch the rifling, it will tumble a little and can damage the baffles of the suppressor But you can't- but it will be not catastrophic damage. You'll just get your arse kicked by sergeant or by your armourer. But you will not be blown up on a fire cloud. So the armor-piercing like I said was a more complicated solution. So they actually found that to get the best performance you need a semi-jacketed bullet If you see closely on the cartridge In the tip is exposed. It's a tool-grade, hardened steel You see it's not a pointed tip. It has a flat tip. Slightly blunt, so they did lot of experimenting to find that this works best for penetrating So when it hits an armored panel, it shreds the jacket Only hardened steel in the jacket goes in. It's pretty heavy. It's about 7 millimeters in diameter, so it has enough punch to kill or inflict serious wound. So it's a pretty good killer round So it was adopted in 1988 along with AS assault rifle. Both Vintorez and AS Val assault rifles, they both had a same receiver, same gas-operated rotating-bolt action same trigger with striker-fired system, not like Kalashnikov, it was Actually the bolt was different. It has six lugs more like a Stoner bolt, but were different it was more like AR-15— AR 18 bolt, but with long stroke gas piston Ian: Hmm! Okay. Max: Both guns had short barrels with ports to feed the gasses inside the suppressor. They had similar suppressors Semi-integral, detachable for cleaning they were very similar except for, for external the sniper rifle has a Dragunov style fixed stock, and the Val rifle had a side-folding stock and pistol grip. They had different barrel specifics because the balance was slightly different, and the Vintorez has a more precision made barrel to shoot with sniper ammunition, and Val has a rifling made to better withstand full automatic fire but in specific circumstances, you can fire sniper ammunition through a assault rifle and you can fire armor-piercing ammunition through a sniper rifle. Now it was issued to the KGB special groups like Alpha, like Vympel, and to the military Spetsnaz, and mostly recon groups and so on. But those were limited issue top secret weapons, so, like, ordinary recon units retained all Kalashnikovs with subsonic ammunition. Problem was that those dedicated subsonic weapons They're only subsonic. So if like you go on a, say, KGB, or anti-terror operation — So you turn up to the specific point — you have a few shots at terrorists Then you go back to the base. And if you go to the special operation You may go get a special For a raid for example at enemy base But if you go out on a foot patrol and there's chances that you will be engaged by a bigger... enemy force, you need to protect yourself for a full-scale firefight. And you need a proper assault rifle to be effective within your small unit So if you carry a Vintorez or Val You need a second gun. You need a Kalashnikov to be able to participate in normal full-scale firefight. If you have an AKM or AK-103 with suppressor, you just unscrew the suppressor, you swap magazines, and you're good to go — to be engaged in normal firefight. Of course, with like a suppressed weapon, AK with suppressors will be inferior of anything 9-millimetre. It has less accuracy, about 2x less range, and so on. But you know like always, it's either versatile or effective. Ian: Right. As you can see all the stuff has been adopted toward the end of Soviet Union, and in 1991 Soviet Union fell down, disintegrated, and it was a very bad turbulent times a lot of crime high scale terrorist attacks and bad economic situation. So first thing — so people needed more specific weapons for anti-terrorism, for law enforcement operations against terrorists, against organised crime and so on. So, during late 90s, several design bureaus began to develop like less expensive law-enforcement-specific weapons For use in situation where a standard Kalashnikov or submachine gun is not sufficient. So most work has been made in Tula, well, two separate at the time organizations. At TsKIB SOO, the design bureau for sporting and hunting guns, and KBP, which we mentioned its design role which mostly worked on bigger weapons — automatic guns, missiles and so on. TsKIB SOO, the sporting guns design bureau, began with a conversion of AKS-74U — Old Krinkov, like you know it, into 9-millimeters; It has been called a "tiss" OTs-11 Tiss So basically we took AKS-74U which has been made at Tula Arms factory, they changed the barrel, they designed a new proprietary magazine for 20 round capacity And tried to sell it to the law enforcement. They probably sold a couple hundred copies because they had very little manufacturing capability; it was semi-handmade, and then someone made, "Okay, so, conventional rifle is not cool enough. So our guys going against heavily armored Chechen terrorists So we need something more powerful, more cool", and toward the end of 90s, we designed Groza assault rifle which is most famous thanks to the various computer games. It's a Kalashnikov based bullpup of modular design, which can be used as short assault rifle with a short barrel and forward grip, as a suppressed weapon with big suppressor screwed on, or like assault rifle with grenade launcher... strapped... ...under the barrel for like serious work that you had to do. Knock out doors before going in. They made several hundreds. Four- five hundred of Groza kits But they were not very popular for several reasons. First, they were expensive. Second, there was lack of spare parts and especially magazines, because magazines were proprietary, and getting spare magazines was a real headache. Also, you see it was a bullpup based on a Kalashnikov, so ejection port was right under your right eye. The Kalashnikovs are known for back[blast] — For a seeping gunpowder gases out of ejection port; when you firing with suppressor, there's a lot of smoke going out of ejection window right into your face. And that's not a fun. I heard people who shot a couple of magazines. They were like whole face black from smoke It was certainly not a fun. And finally, with the grenade launcher, it was designed with the people- the man who never was in real combat. Who had— Who approached the gun like a technical... like an engineer(ing?) like a technical task which had to be solved specifically. Weight, strength, and so on. The problem was that the grenade launcher and assault rifle had a single trigger... and the switch to change between grenade launcher barrel and assault rifle. so if you switch it to grenade launcher and suddenly terrorist pops out in front of you, you had to use your left hand to turn the switch for 180 degrees before you able to shoot it with bullets and not with grenade. So and overall ergonomic was pretty bad Selec- Fire selector was in a traditional Kalashnikovs location, somewhere above right shoulder. So it's best... So those guns were best known from computer games. So they're still resting in many armories of law enforcement like, special units But they pull it out mostly - just for fun, for the shots, to shoot a couple of magazines Because in practical li- life, it was not effective. But Klimovsk that designed Vintorez and Val Extended its line with SR-3 Vikhr compact assault rifle. It was designed on specific requests for VIP protection teams. And they understood that a 9-millimeter round is very good man stopper— much better than any 9-millimeter pistol ammunition. And even without suppressor it's not so loud, so it won't pop your eardrums if you shoot it indoors. Of course, it's not pleasant, but it's not so bad, like shooting .223 or 5.45 indoors, but at short range, like 50 meters, 100 meters, it's really good man stopper. So they asked "OK, guys, make us a very compact easily concealable Assault rifle which we can put under a coat just bring it in cars to protect our VIP persons, or maybe use it for special law enforcement operations when guys under-cover had to go counter terrorist-organized crime". So they designed the SR-3. So initially had a Very compact design. It has instead of traditional charging handle, it has two very small sliders who have to grip it with two fingers pull it back and had top- very compact top folding stock and Actually early prototypes had a spring-loaded folding stock. So if you need to pull out of your jacket You just press release and the stock unfolds automatically. So you just bring it... But they had a demonstration for some generals and one top ranking officer accidentally press release and got hit in the face with a folding stock It was not a fun for him It's not not a fun for people who performed the demonstrations so spring was left out of design But it was still top folding, very compact stock, and weapon was pretty small, handy, and really effective as a concealable, short range, personal defense weapon (PDW). But short time after... :"Okay, So but what if you can add the suppressor and get actually more versatile weapon than a Vintorez or Val?" So you could pull out a suppressor and had short CQ- very good CQB weapon, select-fire better than any submachine gun, you screw on a suppressor, you actually could operate silently, and maybe you can put optics— red dot or low magnification optical sight and get some sort of... not sniper, but good accuracy single shots with suppressor. So they actually created SR-3M compact assault rifle, and this is really good weapon. It's probably not as reliable as Kalashnikov, and requires— certainly requires a lot more maintenance and care, but within specific niches, as a PDW or as a CQB weapon, it's really good. Quite effective at, say, up to 200 or 250 meters, it can shoot armor-piercing ammunition, it can shoot ball ammunition — So it's effective against bad guys wearing body armor or hiding behind the car bodies, or behind windshields A really effective law enforcement, special law enforcement weapon. Tula *AHEM* KBP in Tula tried to do the same with their family of 9A-91 and VSK-94 weapons But-but less expensive. It was also a proprietary gas-operated guns [But it was more of a small sideshow for KBP] So they made a few and right now they are not producing them anymore. So a few still in use But SR-3M, and like the VSS and AS are still produced, still used- still most used 9-millimeter suppressed weapons in Russia, and they also used in some former Soviet republics They are really popular among their users. So it's— and now a 9-millimeter weapon, but it's still in development, the Kalashnikov Concern are working on AMB-17 compact assault rifle, it will be direct competitor to SR-3M But it's made from wide use of plastics, it has better ergonomics, but it's still in development. I really— I shoot it this year. It's really nice gun. A really handy compact, silent, effective, but is still in development, is probably a year before they can put it to production So, I know a lot of people compare .300 blackout with 9-millimeter, so here again 9-millimeter is this, are more business This is .300 blackout, so, I don't have 200 grain bullet for .300 handy, but if you can see this bullet, it's heavier. It's probably a little bit less... a little bit less accurate and a little bit less aerodynamic than the .300 because .300 subsonic rounds are made for quality brass jacket and only lead core so if you need accuracy, of course the .300 are probably better. Especially from an expensive specially designed bolt-action rifle, like for example Swiss B&T makes — dedicated suppressed bolt-action sniper rifle. but if you need to go out and hunt bad guys who may be covering behind a car door wearing body armor, or something else, the 9-millimeter is better all the way because it has armor-piercing ammunition and 9-millimeter bullet even against unprotected... eh... enemy, it simply creates bigger hole because they both subsonic, so there's not significant like temporary cavity So no hydrodynamic shock So it's only permanent wound channel. Nine millimeter is better than 7.62 millimeters. So it's again balanced. So for some niches, .300 is better, especially if you go on to do some target shooting like Commercial civilian, but for some, for military use 9-millimeter is probably better Speaking on commercial use, several years ago in Russia, the 9-millimeter round has been commercialized. The first guns were very limited production were made in Tula, made like a civilian version of 9A-91 assault rifle but only semi-automatic and with fake suppressor covering a longer barrel. Today, Tula Arms Factory produces civilian Vintorez rifle. And it's only semi-automatic and the suppressor is fake So it's full-length barrel inside suppressor jacket, so it basically has little use as a commercial role because it's not so effective for hunting because, round is— originally designed to kill "middle-weight game", like humans, but interesting thing— they have almost very similar round in Russian use it's actually quite useful for hunting and it's externally similar. So this is like again 9-millimeter, and this is This is called .366 TKM, and in Russia, it's considered a shotgun round, smooth-bore round load because it's fired either from like guns with paradox rifling, it's shorter, from, from thirty centimeters with Paradox [rifling]. It's considered locally legally considered a smoothbore shotgun or, with Lancaster oval bore, It's also considered shotgun So this is actually shotgun round, load fires ferrous bullets White heavy subsonic, supersonic This is one So actually this load .366 TKM is really popular in Russia. It's used in several Kalashnikov-based weapons, also in bolt-action rifles— shotguns, sorry, actually, Molot produces copy of Vintorez in .366. It's not suppressed, again, but it's like a shotgun, a smoothbore version of Vintorez and this load is really popular in Russian Especially because it's legally a smoothbore so you don't need to wait five years to get rifle license so as soon as you turned 18, you can apply for shotgun license, and buy almost a Vintorez if you had enough money or just simpler— rebarrel a Kalashnikov Which is pretty good it can be used for hunting, for self-defense, for plinking and even for IPSC But 9-millimeter is mostly military special-purpose round and in civilian market is mostly purchased by collectors but people who want to check it to have something cool. That Spetsnaz have like same. Ian: Okay So if you have any questions for this story, go ahead Ian: Nothing specifically that comes to mind. It's interesting that the VAL and the Vintorez are still in production... that's cool. Max: Because they are still needed because still bad guys that needs to be put down and sometimes we had to do it without much noise and special operations— military special operations authorized in Russian army, because you know It's those days people are really hoping that there'll be no huge world war three on the nuclear burned European Plains, so it's mostly like limited warfare in different parts of world, and the special force play really important role. Ian: Alright. Well, that was really cool, Max. Thank you very much for taking the time again I know there are a lot of people interested in 9x39 over here, and there's not that much information on it. So Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video. If you did, of course, make sure to check out Max's website of course: modernfirearms.net We'll have a link to that in the description below and Max, I look forward to our next chat Max: Yeah, and looking forward to it, too. Okay guys and feel free to ask questions in comments, I read them from time to time.
Geezuz bloodsuckers, are you/he reading my mind? I was just looking for his coverage on Vintorez couple hours ago.
Sweet! I've been waiting for this video ever since he started doing those talks with Max.