Dragunov

[Scharfschuetzer]

My comments regarding the Dragunov I think are valid. It is obviously not an AK and has different component designs in areas like the gas piston and trigger assembly as a few of you have pointed out. It's longer barrel and calibre are obvious to anyone, but it is as AKish as the M-4 is M-16inish.

Let's look at the commonalites though. To me there is an inate similarity and if one is trained on the AK, he won't find operating the SVD or its Romanian and other counterparts any mystery.

This is what I refer to.

Loading, unloading and placing into action
Bolt carrier and bolt
Dust cover
Magazine latch and operation
Safety location and basic operation
Reciever layout
Bore allignment to shooter and receiver
Pistol grip and trigger location
Iron sights or back up sights

If you wish to delve into the details, fine, but do not disparage the obvious. I shot my first AK-47 in VN and have shot the various versions of the Dragunov off and on when they became avalable to us in the late 80s along with the AKM and AK-74.

While most readers of this thread are familiar with the Kalishnikov series of weapons, here are a few schematics of the SVD to show the similarities of it and the basic AK design.

For those with AKs or AKMs, please compare my notes above to those parts in the SVD. I think that most will agree that the SVD is much more akin to the AK/AKM than the AK is to the M-16, not only by design, but by function.

Now bear with me one more minute and let me substantiate my argument further.

The M-14 evolved from John Garand's M1 and the Ruger Mini 14 evolved from the M-14. Even the lowly M1/M2 carbines share many engeneering features with the M1 Garand even though they don't share the same trigger assembly, method of securing to the stock or gas piston arrangement. Kind of the same dissimilarities between the SVD v. AK.

Who brought up the M-16 a few posts above? I don't think anyone will argue that the AR-15, M-16A1, the XM-177, the Car 15, the M-16A2 and A4 as well as our current M-4 and M-4A1 are all evolutions of the original AR-10 chambered for the 7.62 cartridge. Who would say that the M-4 does not owe its heritage to the original AR-10? Not me and to say that it is more akin to the SVD is just simply wrong.

To further bore you, the 1863 rifled musket became the 1868 50/70 Trapdoor breechloader and that was updated through the following models: 1870, 1873 (now in 45/70), 1873 with 1879 mods, 1884 and finally the 1888 ramrod baynet rifle. There were several versions of carbines and cadet rifles that all evolved from the original Springfield 1863 which itself had evolved through several iterations of smoth bore muskets and rifled muskets.

Where I'm going here is that weapons evolve to meet new requirements and or military doctrine. The SVD has done this also and it came via the path of the AK-47, the AKM and the AK-74. The doctrine of an infantry support rifle, mentioned by Chrome Plated in the post above this, is the reason for the SVD and why it evolved as it did. It is very AKish like it or not.

Sorry it took so long to say all of the above, but let me finally conclude that casting dispersions about really does nothing for your argument. It's been, overal, a great thread about an unusual and still pretty rare rifle. Why not we keep it that way?

 

[raftman]

If we're to be honest, the padded list is now making it a nebulous "well they have some similarities" argument, it doesn't make the statement of "it's basically the same action scaled to a different round" or that "take down is essentially the same" any more true. That all simply remains untrue.

Loading, unloading and placing into action

There are countless auto and semi-auto rifles that load the, unload, and chamber a round in the same way. They are far from all being essentially the same action or taking down the same way.

Bolt carrier and bolt

There's similarities between the AK bolt and bolt carrier and the bolt/carrier of the M1 Garand, the AK bolt/carrier is in fact usually considered to be based on that of the Garand. It still cannot be said that they're essentially the same gun scaled to a different round, or that take down is essentially the same.

Dust cover

Yes, they both have a dust cover, as do other rifles. It's not secured in the same way. Nothing to do with the action or take-down being the same.

Magazine latch and operation

Common to other firearms as well, and again does nothing to establish that the action and take down are at all similar.

Safety location and basic operation

Just like every pistol slide-mounted decocker safety is the same as a Walther PPK and comes apart the same way?

So on and so forth down the entire list, none of it means that the action is the same or that take down is the same. For example... what does having similar iron sights have to do with the action? The Mosin had essentially the exact same layout as far as sights go... is one to argue the Mosin, AK, and SVD are all same action and come apart the same way?

Maybe comparing it to the M-16 was a bit of a hyperbole, the Vz.58 - AK comparison would be more apt. They look an awful lot alike, the untrained eye wouldn't even know the difference, and at a distance even a trained eye may have difficulty in distinguishing the two. Same class of weapon, operated in very much the same way, very similar sights, even same caliber. But not a single part interchanges between the two, take-down is nothing alike unless you over-generalize, different layout of the FCG, and the actions are for the most part very dissimilar. It simply cannot be said that it's the same action despite some of the superficial similarities that exist.

 

[Scharfschuetzer]

It looks like we are going to beat this horse until it is dead! I'm sure that everyone is getting pretty bored with it, but let me amplify my claim one more time.

While I pefer to speak from experience, you are having none of that, so I got out one of my old firearms books that used to be a required text for the SF light weapons course (18B) at Fort Bragg, NC. Did you attend? At one time there were two SF companies from the old 11th SF Group in Oregon and perhaps you were in one of them. They disbanded around 1994, so perhaps not.

In any event, the text is "Small Arms of the World." by the noted firearms authority Edward Ezell. I'm looking at the 12th edition published in 1983. I don't know if it is still available in book stores, but one should be able to find it at Amazon.com. For any military user or soldier working in the Third World, it is a valuable book as most of what you run across in those latitudes and climes is usually covered in this tome. From Mauser 98s, Lee Enfields to Soviet PK machine guns, it's all there with the exception of anything produced after its publishing date.

At any rate, in the chapter on Soviet small arms (Chapter 46) on page 713 you'll find this sentence in the introduction to the SVD:

"The Dragunov uses an action which closely resembles that of the AK."

In the paragraph on "How the SVD Works" you'll find this statement:

"The bolt operation of the SVD is essentially the same as that of the AK/AKM in semiautomatic fire."

It does go on to say (as you noted previously) that the SVD has a spring-loaded piston rod, which is a seperate assembly and then describes the differences between its trigger and that of the AK/AKM.

It then goes on to describe the take down of the SVM as similar to the AK/AKM.

Speaking of the seperate op rod, in the much more detailed "The AK47 Story-Evolution of the Kalashnikov Weapons" in Chapter 6: "Design Evolution of Weapons Based on the Kalashnikov Avtomat, 1958-1985," I found an interesting reference to the "why" of the seperate op rod. I found this interesting and I thought that the readers here might also; so I quote:

"In the long-stroke piston systems used with the earlier Kalashnikov designs, the operating rod assembly was rather heavy, When scaled up to the size necessary for the 7.62 X 54mmR cartridge, the operating rod was very heavy and tended to upset the center of gravity balance when it reciprocated during shooting."

I'm not a big fan of quoting people and books, but it seems apropos for one final passage from the book from page 214:

A close look at both weapons in the accompanying photographs clearly indicates the debt of the designer to the work of Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov.

I again invite you to look at those points I mentioned in my previous post and then compare what those parts look like in the schematics as well as USMCGrunt's nice photo and compare them to the SVD's progenitor, the AK. The AK may be a bit ugly, but the family resemblance in the looks and operation of the swelt SVD is there for any but the most myopic eye. Try to look at the big picture as my initial post was intended and don't get bogged down in the minutia of seperate components just for the sake of an argument or ego.

If you can provide a solid argument against the obvious, perhaps you should try and change what has been written numerous times by men smarter than you or I as well as get military lesson plans adjusted to your point of view.

As you are in Oregon, you're not far from Fort Lewis and if you'd like, come on up to the base and we can go shoot at the MWR range 15 on a weekend. Bring some coffee, lunch and your SVD and I'll bring my 91/30 Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle for fun. You're probably not in the military (retiree, active duty or reserves), but I can get you on as a civilian guest under my sponsorship for the day. Of course you may have to eat your "phony" comment.

 

[raftman]

I think this has become far more complicated than it needs to be and has become more subjective than it needs to be. The original poster asked a relatively simple question, basically whether or not the Dragunov is nothing more than a scoped AK with a longer barrel. I think the honest answer, in light of all the differences that exist, is no. It's not that no similarities whatsoever exist, but there's not enough to say they're simply the same thing in different dimensions.

For example, just like there obviously are a number of similarities between between the Colt 1911 and the Browning Hi-Power, and definitely a common origin, but no one really says the BHP is just a 1911 with a double-stack magazine.

Here's kind of a "thought experiment," suppose someone were quite familiar with the AKM, but had never even heard of the SVD before. If you were to hand such a person an SVD, would they immediately be able to field strip it without first being shown how? Most likely not. They may eventually be able to figure out through closely examining the weapon, and using trial and error. If you were to hand such a person a PSL or a M76, then there would be no problem.

"In the long-stroke piston systems used with the earlier Kalashnikov designs, the operating rod assembly was rather heavy, When scaled up to the size necessary for the 7.62 X 54mmR cartridge, the operating rod was very heavy and tended to upset the center of gravity balance when it reciprocated during shooting."

This is an interesting tidbit, but doesn't this go to show the book can be wrong? There are quite a few rifles out there that are genuinely just AK's scaled to larger rifle cartridges, including 7.62x54R, 8mm Mauser, .308/7.62x51, and even .30-06, some of these are even designed and made by the Russians themselves.

As you are in Oregon, you're not far from Fort Lewis and if you'd like, come on up to the base and we can go shoot at the MWR range 15 on a weekend. Bring some coffee, lunch and your SVD and I'll bring my 91/30 Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle for fun. You're probably not in the military (retiree, active duty or reserves), but I can get you on as a civilian guest under my sponsorship for the day. Of course you may have to eat your "phony" comment.

I will admit that I was hasty in affixing a negative label, it's just that the post seemed at first glance to portray an insufficiently nuanced interpretation of the subject for someone of that background. Either way, I appreciate the invite but that's a 200+ mile drive (besides I already own a sniper 91/30 of my own!)