The People’s Heavy Machinery Factory, No. 37
Minsk
1938
17:00Z
Yuri needed vodka in the worst way. Just 10 minutes ago he had been day-dreaming about a long pull of the rough proletarian Popov vodka that stood on a bare wooden shelf, above the rickety cot in his tiny flat. Ahhh… how he yearned for oblivion’s sweet embrace. Delicious numbness was sure to follow the fire in his throat and the spreading warmth in his belly. What more could a worker of the People’s steel hope or ask for? Sure it was low-grade swill, made in rusty vats with rotten potatoes. Who cared that it was unlikely to have been filtered through anything cleaner than the rags wrapped around his aching feet and nothing at all like the fine Stolichnaya that the Party Members enjoyed. But what the hell? It took the edge off of life.
Now, his vodka-flavored dream began to fade in sync with the last dregs of sunlight on the horizon. People’s Factory Supervisor Oleg Demyanovich had appeared moments before the final shift whistle blew and led Yuri up the stamped-steel stairs to the overseer’s sparsely furnished office overlooking the Tractor production floor. A Party man awaited him in a warm looking trenchcoat lined with fur. Yuri knew that this Comrade didn’t have to drink Popov after work. The bastard.
“Comrade Stalin and Mother Russia need your effort and ingenuity Yuri. The Motherland calls upon you in this our most desperate hour. You must succeed in this task!”, rumbled Demyanovich.
Yuri paled at the mention of the feared Premier, “Me? Shto eta? What task? I am but a simple machinist! Surely I have nothing to offer Comrade Stalin?”
A feral grin spread across Demyanovich’s humorless face, “Your modesty does you credit Comrade, but I have heard of your skill with machines, your ability to innovate, and the small but vital improvements you have made on the production floor. Such creativity is just what the Motherland needs and just what it has most sorely lacked after the Revolution.”
“Comrade!” was all a shocked and scandalized Yuri was able to squeak out before the Party man lifted an oiled canvas revealing a massive weapon…
“Ease your mind, I am a true member of the Party. The matter at hand is simple Yuri, you are familiar with the Krupnocalibernyj Pulemet Degtiarev machine gun, yes?”
“Nyet! I have seen them of course but…”
“Splendid! Then you will redesign it! You see here and here, the box feed and chambering mechanism holds 30 rounds. It is inadequate and fires far too slowly! The Premier requires that the weapon feed faster and more efficiently. You have 2 weeks to produce a finished model.”
“But Comrade!”
“There is no time for questions! Comrade Yuri Shpagin will invent a way to achieve the Premier’s goal, or Comrade Yuri Shpagin will be reassigned to the People’s Reeducation Camp No. 36 in Perm!” raged Demyanovich.
“Da, Comrade Ya ponimayu…”
The above is fiction (obviously) but it was certainly inspired by real feelings. I have had many opportunities to handle metal of all varieties growing up as the son of a junk dealer and as such I ascribe certain roles to metal based of their tactility. The metal of this weapon is all peasant. Hold the rotary feed cover and you can not help but imagine the recycled metal mud deflector from a Russian tractor. The entire weapon is marked by hand tools or rough hand-held power tools. I am unable to adequately describe how diffferent this weapon feels compared to weapons of US manufacture. It is simply a horse of another color. Without further ado:
(sort of looks like some Alien weapon doesn't it?)
That is the cover I spoke of earlier. The metal has a grainy and rough texture which really holds oil well... Very proletarian.
Fully dissassembled and cleaned...
This is the bolt carrier, look at the tool marks in there...
The trigger is actually hand fullered to the sear pin lifter here!
These marks appear haphazardly everywhere on the gun. My opinion is that these are inspection marks stuck into the metal of the still hot parts as they were measured by various workers...
The bolt and carrier as seen from below the gun...
This is the linkage from the gas return which actually drives the weapon's operating cycle. There is a spring in there which you must compress to charge the gun. Very odd design as it actually end up pulling the bolt forawrd to lock instea of the more common push design (like Stoner types).
This gun seems to be a resalvage job. Most of the parts have original serial which have been hand struck (as above) and redesignated as CA 974.
This is a highly robust positive lock for the rotor cover. Still works perfectly.
This is the post restoration receiver... (really needs some power tools and reblueing but...)
The barrel has 1943 stamped on it but I believe that 1944 is the year this gun was salvaged and redesignated.
This rotor was rusted to nonfunctionality when we found it but it operates smoothly and reliably after a few days of TLC and CLP from Colangelo. Still looks like the world's biggest six-gun to me.
I gotta have more rotor!
Trigger sear and safety mechanism. Still functional.
This screams Soviet manufacture.
Bissa decides that we are paying too much attention to the un and not enough to her...
She does give the receiver a tail-hug though...
And this is what we started from.... Colangelo put a ton of labor into this beast...
