Mayn 7.62 mm Carbine

"To the chief of the Red Army GAU, General-Lieutenant-Colonel comrade Yakovlev

The faculty of aviational armament in the Zhukovskiy Military Air Academy, under the supervision of a lecturer from the department of gun and machinegun armament Colonel comrade P.I. Mayn, designed an experimental self-loading carbine. The prototype was built by Junior Military Technician comrade A.V. Ivantsov and Senior Technical Lieutenant comrade V.S. Usantsev.

The self-loading carbine uses a 7.62 model 1930 pistol cartridge, and demonstrated satisfactory reliability, accuracy, and precision.

The carbine is simple, easy to operate, does not require a special tool to assemble, disassemble, or manufacture, and can easily be manufactured on ordinary equipment with up to a medium degree of wear.

The carbine has definite advantages in its tactical-technical capabilities compared to the self-loading model 1940 rifle or model 1891/30 rifle for use by artillery, engineering, communications, airborne, other specialized units, and infantry commanders.

I give you the sample of the carbine and ask you to ask the State Committee of Defense about its adoption into service by the Red Army.

The author of the design, Colonel Mayn, and Chair of the department, Brigade Engineer M.V. Gurevich, are sent for a report.

Attachment: description of the self-loading carbine on 5 pages.

Military Commissar of the Academy, Vakin."

"3 samples of the self-loading carbine developed by the Military Air Academy"

CAMD RF 81-12040-47

Yuri Pasholok writes that the author of the design was inspired by the prototypes of the M1 Carbine from American magazines (which the cutout of American small arms ammunition definitely suggests). The carbine has a rate of fire of 25-30 RPM, range of 300 meters, a mass of 2.8 kg, and had 20 and 30 round magazines. 

Full Auto SVT

"Conclusions on the proving ground trials of 7.62 mm automatic rifles, converted from semi-automatic rifles, with 10-15 round magazines showed that:

1. Groups at 100 meters when firing in bursts increase by 3-3.5 times.
   At 300 meters, only 25-30% of the bullets strike a 3x3 meter target.
   At 500 meters, up to 30% of the bullets strike a 3.5-4 meter target.
   While shooting with a 15 round magazine, grouping gets worse, and it is difficult to fire while prone due to the protruding magazine.
2. When shooting at targets, only the first bullet hits.
3. The ability to aim is limited to 50 shots over the span of one minute. After that, the barrel overheats, and a mirage effect is achieved, which impedes aiming.
4. The automatic rifle jams:
1. With thick grease: 2-4% of the time
2. With dry parts: 12-14%
3. In dusty conditions: 14-50%
4. While aiming up or down: 8-12%
5. The barrel life is 6000 rounds when firing 50 rounds per minute, after which the rifle was allowed to cool. Continuous fire brings the life down to 150-200 rounds.

As a result of trials, it was concluded that:

1. Is is not viable to create an automatic rifle from a semi-automatic one by modifying the trigger group.
2. It is only possible to aim with such an automatic rifle when using a thickened barrel and lightened bipod.
3. When converting a semi-automatic rifle to fully automatic by only modifying the trigger group, its combat usefulness decreases to less than that of a submachinegun.

Conclusions

1. Due to the decreased combat usefulness, conversion of a semi-automatic rifle to a fully automatic one is not rational.
2. In order to reach required density of fire with a high probability of hitting the target, it is better to use submachineguns, which have the advantages of simpler production, higher reliability, compactness, high magazine capacity, larger stocks of ammunition, etc."

Sniper SVT Trials

"Description of the issue:

Proving grounds and battlefield tests of self-loading sniper rifles developed by factory #314 based on approved and prototype blueprints revealed unsatisfactory shot groups, and significant deviations of the first and second bullets from the dispersion ellipse.
Both drawbacks are caused by design flaws in the rifle and scope mount.
Attempts by the factory to improve groupings with small design proved fruitless, as reducing dispersion and preventing the 1st and 2nd bullet from deviating too much requires significant changes to the rifle and scope mount.
Since, currently, the 7.62 mm model 1891/30 sniper rifle with the PE scope is being manufactured, and a scope mount for the PU scope for the same rifle is under development, it is reasonable to cease production of 7.62 mm self-loading rifles with the PU scope, provided that proving grounds trials of the model 1891/30 rifle prove satisfactory.

Decisions of the Artillery Directorate of the Red Army:
1. Finish trials of the PU scope mount for the model 1891/30 sniper rifle no later than August 20th, 1942.
2. If results are positive, cease production of self-loading sniper rifles starting on September 1st.
3. If the self-loading sniper rifle is removed from production, increase production of model 1891/30 sniper rifles."

Via Andrei Ulanov.