Yevgeny Fyodorovich Dragunov (russian: Евге́ний Фёдорович Драгуно́в; February 20, 1920August 4, 1991) was a Soviet

weapons A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...

designer, best known for his role in helping invent the

semi-automatic rifle A semi-automatic rifle is an autoloading rifle that fires a single cartridge with each pull of the trigger, and uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and load another cartridge into the chamber. For comparison, a bolt ...

bearing his name, the Dragunov sniper rifle.

Early life and education

Coming from a family of gunsmiths, Dragunov worked as a factory machinist before beginning military service in 1939.

Career

After 1941, Dragunov was a senior armorer working for the Soviet Union and also captured enemy weapons during wartime. After 1945, he returned to Izhevsk and joined the Arms Design Bureau, working as a project engineer on sporting and civilian target rifles through the 1950s. One of these, the Biathlon target rifle, went on to the Olympic Gold. In 1959, Dragunov submitted his design for a military sniper rifle, the SVD, which was accepted into Soviet military service in 1963, and later became known as the Dragunov rifle. Dragunov also participated in the competition that led to the adoption of AKS-74U with a gas-operated design called MA (malokalibernii avtomat). Although Dragunov's avtomat was comparable in performance to Kalashnikov's, the latter had the advantage that it shared some parts with the

AK-74 The AK-74 ( Russian: , tr. ''Avtomat Kalashnikova obraztsa 1974 goda'', lit. 'Kalashnikov assault rifle model 1974) is an assault rifle designed by small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1974. While primarily associated with the Soviet ...

rifle already in production. The non-metallic parts of the MA were made of

polyamide A polyamide is a polymer with repeating units linked by amide bonds. Polyamides occur both naturally and artificially. Examples of naturally occurring polyamides are proteins, such as wool and silk. Artificially made polyamides can be made th ...

s. The MA was Dragunov's last major design. The trigger mechanism used in the MA was fairly similar to the one previously used in his PP-71 sub-machine gun,.

Awards

Order of the Badge of Honour The Order of the Badge of Honour (russian: орден «Знак Почёта», orden "Znak Pochyota") was a civilian award of the Soviet Union. It was established on 25 November 1935, and was conferred on citizens of the USSR for outstanding ...

(1957) * the Lenin Prize (1963)Драгунов Евгений Фёдорович // Большая Российская Энциклопедия / редколл., гл. ред. Ю. С. Осипов. том 9. М., научное издательство "Большая Российская Энциклопедия", 2007. * the

State Prize of the Russian Federation The State Prize of the Russian Federation, officially translated in Russia as Russian Federation National Award, is a state honorary prize established in 1992 following the breakup of the Soviet Union. In 2004 the rules for selection of laureates ...

(1992, posthumously)

Inventions

* TsV-50 (''ЦВ-50'') - target rifle * MTsV-50 (''МЦВ-50'') - target rifle * TsV-55 "Zenith" (''ЦВ-55 "Зенит"'') - 7.62mm target rifle * MTsV-55 "Strela" (''МЦВ-55 "Стрела"'') - 5.6mm target rifle * MTsV-56 "Taiga" - 5.6mm lightweight bolt-action target rifle (in 1959 it was awarded the silver medal of the VDNKh exhibition) * SVD - 7.62mm semi-automatic sniper rifle * PP-71 - 9mm submachine gunСергей Монетчиков
ОРУЖИЕ СПЕЦНАЗА: Малогабаритные пистолеты-пулемёты
Bratishka, April 2003

References

External links

* http://www.kalashnikov.ru/upload/medialibrary/862/006_010.pdf * http://vpk.name/news/36537_glavnoe_vpechatlenie__effektivnost_i_funkcionalnost.html * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhOtumSFP6w {{DEFAULTSORT:Dragunov, Yevgeny 1920 births 1991 deaths People from Izhevsk Firearm designers Soviet engineers Soviet inventors Soviet military personnel of World War II