Vepr (other)
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The Vepr () is the first Ukrainian-made
assault rifle An assault rifle is a select fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge, intermediate-rifle cartridge and a Magazine (firearms), detachable magazine.C. Taylor, ''The Fighting Rifle: A Complete Study of the Rifle in Combat'', F.A. Moyer '' ...
, designed in 1993–1994 by the
State Space Agency of Ukraine The State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU; ) is the Ukrainian government agency responsible for space policy and programs. It was formed on 29 February 1992, and was based on the Soviet space program infrastructure that remained in Ukraine foll ...
and announced in 2003.


History

Prior to the development of the Vepr, the personnel of the
Armed Forces of Ukraine The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are the Military, military forces of Ukraine. All military and security forces, including the Armed Forces, are under the command of the president of Ukraine and subject to oversight by a permanent Verkhovna Rad ...
were equipped mainly with the Soviet
AKM The AKM () is an assault rifle designed by Soviet small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1959. It was developed as the successor to the AK-47 adopted by the Soviet Union a decade prior. Introduced into service with the Soviet Army in 19 ...
and
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 as a successor to the AKM. While primarily ...
assault rifle An assault rifle is a select fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge, intermediate-rifle cartridge and a Magazine (firearms), detachable magazine.C. Taylor, ''The Fighting Rifle: A Complete Study of the Rifle in Combat'', F.A. Moyer '' ...
designs. In 1993, specialists of the artillery base of the Ministry of Defense in Nizhyn (Chernihiv region) on the initiative began work on the creation of a machine gun "bullpup" on the basis of the
RPK The RPK (, English: "Kalashnikov's hand-held machine gun"), sometimes inaccurately termed the RPK-47, is a Soviet 7.62×39mm light machine gun that was developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the early 1960s, in parallel with the AKM assault rifl ...
with a charge of 7.62 × 39. In 1994, a machine gun was created, which was named "Vepr" (Boar) model № 1. In 1994, samples № 2 and № 3 were also developed on the basis of RPK-74 5.45 × 39 mm and AKM 7.62 × 39 mm. Later, the
SKS The SKS () is a semi-automatic rifle designed by Soviet small arms designer Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov in the 1940s. The SKS was first produced in the Soviet Union but was later widely exported and manufactured by various nations. Its disting ...
carbine was redesigned - № 4. The cost of processing one unit of standard weapon into a “bullpup” at that time was ₴300. Anatoly Anatolyev, Vladimir Sheiko, Andrey Zharkov patented their invention, but in 2001 the Nizhyn designers were summoned by management and ordered to transfer all documentation from the project to the Kyiv Radio Plant for completion. The first Vepr rifle was shown on 28 August 2003. Only ten Veprs were made until 9 October 2004."''Уже сделано десять опытных экземпляров «Вепря». Их стоимость довольна высока, но когда начнется серийное производство, цена не превысит 200 долларов. Будем брать «калашниковы», хранящиеся в больших количествах на складах, разбирать их и делать из этих «заготовок» «Вепри»''."
Виктор Осипчук
Уникальный прицел новейшего украинского автомата «вепрь» позволяет даже неумелому стрелку попасть в копеечную монету с расстояния 100 метров
// "Факты" от 6 октября 2004


Design

It is one of several
bullpup A bullpup firearm is one with its firing grip located in front of the Chamber (firearms), breech of the weapon, instead of behind it. This creates a weapon with a shorter overall length for a given barrel length, and one that is often lighter, ...
conversions of the conventional Soviet AK-family design, along with the Polish Kbk wz. 2005 Jantar, the Chinese Norinco Type 86S, the Russian
OTs-14 Groza The OTs-14-4 "Groza-4" () is a Russian selective fire bullpup assault rifle chambered for the 9×39mm subsonic cartridge. It was developed in the 1990s at the TsKIB SOO (Central Design and Research Bureau of Sporting and Hunting Arms) in Tula, Ru ...
and the Finnish
Valmet M82 The Valmet M82 is a bullpup assault rifle with a Valmet RK 62 76 internal design created by Finnish company Valmet. History The M82 was introduced in Finland in 1978 and discontinued production in 1986. Only around 2,000 were manufactured, mos ...
. Although the Vepr has been proclaimed as a revolutionary upgrade to 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 as a successor to the AKM. While primarily ...
, it is, in fact, an interesting yet fairly simple modification of the basic AK-74 system in a
bullpup A bullpup firearm is one with its firing grip located in front of the Chamber (firearms), breech of the weapon, instead of behind it. This creates a weapon with a shorter overall length for a given barrel length, and one that is often lighter, ...
design, with the following modifications: *The standard
gas-operated Gas-operation is a system of operation used to provide energy to operate locked breech, Semi-automatic firearm, autoloading firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high-pressure gas from the Cartridge (firearms), cartridge being fired is used t ...
,
rotating-bolt Rotating bolt is a method of locking the Breechloader, breech (or rear barrel) of a firearm closed for firing. Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse developed the first rotating bolt firearm, the "Dreyse needle gun", in 1836. The Dreyse locked using the b ...
AK-74 mechanism is removed from its furniture and a new butt plate is mounted directly on the rear of the receiver. *A polymer cheek rest is fitted to the receiver cover. *The trigger and pistol grip are placed in front of the magazine. *The cocking handle is removed from the bolt carrier and a new cocking handle arrangement is placed on the left side of the forearm.


Common characteristics with the AK-74

The weapon still fires
5.45×39mm The 5.45×39mm cartridge is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge. It was introduced into service in 1974 by the Soviet Union for use with the new AK-74. The 5.45×39mm gradually supplemented and then largely replaced the 7.62×39mm ca ...
ammunition from 30-round magazines at an approximate rate of fire of 600 to 650 rounds per minute, the barrel length remains the same and the muzzle brake has been retained, which suggests that the Vepr's ballistic performance should be identical to that of the AK-74. The weapon's weight is almost the same as that of the AK-74M variant, and its length is comparable to that of a folding-stock AK with the stock folded. The main advantage of the bullpup layout thus lies in the fact that the weapon becomes much shorter and thus easier to store, to carry and to handle in confined spaces. However, the bullpup's overall superiority to conventional rifle configurations, in which the magazine and chamber are in front of the trigger and pistol grip rather than behind, has yet to be seen.


Right-handed use

The Vepr's only serious readily-visible drawback seems to be the fact that its layout, as that of the British
SA80 The SA80 (Small Arms for the 1980s) is a British family of 5.56×45mm NATO service weapons used by the British Army. The L85 Rifle variant has been the standard issue service rifle of the British Armed Forces since 1987, replacing the L1A1 Sel ...
, does not favour ambidextrous operation, for three reasons: *Like the AK-74, the weapon still ejects to the right, which becomes a problem because a right-ejecting
bullpup A bullpup firearm is one with its firing grip located in front of the Chamber (firearms), breech of the weapon, instead of behind it. This creates a weapon with a shorter overall length for a given barrel length, and one that is often lighter, ...
weapon, held left-handed, presents the ejection port directly against the operator's face; *Notably, the standard Kalashnikov-type combined safety lever / fire selector lever arrangement has not been revised. In the original weapon, the selector lever was noted for its relatively uncommon safe-auto-semi options sequence (rather than the typical safe-semi-auto), but the only real problems were that the lever was made infamous for its characteristic "Kalashnikov Clack" and it could not be operated without letting go of either the pistol grip or the forearm. The use of the same selector lever in a bullpup configuration adds further problems: the lack of any other form of fire selector device, which would ideally be placed as close to the trigger as possible, results in awkward handling with the weapon shouldered, especially when holding it left-handed; *The charging handle is still placed to one side, now favouring right-handed operators but making it difficult to work the cocking handle with the right hand while holding the weapon left-handed.


Accessories

The Vepr includes adjustable
open sights Iron sights are a system of physical alignment markers used as a sighting device to assist the accurate aiming of ranged weapons such as firearms, airguns, crossbows, and bows, or less commonly as a primitive finder sight for optical telescopes ...
and a conventional side mount, on the left, for day or night scopes. The front sight is strikingly similar to that of the American
M16 The M16 (officially Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of assault rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military. The original M16 was a 5.56×45mm automatic rifle with a 20-round magazine. In 1964, th ...
series of rifles. A relatively large
red dot sight A red dot sight is a common classification for a non- magnifying reflector (or reflex) sight that provides an illuminated red dot to the user as a point of aim. A standard design uses a red light-emitting diode (LED) at the focus of collimati ...
of Ukrainian production can also be fitted as standard. The latest versions of the Vepr also include an integral 40mm underslung grenade launcher, with a dual
trigger Trigger may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Trigger (''Only Fools and Horses''), in the TV sitcom * Trigger Argee, in science fiction short stories by James H. Schmitz * Devil Trigger, a transformation ability of ...
layout in which the front trigger fires the grenade launcher and the rear trigger fires the rifle.


Gallery

File:Вепрь-1.jpg File:VEPR4.png File:VEPR7.png File:VEPR6.png File:VEPR3.png File:VEPR5.png


Adoption

Ukraine's Ministry of Defense declared intentions to purchase thousands of Veprs by 2010 but by March 2014 there were no Veprs in use by the Ukrainian Army. As the political tides in Ukraine are moving towards a
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
and possibly a
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
membership, and since 2009 a well-launched Ukrainian gun manufacturer (
RPC Fort Fort (' (full name), ''НВО "Форт"'' (short name)) is a Ukrainian weapons manufacturer from Vinnytsia, Ukraine. History In 1991, a new company was formed to design and manufacture small arms for Ukrainian Interior Ministry, Security Serv ...
) is offering on the Ukrainian market firearms in "western" calibers such as the Israeli
Tavor The IWI Tavor, previously designated as the Tavor TAR-21 (Tavor Assault Rifle – 21st century), is an Israeli bullpup assault rifle chambered in 5.56×45mm NATO, designed and produced by Israel Weapon Industries (IWI). It is part of the Tav ...
assault rifle,
IWI Negev The IWI Negev, also marketed as the Negev NG-5 is a dual-fed light machine gun chambered in 5.56×45mm NATO cartridge, developed by Israel Weapon Industries (IWI), formerly Israel Military Industries Ltd. (IMI). In 2012, IWI introduced the N ...
light machinegun and
Galil The IMI Galil () is a family of Israeli-made automatic rifles chambered for the 5.56×45mm NATO and 7.62×51mm NATO cartridges. Originally designed by Yisrael Galili and Yakov Lior in the late 1960s, the Galil was first produced by the state-o ...
sniper rifle, the future of this weapon in Ukrainian service may be in jeopardy. In March 2019, it was announced that the
National Police of Ukraine The National Police of Ukraine (, ; /NPU ), often simply referred to as the (), is the national, and only, police service of Ukraine. It was formed on 3 July 2015, as part of the post-Euromaidan reforms launched by Ukrainian president Petro Por ...
would replace Kalashnikov assault rifles with
HK MP5 The Heckler & Koch MP5 (, ) is a submachine gun developed in the 1960s by German firearms manufacturer Heckler & Koch. It uses a similar modular design to the Heckler & Koch G3, and has over 100 variants and clones, including selective fire, s ...
submachine guns.Полиция Украины откажется от автоматов Калашникова в пользу немецких MP5
// ТАСС от 25 марта 2019
As of 2024, most Ukrainian personnel still use
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 as a successor to the AKM. While primarily ...
s. The failure of the Vepr to be adopted led to the creation of the Malyuk.


References


External links

* M. R. Popenker
Vepr assault rifle (Ukraine)
/ Modern Firearms website
Experts with center for army, conversion and disarmament studies say Ukraine has good chances for getting established on international market of individual firearms
/ Ukrainian Government Portal 9 September 2003
Archived Page

Vepr assault rifle featured in Point of Existence: 2
{{Bullpup firearms Assault rifles of Ukraine 5.45×39mm assault rifles Bullpup rifles Kalashnikov derivatives Military equipment introduced in the 2000s