The A-91 assault rifle is without a doubt a miracle of weapons design. Born in difficult conditions, the machine gun literally immediately after its appearance began to receive flattering reviews. The good reputation of the weapon was, perhaps, predetermined, because the development and design was carried out by the Tula Instrument Design Bureau, which has been designing serious weapons that are known all over the world for several decades. However, the fate of the A-91 assault rifle, despite the good genetics and bright minds of Tula gunsmiths, was not easy.
Tula craftsmen began developing the A-91 already when the newfangled direction of weapons built in the bullpup layout (when the trigger mechanism is located behind the weapon body) was being mastered with all its might. If we do not take into account prototypes, such as the Stechkin assault rifle, which was never accepted into service, there was only one successful model in the country - the OTs-14 “Groza”, which was developed by the same Tula craftsmen.
The trial operation of the "Groza", despite some difficulties with the sighting devices and the general "unusuality" of the design, went quite well - the military were satisfied, and the special forces, to whom the "Groza" was awarded almost classified as "secret", managed to use the unusual machine gun emerge victorious from the most difficult situations. Although the first pancake, according to Russian tradition, did not come out lumpy, the Tula masters did not stop there. The various situations in which shooters with the OTs-14 complex found themselves formed the basis for the creation of another, more modern rifle-grenade launcher complex that was maximally adapted to modern needs.
Trials and first experiments
Shortly before the creation of the promising rifle complex, the technical specifications were formulated simply: a grenade launcher and an assault rifle in a single body with maximum reliability. Well, it’s easier to write and approve than to put it into metal. Where to begin? If, when creating the OTs-14, the designers relied on donor components and parts of the AKS-74U, then in the case of the A-91 complex the picture was different: the developers and designers of the complex decided to abandon “borrowing” already familiar components and focus on creating new ones, no less reliable.
Weapons experts, engineers, test shooters - everyone made their own changes, suggestions, and comments during the work on the machine gun. The appearance of the weapon alone, with its characteristic “hump” in the form of a carrying handle, changed a good dozen times during its creation. By the way, special attention was paid to design. One of those who happened to take part in the creation of the project was Mikhail Sergeenko, an engineer for the operation of small arms, a lieutenant colonel of the Russian Armed Forces in the reserve, who in an interview with Zvezda simply spoke about the design solutions: “Darkness. In terms of ergonomics and design, there were just a ton of elements and details.”
And, indeed, regarding the appearance of the assault rifle, which gunsmith experts and ordinary military personnel are still arguing about, there were at least 10 solutions and options for change: from the classic, in the style of Kalashnikov assault rifles, to the final, original design, which was chosen in as the main one. Particular attention, in addition to appearance, was certainly paid to fire and operational properties. In the spirit of the “Groza” OTs-14, it was planned to equip the machine gun, in addition to classic small arms ammunition, with a grenade launcher.
However, during R&D on the A-91 project, in one of the variants the grenade launcher was mounted on top - above the main barrel of the machine gun. Test firing has shown that this design greatly complicates holding the weapon and makes it extremely unpleasant to shoot from a grenade launcher in combat conditions. After weighing all the pros and cons, the general decision was to “remove” the grenade launcher under the main barrel of the weapon, forming an additional grip forearm, which became the grenade launcher casing.
Belgian style or convenient for everyone?
There are legends as to why weapons in the bullpup configuration were not in demand or even in interest for a long time. Some argue that the right-handed lobby in weapons companies was so strong that the best weapons were not specifically adapted for people who use their left hand for any action. However, no matter how funny the conspiracy theories may sound, the truth, as often happens, is on the surface. Weapons in the bullpup configuration were inconvenient for left-handers for only one reason: the ejection of spent cartridges during shooting was carried out directly into the shooter’s left cheek.
Army snipers, including Russian ones, often joke about this topic, saying that it is easy to identify a left-handed shooter. No, no, but he gets burned by spent cartridges. Viktor Demchenko, a veteran of one of the army special forces of the Russian Armed Forces, in an interview with Zvezda, says that the creators of bullpup weapons simply ignored this problem for a long time:
“I had the opportunity to shoot with a huge number of weapons: from ours, Soviet and Russian, to foreign ones. The problem of ejection of spent cartridges is the same everywhere. No matter how they tried to solve it: they came up with all sorts of “curtains” so that the cartridge case would be thrown down... but for some reason no one created something fundamentally convenient, new,” said the special forces veteran.
The closest, according to many experts, to solving the problem of bullpup machine guns was the domestic designer Igor Yakovlechiv Stechkin, who created his TKB-0146, which ejected cartridges in the area of the fire control handle, but the problem of the so-called “unacceptable extraction of cartridges” was fully resolved specifically in the A-91 machine gun. The Tula residents decided the essence of the mechanism for removing spent cartridges in their characteristic original manner - the supply of the spent cartridge and its subsequent removal was carried out through a special channel located along the body of the weapon slightly in front and to the right of the handle.
This method solved several problems of bullpup automatics at once: it removed the spent cartridge case without any unpleasant sensations for the shooter and reduced the level of powder fumes during shooting.
A weapons expert, a veteran of two Chechen campaigns, a member of the union of special forces veterans, Oleg Kurochkin, in an interview with Zvezda, explaining in detail the advantage of such a scheme, noted with a smile that anyway, despite the success, such a mechanism was not used en masse:
“The Belgian FN-F2000 rifle, presented at the beginning of 2001, had a partly similar design. There, however, the designers took a different route - they placed the channel for the cartridge case extractor almost near the muzzle from above. But there, spent cartridges are removed not one at a time, but in series - that is, 4-5 cartridges accumulate in the channel and they “spill out” of the channel when firing. It looks quite interesting, but is not practical - if there is a wedge or some other mechanical plug, the weapon will have to be disassembled. Which, in combat conditions, I think, will not be very pleasant,” the expert said.
Despite the fact that the A-91 assault rifle is, by and large, an experimental project, the Tula people created a lot of technological groundwork during its design and creation - from the materials of the body and handle, the modification of sighting devices, the general design of the weapon, ending with... the choice of ammunition. The creator of the weapon is the brilliant gunsmith Vasily Petrovich Gryazev, who, together with Arkady Georgievich Shipunov, created a good dozen excellent products, while developing the A-91 assault rifle, he took into account not only the interests of the state, but also, in the spirit of the “dashing” nineties and zeros, laid down an excellent possibility for export.
Gryazev managed to “kill two birds with one stone” by adapting the machine gun to two types of main ammunition: 7.62x39mm in Russia and 5.56x45mm of NATO standards. The reason for this decision was simple: the project had to survive. The survivability of the machine would be ensured in any case, no matter who chose it - government agencies or foreign customers. In general, the beginning of the 2000s, according to the recollections of most weapons experts, was difficult for the entire military-technical industry.
Mikhail Adamyan, an employee of UralVagonZavod, recalls in an interview with Zvezda: “You know, it was a very difficult time. When one generation was leaving, and another was just coming to power. The situation with the T-90 tank, the fate of which was decided by the Indian order, clearly showed: if you want to live, know how to move around. In the case of the A-91 assault rifle, I think Vasily Petrovich took care of the same thing, and I think he did absolutely the right thing,” says the tank builder specialist.
There may be a lot of opinions on this matter, but the machine gun project is alive and work on its modernization is underway. This means that one of the options is guaranteed to work exactly as the creator intended.
Test firing of the new machine gun, which was presented to a wide range of specialists only after major modifications, showed that the firing efficiency of the Tula A-91 is beyond praise. Ammunition of 7.62x39mm caliber, which was used in Kalashnikov assault rifles, effectively solved the problem of the presence of the enemy at distances of up to 400-500 meters, and the use of a grenade launcher completely turned small arms into an assault device - shots of 40-mm grenades reached their target at distances of up to 400 meters and “fitted” almost into one point.
In addition, in addition to conventional grenades, grenades with the so-called “air detonation” principle could be used in the complex - the essence of this technology is that the grenade, after hitting an obstacle, bounces and only then explodes, providing maximum lethality. Ammunition of NATO standards also showed excellent shooting: foreign representatives noted that the accuracy of the machine gun when using 5.56mm ammunition was at the level of “NATO weapons,” and the design of the Russian machine gun did not require special changes.
Uniqueness is a word that can be used to describe many models of domestically produced small arms. Tula A-91 is no exception. Innovations, the general convenience of the design and the absence of “childhood diseases” of the bullpup layout - all this made the A-91 rifle-grenade launcher complex an “enviable groom” for the leading law enforcement agencies not only in Russia, but throughout the world. On the basis of the A-91 assault rifle, after some time, another assault rifle was created - the ADS, which combines the ability to “work” both in normal conditions and under water, using special ammunition for this. With the creation of the A-91, the Tula Instrument Design Bureau was once again able to prove that the impossible is possible. The main thing is to put in enough effort.
