CCB-58 Dragunov prototype

[snayperskaya]

This may be of interest to some, it is a very rare example of the CCB-58 which was one of Yevgeny Dragunov's early SVD prototypes and has many recognisable features that were incorporated into the later production rifle, particularly the magazine and the design of the stock and handguards etc although the position and size of the rear sight was changed considerably on the production rifle.

Photos courtesy of the Izhmash Arsenal collection

[Sixshot6]

The Rear sight went to where it would be on an AK equivalent. Was the reason because it was not as stable as where it would have been normally. The M76 Valmet ak moved the rear sight to the back of the dust cover with no effect on performance, was it worse on the drag due to the heavier recoil of 7.62x54?

[snayperskaya]

The SVD doesn't have an AK equivalent but I know what you mean.....the rear sight was moved from the receiver cover to its final position partly due to recoil but mainly for troop familiarity as the final design placed it in roughly the same position as earlier Soviet rifles, one of the reasons for the similarity between the SKS rear sight and that of the AK-47.

One of the main reasons the rear sight was mounted rearward on the Valmet was to give a longer sight radius as the front sight/gas block combo is placed further back along the barrel than most AK variants.Probably the shortest sight radius of any factory AK variant is that of the AKS-74u at 235mm compared to 378mm for the AK-74.

[WelshShooter]

That's cool, thanks for sharing. That's the first Russian rifle I've seen with a rear aperture sight as I thought Russian's favoured the blade type sights. Can you confirm Tovarisch?

[snayperskaya]

Correct, the Russian's tended not to have aperture sights on their service rifles (though the new AK-12 has a rear aperture sight) but Yevgeny Dragunov, who was a senior armourer during WW2, was primarily a designer of civilian target and sporting rifles following WW2 with one of his Biathlon rifle designs winning Olympic gold in the 1950's and target rifle inspired features like the rear aperture sight and stock design were carried over to the prototype SVD project as a result.

There was also a prototype for a stamped receiver version but the receiver design as deemed to be of insufficient strenght to cope with with heavy 54r loadings.......a problem that plagued the Romanian stamped receiver on the PSL, 180gr heavy ball loadings would hammer the rear trunnion rivets and eventually deform them.