The 7.62x54R is one of the oldest cartridges still in use by any military in the world. The Russian military uses it in the Dragunov SVD and other Sniper Rifles and some modern Machine Guns. The round is colloquially (and incorrectly, as the 'R' in 7.62x54R stands for rimmed) known as the "7.62 Russian". The name is sometimes confused with the "7.62 Soviet", which refers to the 7.62x39mm cartridge. The 7.62x54mmR cartridge is also one of the few rimmed bottleneck cartridges still in common use today.
The 7.62x54mmR cartridge is ballistically similar in performance to the more modern (and widely used) 7.62x51mm NATO/.308 Winchester cartridge.
History
It was designed in 1891 along with the Mosin-Nagant. The 7.62x54R originally had a 210-grain round-nosed full metal jacket (FMJ) bullet. Due to experiences in the Russo-Japanese War, it was replaced in 1908 with a 148-grain spitzer FMJ bullet, which has remained standard to the present.
Specifications
Case type: Rimmed, necked
Bullet diameter: 7.9 mm (0.311 in)
Rim diameter: 14.48 mm (0.57 in)
Case length: 53.72 mm (2.115 in)
Overall length: 77.16 mm (3.038 in)
Primer type: Berdan
Types of ammunition
- Full-metal jacket
- Hollow point
- Soft-point
- Light steel-core
- Heavy steel-core
- Tracer
- Super-incendiary
- Sniper (Снайперские)
- Wood training rounds
Chambered weapons
- Mosin-Nagant
- Dragunov SVD
- PKM
- GShG-7.62 minigun
- Hua Qing Minigun
- Slostin machine gun
- SVT40
External Links
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7.62x54R (1908)