The Nikonov machine gun (Russian: Пулемёт Никонова) is a Soviet prototype, twin-barreled light machine gun designed by Gennadiy Nikonov at Izhmash. It was designed and manufactured during the Cold War.
Overview[]
The weapon had developed on its own initiative, out of competition and technical tasks. It has no bolt, but a stationary breech and movable, alternating barrels with its own gas cylinders with a piston connected to the other barrel. When one barrel fires, the other one was forced backwards, and thus made the other barrel to move forward. When firing operates a feeding device that channels rounds into the barrels, the spent casings ejected from both sides. It had a particularly high cyclic rate of 3,000 rounds per minute.
The prototype is currently located at the M.T. Kalashnikov Museum in Izhevsk.