We talk about the most interesting exhibits of the private collection of Igor Altushkin
Collections of weapons by Igor Altushkin, head «Russian Copper Company» already more 17 years. And although it all started with weapons of the Great Patriotic War, today the collection includes samples, which any museum will envy. The exhibits are stored on the second underground floor of the building of the shooting club named after the Archangel Michael in the suburbs of Yekaterinburg, next to the spacious shooting gallery.
The only full-time employee here is Nikolai Sobolev, the curator of the museum. He is responsible for the completion of the collection., sometimes showing weapons on camera for YouTube and conducting tours for rare visitors.
Among about one and a half thousand items, it is not easy to choose the most noteworthy, but double-barreled machine gun Bira distinguished by at least a manual drive from the handle located on the right. It is designed in 1896 year for an Nepalese army officer, trained in Britain.
Gahendra Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana (so called designer) took the gardner british machine gun and, one side, greatly simplified the case, so that Nepalese craftsmen do not suffer with overwhelming casting and milling, on the other hand, first used disk store in the world, albeit rough construction. Only six of these machine guns from 50 manufactured.
MKb.42 - experienced Henel automatic rifle, predecessor Sturmgewehr 44, rare in itself, but, according to the curator of the museum, this instance has a serial number 5 - earliest surviving specimen.
It was exported from Germany by Soviet troops and stored as a test sample at a research institute.. AT 1993 year was abroad and only recently was purchased and returned to Russia.
Another interesting story is related to Degtyarev submachine gun 1942 of the year. This model struggled with the development of Sudaev in the GAU RKKA competition for a new, compact submachine gun.
To increase the chances of winning, the designer went on, as it would be called today, marketing move - made 15 registered submachine guns and sent to influential members of the Politburo.
This submachine gun was intended for the future chairman of the Party Control Committee under the Central Committee of the CPSU Matvey Fedorovich Shkiryatov. However, the trick did not affect the decision of the test commission, The Red Army was adopted by the Red Army.
Twin Villar-Perosa M1915 submachine gun originally developed as an aircraft weapon, but in this quality did not find application. But when the Italian army needed a quick-fire hand weapon - it was used in the troops, becoming formally the first submachine gun in history.
MG.14 / 17 Parabellum - German aircraft machine gun, created for use as an onboard weapon "zeppelins", but was soon modernized and became the standard weapon of the gunner-observer of German reconnaissance fighters.
In addition to the rate of fire to 750 rounds per minute and lightweight cloth cartridge strip, this weapon stood out staff collimator sight - one of the first in the world.
Another rare, even an exotic exhibit - Chinese copy of the machine gun Maschinengewehr 08 from the Nanjing arsenal.
During the Cultural Revolution, as directed by Mao Zedong, most weapons, produced over the last decade, It was destroyed, and only a few samples are preserved in Taiwan.
Gay and Geno chain gun (Paulin Gay и Henri Guenot) seats 40 rounds, located in chambers, interconnected by chain links. This "shop" is pulled between two rollers, one of which is hidden in the hollow handle.
For this weapon requires special ammunition - sleeveless bullets, where the powder charge is placed in a special cavity in the tail.
The mechanism is so, that when you first press the trigger on the trunk line, a new chain link, and the subsequent barrel rolls back, locks the camera and a shot occurs.
Cottrell Flashlight (Sylvester P. Cottrell) patented in 1923 in the USA. It would be an ordinary flashlight, powered by a cylindrical battery in the handle, if not for a miniature self-cocking revolver if not placed in a rectangular groove in the front of the case .22 caliber. The length of its trunk reaches 38 mm.
The design provides a groove for equipping the drum with seven cartridges and an opening for extracting cartridges using a ramrod.
Dedicated to self defense, revolver-lantern allowed to conduct effective shooting no more than 5-10 m.
Side by side on one window are an American guerrilla gun FP-45 Liberator and Soviet gun of a swimmer, intended for underwater shooting. It is notable for the needle-shaped cartridge SPS (4,5kh39), which bullets overcome water resistance much better than usual. Another interesting design detail is the barrel block of four barrels and a single drummer, after each shot turning on 90 degrees to the next cartridge.
It's hard to imagine such a neighborhood anywhere else..
Protector - weapons of self-defense, clenched in a fist like an expander. Patented in France in 1882 year, this sample hides a flat drum with a radial chamber arrangement under a round lid.
This instance holds ten 6mm rounds. The mechanism is driven, when the weapon is squeezed in the hand. An effort, attached to the lever, rotates the drum in one cycle, cock and lower the drummer. Under the barrel is visible fuse lever.
Among the combined weapons, presented in the collection, — japanese sword wakizashi, combined with capsule pistol. It goes against the whole arms tradition of the Land of the Rising Sun.
FROM 1543 of the year, when the Portuguese merchants introduced the Japanese to the wick lock, because of the isolationist policy, firearms in the country did not fundamentally change before 19 century. Only at the dawn of the Meiji revolution could a similar combination of European and traditional weapons appear, and even then it would have seemed offensive to many Japanese.
The main purpose of the sports and patriotic club "Archangel Michael" is the popularization of practical shooting and raising the profile of shooting sports. Museum tours take place mainly during the competition or by appointment. However, the collection deserves the attention of all lovers of the history of weapons, and I want to believe, that in the future it will become available to the general public.
/Igor Santry, kalashnikov.media/
