[ Romanian Paratrooper PKM ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm here today at DSA taking a look at
some of the really cool guns in their reference collection.
Like this, the ugliest PKM ever known to humanity.
I think the PKM is a pretty good looking gun,
I didn't realise that it could be in fact made this bad looking.
And yet the Romanians pulled it off, with some help from Brügger & Thomet.
So what we have here is a Romanian experimental
folding-stock paratrooper version of the PKM.
Now Romania adopted the PKM in its standard form in 1966. It was their Model 66.
It was manufactured by Cugir, the main ... state-run arms manufacturing concern in Romania.
And it was a standard weapon for the Romanian military.
It wasn't something that the paratroops got though, because it was too long,
too heavy, not really suitable for paratroop drops.
Now in the 1990s, the early '90s, Cugir decides to maybe change that.
And presumably at that point money is tight, they're looking for opportunities and options,
and so they develop a shortened, folding stock version of the PKM, which is this.
So let's take a closer look at it.
Alright, let's start with a quick look at the markings here, this is serial number 1.
You can see our manufacturer's marks. A PKMSF, so PKM Special Forces.
7.62x54 rimmed, and of course this one was imported by DSA.
Which is why it's there now, which is why I'm filming it there right now.
Now if you want to make a gun more compact for paratroopers,
there are two pretty obvious places to start: one is
make the front end shorter and the other is make the back end shorter.
So let's start with the front end, that's the simple one.
Pretty simple, just cut the barrel down, and so this has a barrel
that's a couple of inches shorter than the standard PKM barrel.
Not really anything special going on, it still has the same gas regulator here,
but a substantially shorter barrel.
While we are up here this would be the time to address the handguard,
because that is not a standard Romanian, or frankly any sort of standard PKM handguard.
That is a tri-rail handguard made specifically for this gun by Brügger & Thomet.
As sort of an experiment, like what would fit onto this?
Well, ... if you're going to modernise the PK,
if you want something that is a lower profile, lighter, smaller bipod,
as well as making the gun a little bit more potentially fireable from the shoulder,
well, you're going to want attachment compatibility up here.
And then this is Brügger & Thomet's version of the Grip-Pod.
So it's a vertical front grip that has a bipod built into it.
... This particular one doesn't have any rotating stops.
So that acts as a pretty basic, pretty simple, but yeah, basically functional bipod for the gun.
And it folds up there when not in use.
Brügger also put together this rail attachment to go over the top cover.
You can see they've attached it here using the standard bolt that holds the top cover in place.
Aluminium, lets you mount an optic up there.
Probably a red dot, but whatever it is you're looking for.
... It comes pretty close to obstructing the carry handle, but you can still sort of use it.
Alright, and then the mechanically substantial element, which is putting a folding stock on a PKM.
So it's a side folder, we've got a big button on top here.
Push that in and you can pivot this stock all the way around to the side.
The design of this otherwise somewhat odd-looking remnant of a buttstock
is influenced by the belt can. So this holds a 100 round belt.
And they have designed the stock such that it can unfold with plenty of clearance
so that you can still carry that belt ... box on the gun.
Note that there is this big strap bracket attached to the side of the receiver.
That is to lock the stock in the folded position.
We have this clamp on the side of the ... new remaining little butt pad section.
And there's a lever on the opposite side, so I can push this in to unlock it.
And when it's in this position it'll just lock into place there.
What they've essentially done here is just to change the rear trunnion of the gun
to have this hinge mechanism instead of a socket for a regular buttstock.
So there ... right there is our locking catch.
You can see it's got a lug that drops down when I push the button.
And that is going to lock into this hook.
So the hinge ... is off on the left side of the gun.
The stock has this big extra brace on it, and it just snaps into place there.
It is a very heavy duty, very sturdy stock that I can't imagine
would have any problems with durability or coming loose while you're shooting.
They gave it just a little bit of a wood butt [stock] there still because
they wanted this latch attachment and they wanted to give it a regular PKM butt plate
so that it could get the standard shoulder rest.
So you can still flip that up. Note it's still got the hole for a cleaning kit in there.
But of course there's no longer any space, so they didn't bother to drill a hole in the stock itself.
And there you go, one shortened, folding Romanian PKM.
Alright, I wanted to see what this was actually going to be like to shoot.
So courtesy of DSA, we brought it out to the range here.
And I've got 100 rounds of ammo linked up for it.
Let's go ahead and ... take this guy, pop this out of our belt box.
There we go, close that up.
And then we snap that ...
Got our belt box on, as I mentioned previously
the stock is cut specifically to fold around the belt box.
Plop that down there.
Alright, so the things I'm curious about here are a) what's it like to run a PKM off of a Grip-Pod?
Which I can't really ... I'm not going to be able to reach that.
We are going to depend on the Grip-Pod as a bipod, and I'm going to be holding onto the belt box here.
And I'm also curious if we notice any real difference either from the stock, which I doubt,
or from the short barrel perhaps changing the rate of fire. ...
Pull a round off of our belt, and we're good to go.
That really kind of doesn't feel any different than a regular PKM to be totally honest.
That bipod is definitely not as stable, but I'm not really doing that much dynamic stuff with it.
For what it's worth, the Romanians did make a shortened bipod to fit this.
Or a ... standard PK-style bipod to fit this gun.
Just we also have the B&T railed grip on it with the Grip-Pod.
I honestly can't really tell much difference between the rate of fire on this and a regular PKM.
It runs pretty much like it should, it's not like there's anything fantastically mechanically different here.
We've got the shorter barrel, which is just a quick-detach barrel.
And we've got the folding stock which doesn't impact the rate of fire at all. ...
In total only 400 of these were made,
according to the best information that I have. Two runs of 200 guns each.
They were tested by Romanian paratroopers and Romanian Special Forces,
but neither service opted to actually adopt the gun.
Why? Well, most likely because the Cold War was coming to an end.
The Soviet Bloc was falling apart, the Soviet Union was falling apart, and the likelihood of
all out World War Three against Western Europe was not really looking all that likely.
And so the importance of more offensively-themed troops like paratroops was a lot less important.
Like, "We don't really need to worry about arming the guys that we're going to drop into West Germany,
because we're not going to be dropping anybody into West Germany any more."
On top of that money is of course tight for the military, tight for the government.
And ... this was an extravagance that just wasn't justifiable.
Also perhaps it's probably a lot easier to get bribes if you're buying foreign equipment
rather than domestic equipment, that may have had a little tiny part of it as well.
So instead Cugir looks to sell these on the export market, and they make like I said 400.
They don't actually manage to ... get any significant contracts, but the guns all sell.
And so you end up with a few cool examples of them floating around from place to place like this one.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
A big thanks to my friends in Romania for helping me dig up the backstory on this.
And of course a big thanks to DSA for giving me access to film it.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video. Thanks for watching.