Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm out here today in Uvalde, Texas, at DriveTanks.com
doing some shooting with a Russian DT light machine gun.
Now this is the variation on the Degtyarev, the DP-27,
this is the version that was made specifically for use in tanks.
So almost as soon as the DP was put into service as an infantry gun,
they went back and they started designing a couple additional models. One of them was the DA for aircraft
use, and one was the DT for tank use. And by 1929 both of those were in service.
So these are just about the same vintage, or the same design vintage, as the standard infantry guns.
Now there are a couple interesting things about this. First off these, like the regular DPs, were upgraded to DPM,
or in this case DTM, configuration circa 1944. And the main change that they did there was originally on the DP
the recoil spring was wrapped around the gas piston underneath the barrel.
And what they found was when you shot it a lot and got the barrel and the gas piston very hot,
the mainspring would lose its temper and the gun would stop functioning.
So the solution was to move the recoil spring from under here to back here, hence the addition of this
spring extension tube on the back of the receiver. So that indicates that this is a DTM.
Normally on a regular infantry gun, you would also look for the pistol grip, because the pistol grip was added to the DPM.
However, the pistol grips were on the very first DTs and DAs, that's where they ... came up with this design,
where the original infantry guns had like a traditional rifle stock with a grip safety, so.
... Well, the obvious differences that you see here are not so much for tank use,
well, partially for tank use and partially for dismounted infantry use. So if your tank is disabled or if,
for whatever reason, you need to take the gun out of the tank and use it on the ground, you have to have a way to do that.
So what they did is they designed a bipod that would actually clamp over the ring
around the front of the receiver where this fits into the ball socket mount of a Soviet tank.
These were used in pretty much all the Soviet tanks, in particular the T-26s, the T-34s and the KV-1s. ...
So the way the bipod works is we actually just have a thumb screw over here, and ...
(I have gloves on by the way because I'm doing this after we finished shooting and the barrel is a little toasty.)
So this unscrews,
then we can do that, you can flip this up.
I can also push in on this little spring,
and pull out the whole front sight assembly so it stores in the tank.
And then this lifts off and, presto, now the gun is ready to be installed in its ring mount in the tank.
And there is my bipod unit able to be stored
in the tank next to the front sight.
Now something worth pointing out here, you might be wondering how with this sort of front sight,
how does this thing possibly retain zero when you take it out? Well, the answer is this surface on the bottom of the front sight
(get it up in the light a little bit there), this mates up to this flat right here. So if I actually
loosen the front sight and then,
... if I tighten down my bipod support here and then go to install the front sight, I actually can't.
It won't slide on. What I have to do
I can just loosen this a little bit,
then (a little bit more than that)
then I can snap the front sight all the way into place. Then when I tighten the bipod down what I'm actually doing is
tightening the front sight down onto the swivel mount, which should bring it back to a nice consistent zero every time.
Having a bipod is great, but you also need a buttstock. So the DTs have a collapsing metal frame buttstock.
It's not particularly comfortable, but what's more important is that it folds all the way up
so it doesn't take up space when you are inside the tank, which is the more important time.
It ... has a separate set of sights because it actually uses completely different drums than the regular DPs.
Regular DPs have a single-layer drum that holds 47 rounds, these have a much taller drum that holds 60.
The reason that's important is because in a tank you don't want to be changing drum magazines,
you don't want to be changing magazines of any sort unless you absolutely have to.
So these are narrower in diameter, which means the magazine locking surfaces are slightly different in dimension.
And because the drum's taller, standard DP iron sights don't work, you're just staring into the side of the drum.
So this has taller sights. The rear sight stayed on the gun,
although it is removable, the front sight was something that was actually part of the bipod mount.
And it clamps on there because normally the tank armour would be right here, and so this has no place when you're in the tank.
When you have to dismount the gun that's when you pull this off, clamp it onto the gun, and away you go.
You'll notice there's no front sight on the end of the barrel because, again, tank mount.
So we're going to do some shooting with this guy.
So the loading procedure for these drums requires manually tensioning the spring.
I've already got a few rounds in there, but what I do is pull this, and you can see the whole top surface of the drum rotates.
So I pull it back, load a round in,
and simply repeat that process
60 times in a row.
This is a little bit of a tedious thing to do.
Something to point out here, there are no rearward stops on the bipod legs, so if you try to push into this
it'll just keep going forward until the gun collapses and the bipod legs fold up.
You can pull back on them, which isn't particularly useful or helpful though.
So I do have some pivot here in my bipod, which is good.
And I believe that's all I had in that drum.
Alright.
I will first point out that having serrations on your cheek weld is not the best idea, but it is a pretty Soviet idea.
So the way this buttstock works is there's a button on the back here that lifts this little plate,
and then we can collapse the stock in, until we hit the edge of the receiver and it stops.
But like a good Soviet gun, just kind of hit it some and it'll keep working.
So in the tank you would have this all the way collapsed in and
the shoulder rest folded forward, and then it's nice and compact for tank use.
The end. That magazine's empty.
So a few thoughts on this overall. It is a great way to fire,
the DPM in particular as an infantry light machine gun was really quite excellent.
We know the Finns loved these things. In fact the Finns did a pretty darn good job of destroying
in particular the early Soviet tanks during the Winter War. And the Finns captured
450 odd of these machine guns and used them. They used a lot of standard infantry DP-27s as well.
That said, in the tank configuration like this, this stock is perhaps
the least comfortable stock I've ever used because of the aforementioned
serrations on the top of it. You try and stick your chin on there
(because it's not your cheek, it's really your chin), and as the gun recoils it just chews up your chin.
So I'm tending to hold my face off of the stock which of course has some implications for being able to actually hit the target.
Alright, we'll do some right handed here so you can see this side of the gun.
Not being able to pull the gun back against the bipod also hinders your accuracy,
the short sight radius kind of hinders your accuracy.
And frankly, the bipod is really quite tall. As these were originally designed, and especially on the DPMs,
the bipod was attached up on top of the barrel jacket which made it a solid
two inches shorter than these standard bipod legs that are now, not only attached on the bottom,
but they're attached on the bottom of a large ... diameter ring mount, with then a bipod mount clamped around it.
So this really kind of hikes the gun up fairly high. It is sort of not unlike the Chauchat in that way.
Alright, so that is the Degtyarev Tankovy, the DT (or in this case DTM).
I'd like to give a big thanks to DriveTanks.com for giving me the chance to come out here to their range,
put some rounds through their DTM and show it to you.
If you guys are interested in doing something boring like this or something cool like driving a tank,
definitely check out their website. I've got a link in the description text below.
This isn't quite a mag dump. I think I've got 20 or 25 rounds left in the drum but we'll get rid of them all.
You may notice I'm not gonna have my cheek on the stock when I do it.
It's not a bad gun, controllable.
But this brings nothing to the table over the regular DP-27, except that you can stick it in a tank when you need to.
Thanks for watching.