Pecheneg-SP: Russia's Insanely Deadly Machine Gun?

Charlie Gao

Technology,

How good is it?

Somewhat recently, a Russian military fan page, anti_terrorism, on the popular Vkontakte social media platform, posted a photo of two Russian soldiers with Pecheneg-SP (GRAU Index 6P69) machine guns. The Pecheneg-SP variant is an “improved” variant of the PKP Pecheneg (6P41) machine gun, which is currently supplementing the PKM (6P6M) machine gun in Russian service. But oddly, the Pecheneg-SP appears to take some cues from the original PK (6P6) machine gun of 1961 vintage.

So how does the Pecheneg-SP improve on the previous generations of Kalashnikov’s machine gun?

Like most modern Russian military firearms, the Pecheneg-SP sports a Picatinny rail for optics. When the machine gun was shown at Rosoboronexpo-2014, this rail mounted the 1P89-3 low-power variable optic, but as shown in operational use, the guns are used with iron sights. From other pictures, Russian machine gunners seem to favor red dot sights on variants of the PK. In order to accommodate the Picatinny rail, the rear sight is moved forwards near the pivot point of the machine gun’s feed cover.

But the biggest changes on the Pecheneg-SP are on the barrel. The Pecheneg-SP deletes the heavy forced air cooled barrel in favor of a shorter exposed fluted barrel. This is similar to the original PK machine gun, which also featured a fluted barrel. The fluted barrel was deleted on the PKM to save on manufacturing costs and time. Most articles discussing the Pecheneg-SP don’t mention whether the barrel is quick change, but one article mentions that the barrel is said to have a barrel life of around 15,000 rounds, so it’s probable that the barrel is fixed and designed for limited sustained fire.

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