Degtyarov PTRD

Degtyarov PTRD anti-tank rifle

 The PTRD (ПТРД – ПротивоТанковое Ружье Дегтярева – Degtyarov anti-tank rifle) was rapidly developed by famous Russian arms designer Fedor Degtyarov during the late summer of 1941, when Red Army issued the urgent requirements for a man-portable and inexpensive anti-tank weapon, suitable for infantry use. Developed, produced and used concurrently with Simonov PTRS anti-tank rifle, it became an important asset of the Soviet infantry during the earlier stages of the Great Patriotic war. This weapon used a powerful round, especially designed for anti-tank role, which fired armor-piercing projectiles of 14.5mm caliber (see 14.5×114 entry in Ammunition section for details). With improved BS-41 armor-piercing bullets with tungsten cores the PTRD was able to penetrate of up to 40 mm of steel armor at 100 meters range. The same bullet also easily penetrated log and sand entrenchments, brick walls and other battlefield obstacles, to provide fire support for infantry. About 190 000 of these rifles were manufactured in USSR in 1941 and 1942, when rapid evolution of German armor made these anti-tank rifles obsolete. Nevertheless, many PTRD rifles were used as ancillary anti-tank and infantry support equipment until the end of the war, and few also saw the action during the war in Korea.

The Degtyarov PTRD anti-tank rifle is a manually operated, single shot rifle. It uses conventional rotary bolt cation with single-piece bolt that has two radial locking lugs at the front. One unusual feature of the PTRD action is its self-ejection: the barrel was allowed to slide back under recoil, compressing the spring buffer located in the shoulder stock. Upon recoil, the bolt handle struck the cam plate, located on the right side of the stock. This plate forced the bolt handle to rotate up and unlock the bolt. After this, the barrel recoil movement was stopped and the heavy bolt was allowed to recoil under its own inertia, to open up the action and extract and eject fired case. Once the ejection was complete, the shooter had to manually load a fresh round into the chamber and manually close the bolt for the next shot. To provide additional recoil mitigation, barrel was equipped with massive muzzle brake, and the shoulder stock had shock-absorbing pad. Degtyarov PTRD anti-tank rifle was fitted with simple iron sights with dual setting, for ranges between 100 – 400 and 400 – 1000 meters, although the rifle was considered to be effective only up to 300 – 400 meters. Line of sight was offset to the left to provide more comfortable shooting position and clear shooter's face from recoiling bolt. To provide better stability, rifle was fitted with folding bipod, and a carrying handle was attached to the barrel.