We’ve covered China and its weird guns, and I enjoyed writing the article, so I wanted to look at the other massive country in Eurasia, Russia. Russia has a long history of weird weapons. This includes dozens of bizarre prototype bullpup rifles that look like Cronenberg designed them. Picking a bunch of weird bullpups would be easy. So, instead of picking weird bullpup rifles, I went with weird Russian guns that have been fielded by military and police forces. I needed to challenge myself a bit.
Weird Russian Guns
The APS and SPP-1 – Weird Russian Guns Double Dose
I decided to do a two-for-one for the first entry of Weird Russian guns. When your weird task is to fire underwater, it’s not necessarily fun to take up two of five spots with underwater weapons. There seemed to be this idea in the 1970s that frogmen would be fighting all the time. They’d be having underwater firefights and duking it out.
This led to the creation of guns like the APS Underwater Assault Rifle and the SPP-1. Normal bullets just don’t work underwater. Instead, the rifle fired 5.66mm steel bolts from a 39mm case. The Russians will never abandon the 39mm case. The SPP fired 4.5mm steel bolts with a 40mmR case. This gun had four barrels, which allowed for four total shots to be fired.
These guns had a very limited range, but they were longer than rifles or spearguns. The APS offered 26 shots fired at a max range of 30 meters, but the range declined the deeper a frogman swam. The SPP-1 had a max range of 17 meters. The APS and SPP-1 were very niche weapons, and there isn’t any recorded use of the gun, or if there is, they aren’t telling us.
PSS Silent Pistol
How do we usually suppress a pistol? We strap a series of chambers held inside a tube to the front of the gun to trap and cool gas. Well, this is an article on weird Russian guns, so the Ruskies couldn’t do it normally. The PSS Silent Pistol was a micro-sized pistol that used a special 7.62x41mm cartridge known as the SP4.
The PSS Silent Pistol utilizes this odd cartridge that uses a self-contained charge that doesn’t launch the round, but rather launches a piston that propels the round. The round flies for an entire 25 meters, and the round’s moving at 660 feet per second. It’s super slow, and similar piston designs had been used in Vietnam’s silent revolvers.
How quiet could it be? I have no earthly idea. I wonder if a design like this would be NFA-free? How expensive would it be? Let’s get back on topic. The SPP was a semi-auto, magazine-fed gun that used a recoil-operated design. It’s neat and was fielded by special operations and secret police.
The NRS-2
Let’s bring a knife to a gunfight…again. Seriously, both China and Russia have knife guns fielded by their military forces? Well, if it’s good enough for China’s weird guns, it’s good enough for weird Russian guns. The NRS-2 is a combat knife that’s capable of firing a single shot of the SP-4 silenced round.
Oh, wait, it’s a 7.62x42mm SP4 cartridge instead of a 41mm round. That’s weird and inefficient. The NRS-2 can fire one round at 25 meters silently. Oh, at least it was a little more silent than normal, right? The NRS-2 has one barrel and seems to be a backup option to the blade, I guess?
The knife gun uses a simple mechanism with a removable bolt, a safety catch, and a weird trigger. It’s not a great system. It was apparently built for Spetsnaz forces and might still be used by them. Most sources say it’s still in service.
PP-90
I have a weird love of guns that fold into box-like shapes to avoid looking like guns. It’s another weird genre of firearms that transcends countries. When it comes to Weird Russian guns, the PP-90 might be the most normal, but it’s still bizarre. Any gun that folds and forms a weird, disguised rectangle is weird.
The PP-90 is a basic closed-bolt direct blowback gun. It fires from a magazine housed in the pistol grip and fires the 9mm Makarov round. Internally, it’s a standard submachine gun. It just happens to fold into a square that’s disguised and easy to hide. The PP-90 series uses a set of fold-up sights, which was neat for a 1990s gun.
Interestingly, the gun doesn’t seem to be designed to be disguised as much as it’s designed to be convenient to carry. It’s more akin to a PDW than a disguised SMG. It came with a belt holster for easy carry and a shoulder holster, which would absolutely rule.
ShAk-12
You hear the name ShAk, and you think Shaq, right? Well, they do have something in common. Shaq is a big guy, and the ShAk-12 fires a big round. The ShAk-12 is a bullpup rifle system designed for close-quarters fighting. The ShAk-12 fires a 12.7x55mm round, which is like .50 Beowulf. This series of weird Russian guns was designed for the FSB.
The idea is to have this big man-stopping round that would offer easy one-hit stops. The gun was designed to stop bad guys while attempting to stop collateral damage, which is the first time the Russians ever considered collateral damage. Predictably, the big, heavy rounds are subsonic, so they are easily suppressed, and that seems to be a standard accessory.
The ShAk-12 holds up to 20 rounds, and there is a duplex load option. The ShAk-12 also uses a short recoil system. That’s not odd for a handgun, but for a bullpup, it might be the first and only one I know of. I started this article by mentioning weird bullpups, and I got to finish on one.
Weird Russian Guns – What’s Left
These are five weird Russian guns that were issued or, at the very least, built for a Russian police or military force. If we just left this list open to weird Russian guns, we’d be here all damn day. What should we do next? I’m not sure if other countries do weird stuff, but trust me, I’ll be on the lookout for weird guns around the world.
