Pribor-3B Russian Meroka Rifle

[Braith-Wafer]

Does anyone know more about this meroka rifle?

If it could be belt fed, It would be a substitute for a 'Hand-held Minigun' or a decent replacement for flamethrowers, Just a thought.

I may have posted this in another thread, Not sure?

 

[Justin]

Handheld miniguns are completely impractical.

The ammunition requirements alone make such a concept unworkable in any scenario outside of film and/or video games.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Pribor is just a Russian word meaning "equipment" or "device". I doubt it is the name of the rifle or the manufacturer.

 

[Coronach]

I think I saw that on a rerun of Star Trek, the Next Generation. It was carried by a Borg.

Mike

 

[Braith-Wafer]

Ok lets look at reality:

The US Special forces in the late 1970s did experiment with a handheld minigun but was too bulky, clumbersome, impossible to control and was pointless at the end.

At least with the pribor-3b, It lacks the rotating barrels that would get caught and tangle in debris etc, Lacks external power source, And lighter and less bulky to carry around. Would be easier to mass produce and maintain.

The point of the 3 barrels:

Higher chance of hitting target(Thats what 'Project SALVO' was all about) and increasing stopping power, Rapid fire without quick barrel heating/erosion,

Only drawback really would be ammo cost and recoil force, Still could be a useful weapon though.

Suppose it could be issued to SF Units, A particular squad member(A Meat-Head )

Someone on another forum said it had problems with reloading, I say we send it down to H&K, They would solve its drawbacks, Well they did with the SA80.

 

[DMK]

Someone on another forum said it had problems with reloading

That was my first thought with this and the US double barrelled project (what was it some kind of double barreled T48 FAL or something?).

This thing seems to feed from a widened AK mag. What kind of Rube Goldberg contraption would it take to feed three barrels from a single magazine?

Still, even if it did have a jam every time it fired, you have to be curious about how it would pattern at 100, 200, or 300 yards.

Is that thing stamped sheetmetal? It looks like spotwelds along the seam in the front sight. The materials used on the other two look interesting too. A gun make entirely of bakelite with the magazine as the pistol grip?

 

[Braith-Wafer]

I know handheld miniguns are useless, Thats why i came up with this solution .

Another point to build them:

They could be used by chopper doorgunners as a GPMG replacement so they get a higher chance of hitting the target, I was watching a video on YouTube comparing a Minigun against a GPMG on a Chopper.

The GPMG did hit the target but loads of rounds missed it, The Minigun just shredded the target to sawdust.

If a Belt-Fed Pribor-3B was in the test, It would come second place from the Minigun, At least it wont be third place which the GPMG would be.

I admit it would still use loads of rounds but not taking the p1ss like a minigun.

Suppose a belt feed and spade grip attatchment could be added for a fixed position?

Here is the Project SALVO version

 

[Braith-Wafer]

Another variant of the Pribor-3B

 

[Ian]

Back in the 60s, the US did a fair amount of experimenting with various types of multiple-shot weapons. Flechettes, duplex and triplex bullets, and multi-barrel rifles. They found that hit probabilities in combat increased a fair amount with these sorts of weapons, but were never able to get one developed well enough to be picked up as an issue weapon*. I would expect the Russians did some similar tinkering at some point, and this rifle might well be one result. The magazine is probably three individual double-stack columns, so it wouldn't be that hard to make (interestingly, one US design used a Barrett-looking mag with one double-stack column directly behind a first column).

* This is apparently the missing element in the M14 vs M16 adoption story. A lot of the decision makers were expecting a multi-projectile rifle to be ready for adoption in the mid 60s, and considered the other rifle contenders to be just temporary solutions.

 

[SoCalShooter]

I say we send it down to H&K

Leave it to the 'zee Germans' they vill fix all of your wveapons shortcomings.



P.S. All I know is that I want one.

 

[max popenker]

This is an experimental salvo-firing gun made along the lines of the US SALVO / SPIW program, although in standard 7,62x39 caliber. Designer is Korobov.
Gun was a test setup to check the concept of salvo firing. To soften the triple recoil of the gun, all upper part was permitted to recoil on the lower against a special buffer.