Yes. It is the cosmonaut survival gun. It's no longer in use/production AFAIK. The point of the thing was: Initially (like Gagarin times) the USSR space crews had problems with landing the kosmonavts to exactly the planned region (Gagarin was carried about 300 km away from where he was supposed to bump down). So what if the guys land somewhere in East Siberia, where there's no people but an abundance of wildlife? This TsKIB-designed and -made thing is the answer. A kosmonavt was supposed to be able to shoot something for dinner, lay low an angry bear, and fire a signal rocket when the resque mission finaly came close enough to find him.
The original idea came from Luftwaffe survival drillings, but, as Shotgunjones correctly mentioned, weight was an issue. So TsKIB was told to come up with something similar but as lightest as possible - it weighs, if I'm not mistaken, just 1.5 kg. without the stock (which is actually a sheathed machete).
The smooth barrels are 32 bore, loaded with special high-intencity cartriges just 60 mm long. The bottom barrel is 5.6 mm high velocity (I don't remember which at the moment).
I can dig through my pile of old magazines for an article about that, if you guys are interested in more details.
Last edited by Humpty Dumpty; 10/14/07 11:59 AM.
