5.45×39mm
Soviet intermediate cartridge
The 5.45×39 mm cartridge is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge. It was introduced into service in 1974 by the Soviet Union for use with the new AK-74. The 5.45×39 mm gradually supplemented and then largely replaced the 7.62×39mm cartridge in Soviet and Warsaw Pact service as the primary military service rifle cartridge. This change was made in order to compete with the American 5.56×45mm NATO for a light, flat shooting round.
History
The 5.45×39 mm cartridge was developed in the early 1970s by a group of Soviet designers and engineers under the direction of M. Sabelnikov. Further group members were: L. I. Bulavsky, B. B. Semin, M. E. Fedorov, P. F. Sazonov, V. Volkov, V. A. Nikolaev, E. E. Zimin and P. S. Korolev. The 5.45×39 mm couples a sensible case volume (1.75 ml) to bore area (23.99 mm2/0.2399 cm2) ratio with ample space for loading relatively long slender projectiles that can provide good aerodynamic efficiency and external ballistic performance for the projectile diameter.
The 5.45×39 mm is an example of an international tendency towards relatively small-sized, lightweight, high-velocity military service cartridges. Cartridges like the 5.45×39 mm, 5.56×45mm NATO and Chinese 5.8×42mm allow a soldier to carry more ammunition for the same weight compared to their larger and heavier predecessor cartridges, have favourable maximum point-blank range or "battle zero" characteristics and produce relatively low bolt thrust and free recoil impulse, favouring lightweight arms design and automatic fire accuracy.
The Soviet original military issue 7N6 cartridge variant introduced in 1974 is loaded with full metal jacket bullets that have a somewhat complex construction.
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This entry incorporates text from “5.45×39mm” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.