{"id":7974,"date":"2016-07-13T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/13\/semiauto-rpd-light-machine-gun\/"},"modified":"2020-07-22T16:29:36","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T21:29:36","slug":"semiauto-rpd-light-machine-gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/13\/semiauto-rpd-light-machine-gun\/","title":{"rendered":"Semiauto RPD Light Machine Gun"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"youtubomatic-video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3vGbL45_qVs?controls=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The RPD was the first belt-fed light machine gun (or squad automatic weapon) developed by the Soviet Union. It was designed in 1944 for the then-new M43 cartridge (7.62x39mm), although wartime exigencies followed by post-war rebuilding prevented it from being issued until the 1950s. It is a fairly light (16b) and quite compact weapon, firing from an open bolt and feeding from a belt carrier that can hold 100 rounds of linked ammunition on two 50-round non-disintegrating metal belts.<\/p>\n<p>The RPD was standard issue for the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations only for a short time &#8211; by the mid 1960s it was replaced by the RPK (essentially a heavy-barreled AKM). The RPK was lighter and almost entirely parts-compatible with the AKM rifles, and used the same magazines, thus simplifying logistics and supply. This was considered a worthwhile trade for the belt-fed firepower of the RPD. However, the RPD would continue to serve in conflict zones worldwide up to the present day, including Vietnam and many African and Asian small wars.<\/p>\n<p>The RPD I am using in this video is a semiauto conversion made by DSA, with a barrel cut down to 16 inches to replicate a few field-shortened guns used by MAC-SOG commandos in Vietnam. While it looks very cool, I do rather regret not getting the full-length version instead, as the bipod is an important element on the RPD and the shortened bipod is really not practical (so I removed it for the video). DSA will be discontinuing their RPD semiautos at the end of 2016, so if this is the sort of thing you would like to have, I would recommend acting sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons The RPD was the first belt-fed light machine gun (or squad automatic weapon) developed by the Soviet Union. It was designed in 1944 for the then-new M43 cartridge (7.62x39mm), although wartime exigencies followed by post-war rebuilding prevented it from being issued until the 1950s. It is a fairly light (16b) and quite compact weapon,&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/13\/semiauto-rpd-light-machine-gun\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Semiauto RPD Light Machine Gun<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15264,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7974\/revisions\/15264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}