ForgottenWeapons
patreon
Project Lantan: Poland Designs a Modular AK in 7x41mm (ad-free)
🕑 Added 2023-05-31 12:00:01 +0000 UTCIn the early 1970s, Poland wanted to replace their 7.62x39mm Kalashnikov rifles. The Soviet Union was developing the 5.45mm AK-74, but the Poles wanted to make a more ambitious advance in small arms systems. They launched Project Lantan (Polish small arms programs were code named after minerals and periodic table elements). The plan was to create a modular system similar in concept to the Stoner 63 - a single universal receiver that could be fitted with different components to create variety of weapons. These could include a short carbine, infantry rifle, mag-fed light machine gun, squad automatic, or vehicular machine gun (fired by spade grips or remote solenoid).
The cartridge developed for the rifle was an indigenous 7x41mm round that was longer and more efficient than 7.62x39mm. Two prototype rifles were built, and courtesy of Works 11 in Katowice, Poland we have a chance to take a close look at number 1. Unfortunately its experimental foam/rubber stock has completely disintegrated in the past 50 years since it was built, but the rest of the rifle is intact. It features separate upper and lower receivers and a quick-change barrel and gas tube.
Once the Soviet Union found out about the project, they forced it to be cancelled. The Soviets wanted caliber commonality within the Warsaw Pact, and they also wanted to collect a license fee from Poland for the AK-74 and 5.45x39mm cartridge. In this they were only partially successful, as the Poles reverse engineered elements of the AK-74 to create their own unique Tantal rifle design instead of licensing the new Kalashnikov. But even so, the Lantan project was squashed before it could advance beyond two initial proof of concept rifles.
Thanks to Works 11 and all my other friends in Poland who helped arrange access to this fascinating rifle!
Comments
Fascinating. A bit weird, but I kind of like it.
Yes, we have, in order of increasing atomic mass: Boron – 7.62x51mm or 8.6x70mm sniper rifle Beryllium – 5.56x45mm assault rifle Vanadium – 9x18mm Makarov pistol Palladium – 40mm grenade launcher Lanthanum in this Project Tantalum – 5,45x39mm assault rifle Radon – modern 5.56x45mm assault rifle, with bull-pup optional lower receiver, in late stage renamed to MSBS Grot Thorium – 12.7x99mm anti-materiel rifle We have a few mineral-based ones as well: Onyx – 5,45x39mm SBR Glauberite – 9mm (both Makarov, and Parabellum) SMG Talc – .22 Long Rifle carbine (prototype) Amber (Polish „Jantar”) – 5.56x45mm bull-pup-only assault rifle (prototype)
Bruce Brodnax
And he was right, at that time. Only 65 years or so later, the .25 Remington would become the parent cartridge for the botched Remington 6.8 SPC [botched because all that was needed was to increase the chamber pressure to modern levels. It should have been left at .25 cal [6.35mm], as the Brits had already done the homework back in the '70s to determine that was the optimal caliber for a medium-power [aka "assault rifle"] cartridge...] Of course, there were solid reasons the Soviets chose 7.62 for their medium cartridge: the commonality btw issue pistol and rifle bores meant that defective rifle barrels could be chopped down & reused for pistols, and they already had the production setup for .30cal...
Bruce Brodnax
I'm assuming "lantan" is Polish for Lanthanum? Interesting choice of code names...
Cries in .276 Pedersen... So at one point, the film or video states the experimental cartridge was 118gr. at 2,530 fps, and at another the three and the five are transposed: 2,350 fps. I note that an obscure 1930s-era Soviet ballistician and designer, apparently a disciple of Federov, thought that an ideal Avtomat cartridge already existed, in the form of the .25 Remington. At least one load for that .256-cal./ 6.5mm round was a 117gr. bullet at 2,350 fps.
So the Polish variant of the Czechoslovak URZ AP weapon system/ Stoner 63. The Czechoslovakian engineers and technicians used the 7.62x51mm Nato cartridge in their experiments, while the Poles had this newfangled 7x41mm. At one point, before the CP coup in Prague, the preferred Czechoslovak caliber had been 7.5x45mm, later 7.62x45mm. It would be interesting to view these two (related?) developments within Warsaw Pact nations, no?
EM-2: Polish designer Kazimierz-Stefan Januszewski, aka Stefan Kenneth Janson!
Forgotten Weapons
Thanks! :)
The video that finally convinced me to join your Patreon! :-D
Guido Schriewer
think I'd much rather go with a stoner 63.
Mrgunsngear
Very cool
Dana Arbeit
Too bad the system itself couldn't be further developed. For a large military, a modular system like that could be very economical. Regarding the cartridge, it looks like an ideal one. With the U.S. military going to a 6.8 x 51(shades of the 7.62 NATO!) the 7mm x 41 looks like a true 'intermediat' cartride that could have developed into a really effective 'universal' round.
Trenton Bushnell
It looks so cursed. I love it.
Luís Moreira
Well England developed the 7 x 48 ...
zspikez
The Polish Stoner System! Amazing!
wow
