Today this term is most often used for weapons, generally known as 'assault rifles', and therefore Fedorov's 'Avtomat' can be considered as one of the world's first practical assault rifles. Up until now 'avtomat' is unofficial Russian term for automatic weapon. At the time, this term was used to designate any shoulder-fired automatic weapon, be that rifle or submachine gun. This name was apparently devised by Russian small arms expert Blagonravov during mid or late twenties. One important note must be made about the name of Fedorov rifle, which isuniversally known as 'Avtomat' (automatic). The last conflict that saw action of Fedorov rifles was Winter war with Finland in 1940, when some Fedorov rifles were withdrawnfrom storage and issued to elite units of Red Army. Fedorov automatic rifles served with Russian and later with Red (soviet) Army through WWI, Civil war and until late twenties, when it was decided to retire all rifles and machine guns that used non-standard (other than 7,62x54R) ammunition, and Fedorov rifles wereput into reserve storage. It is interesting that at the time of initial orders Russian Army considered Fedorov automatic rifles as substitute light machine guns although in actual use Fedorov rifles were used as individual armament for infantry soldiers,exactly in the tactical niche of modern assault rifles. Inearly 1918 orders for Fedorov rifle were limited to 9 000 guns, but as result of turmoil of the revolution and following Civil war only 3 200 Fedorov rifles were manufactured in the city of Kovrov betveen 19, when production was finally stopped. In 1916 Weapons Committee of Russian Army decided that it is necessary to order at least 25 000 of Fedorov automatic rifles. This new ammunition was more compact that Russian 7,62x54R, better suited for automatic weapons (because of rimless cartridge) and has In 1912 the Rifle Commission of Russian Army decided to order 150 more Fedorov rifles for further trials, and in 1913 Fedorov submitted a prototype automatic rifle, chambered for his own experimental rimless cartridge of 6,5mm caliber. First Fedorov rifles entered trials in 1911. In this job Fedorov was supported by his apprentice V.Degtyarov (who latter became one of most important Soviet small arms designers of pre- WW2 generation). His first rifle was chambered for standard Russian 7,62x54R ammunition, held 5 rounds in fixed magazine and fired only semi-automatically. Fedorov of the Russian Imperial Army (later - a general of Soviet Army) started development of the self-loading rifle in 1906.

Created in the Russian Empire in 1912, the Fedorov Avtomat was produced from 1916 to 1924, however, stored rifles were used in the World War II when the Soviet/ Russian Army was attacked by German forces.Ĭaptain V.

The Fedorov Avtomat was the first assault rifle of the world.

Automaton rifle