The New Russian Shotgun Round .366 TKM for SKS, AK Rifles
Russian ammo maker Techkrim (small company specializing mostly in less-lethal and sporting ammunition) has introduced a new shotgun round, called the .366 TKM
It is based on the 7.62×39 M43 case necked out to .366 (9.5mm), with taper but no neck. Its main intent is for the use of surplus 7.62×39 weapons bored out or rebarreled to smoothbore configuration, preferably with Paradox rifling at the front 140mm (4.5″) of the bore.
Due to Russian gun laws, a rifle license can be obtained only after a minimum of 5 years of shotgun ownership. However, many people here want to own “military style” weapons for plinking, sport shooting, home defense and hunting, without that idiotic 5-year waiting period.
This ammunition, combined with rebarreled SKS carbines, offer a close match to a rifle at the ranges of up to 100-150 meters, with the same look and feel as the original Simonov. Apparently, other 7.62×39 weapons such as AKM also can be easily converted to smoothbore .366 configuration, but at this time only the Molot VPO-208 (rebarreled SKS) weapons are introduced along with this new ammo
Basic stats are as follows:
Case dimensions, metric: 9.55x37mm
Available projectiles:
11 gram FMJ slug at 700 m/s (170 grain @ 2295 fps)
13.5 gram polymer-coated lead slug at 640 m/s (208 grain @ 2100 fps )
15 gram FMJ and JSP slugs at 620 m/s (231 grain @ 2030 fps)
20 gram birdshot (0.7 oz)
Max Popenker is a long-time firearms enthusiast and semi-amateur firearms historian from Russia. His primary interest is in automatic firearms, their evolution and use. He wrote a number of books on the subject and maintains a Modern Firearms website at http://world.guns.ru
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Clever solution to an idiotic problem, I have no idea what sort of logic was used to create that law in the first place. Still, the round interests me, it could make a good short range varmint round, and I cant help but wonder if these shotguns could get trough our own idiotic import laws, then all you would need is a rebarrel to have a nice little carbine on your hands.
It depends of course on things like patterning and slug accuracy but this would be pretty cool round for applications other than retrofitting SKS or AK. I could definitely see a lightweight folding shotgun or a small double or rimfire combination gun being really cool in this load. Even a bolt action carbine platform like the cz527 or similar would be great. Firing a .7oz load from such a small package is quite an impressive achievement too. I'd definitely like to see this catch on outside of Russia if it performs OK.