SVD-63 Russian 7.62mm Russian Automatic Sniper Rifle

SVD-63 Russian 7.62mm Russian Automatic Sniper Rifle is a semi-automatic sniper/designated marksman rifle chambered in 7.62×54mmR and developed in the Soviet Union. The Dragunov was designed as a squad support weapon since, according to Soviet and Soviet-derived military doctrines, the long-range engagement ability was lost to ordinary troops when submachine guns and assault rifles (which are optimized for close-range and medium-range, rapid-fire combat) were adopted. It was developed in 1957–1963 and selected as the winner of a contest that included three competing groups of designers: led by Sergei Simonov, Aleksandr Konstantinov, and Yevgeny Dragunov. Extensive field testing of the rifles conducted in a wide range of environmental conditions resulted in Dragunov's proposal being accepted into service on 3 July 1963. An initial pre-production batch consisting of 200 rifles was assembled for evaluation purposes, and from 1964 serial production was carried out by Izhmash, later called Kalashnikov Concern. Since then, the Dragunov has become the standard squad support weapon of several countries, including those of the former Warsaw Pact. China, while having produced an unlicensed copy of the SVD through reverse-engineered samples captured from the Sino-Vietnamese War as the Type 79 and 85, never officially purchased or was given SVD Dragunov by the Soviets, as the Sino-Soviet split had already occurred when the SVD entered service and relations were strained between the two, halting further military cooperation's and aid. Iran also produced a clone as the Nakhjir 3 (as a direct copy of the Chinese Type 79).