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Russian National Guard may order Orsis T-5000 high-precision sniper rifle TASS 10907162

Military Defense Industry Technology - Orsis T-5000

Russian National Guard may order Orsis T-5000 high-precision sniper rifle.

Russia`s National Guard (Natsgvardiya) may order Orsis T-5000 high-precision sniper rifles developed by LLC Industrial Technologies (GK Promtekhnologiya), according to the Izvestia newspaper. If the T-5000 rifle passes the fire trials, the National Guard`s Special Forces and reconnaissance unit will bring the high-precision weapon in service. Hence, Orsis T-5000 may be the first firearm produced by private defense enterprise and adopted by Russia`s law enforcement agencies.

Russian-made ORSIS T-5000 bolt-action sniper rifle (Source Wikipedia)

"At present, the 604th Special Forces Training Center "Vityaz" is testing the Orsis T-5000 rifle chambered for 7.62x51mm STANAG 2130 (.308 Winchester) cartridge. The first firearms were handed over to the center in late 2015. The trials are supposed to be finished by the year-end," a source in the National Guard told Izvestia. He emphasized that the service was planning to issue new sniper rifles to its Special Forces and reconnaissance units. "GK Promtekhnologiya unveiled Orsis T-5000 sniper rifle about five years ago and the firearm was a half-done weapon. However, the developer has fixed all revealed drawbacks. The 604th Center is conducting its trials with no shortcoming to report on," the source pointed out.

In 2011, GK Promtekhnologiya headed by Nikolay Pankov built its Moscow-based Orsis (Oruzheynie Sistemy, Weapon Systems) plant from the ground. In 2012, the plant launched the manufacturing of newly developed weapons, as well as the production of Glock 17, Glock 34 and Glock 35 pistols under license.

The National Guard may acquire several dozens of T-5000 high-precision sniper rifles at an early stage of the rearmament program. "Unlikely assault rifle, machinegun and pistol, sniper rifle is a complex, piece weapon intended for a well-trained serviceman. We are not talking about thousands of sniper rifles to be acquired for the service," the Editor-in-Chief of the Arms Export magazine, Andrey Frolov told Izvestia. He added that the National Guard was planning to get a relatively small batch of T-5000 rifles.

The Director of the Strategic Conjuncture Center, Ivan Konovalov stressed that the buying of the Orsis sniper rifles might become the first case of the weapons for Russia`s Armed Forces/law enforcement agencies acquisition from a private enterprise. "The main Russian manufacturers of small arms and light weapons (SALW), namely, Kalashnikov Group, TsNIITochMash, and High-Precision Weapons are the subsidiaries of the Rostec state corporation. We need hardly mention that both Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russian acronym: MVD) and Federal Security Service (Russian acronym: FSB) have ordered a lot of military hardware from private enterprises. For instance, Zelenodolsk Shipyard named after M. Gorky (a subsidiary of the AK Bars Group) is building surface vessels for the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies. However, MVD and FSB have never acquired SALW from a private enterprise," Konovalov told Izvestia.

The Orsis T-5000 was introduced in 2011 at the international exhibition of Russian weapons in Nizhny Tagil, Russia. (Source Wikipedia)

According to GK Promtekhnologiya, Orsis T-5000 high-precision sniper rifle can be chambered for either 7.62x51mm STANAG 2130 (.308 Winchester) or 8.6x70mm (.338 Lapua Magnum) cartridges. T-5000 sniper rifle chambered for .308 Winchester has a weight of 6.3 kg, a full length of 1,230 mm (including a barrel of 673.1 mm), a muzzle velocity of 925 m/s, an effective firing range of 1,000 m and a magazine capacity of 5 or 10 cartridges. T-5000 chambered for .338 Lapua Magnum has a weight of 6.5 kg, a full length of 1,270 mm (including a barrel of 698.5 mm), a muzzle velocity of 925 m/s, an effective firing range of 1,500 m and a magazine capacity of 5 or 10 cartridges. The company offers the upgraded variant of T-5000 designated as T-5000M (M stands for upgraded, Modernizirovanny). It features new lightweight skeleton stock and extended Picatinny rail on the top of its receiver. T-5000M can be chambered for five types of cartridges, namely, 7.62x51mm, 7.62x67mm (.300 Winchester Magnum), 8.6x70mm, 6.5x47mm Lapua and .260 Remington.

At present, the snipers of the National Guard are armed with Russian SV-98/SV-98M and MTs-116M rifles manufactured by the Kalashnikov Group and Tula-based Instrument Design Bureau (Russian acronym: KBP, a subsidiary of the High-Precision Weapons holding), respectively. In the 2010s, Russia` Ministry of Defense (MoD) ordered SSG-04 and SSG-07 sniper rifles from Austrian Steyr Mannlicher company. The MVD decided to equip its sniper teams with TRG-22 sniper rifles produced by Finnish SAKO enterprise.

The Federal Guards Service (Russian acronym: FSO) brought T-5000 rifles in service with its sniper units in the recent years, as well as the Alfa special team. Iraq acquired a batch of T-5000 firearms for the national Special Forces. At present, the servicemen of the US-led coalition are training their Iraqi counterparts to operate the rifles.

The National Guard is also planning to acquire new optical sights to complement T-5000s. The introduction of a new high-precision long-range sniper weapons will drastically increase the combat effectiveness of the service`s sniper teams, Russian defense analysts suppose.