The RG-6 (GRAU designation 6G30) was developed and put into production in 1994 as a weapon to fill the gap between underbarrel grenade launchers and automatic crew-served grenade launchers.
Details[]
Inspired by the South African Milkor MGL, the RG-6 has six grenades in a revolving drum. However, the weapon has a number of unique features, brought by the specific ammunition used for it.
Continuing the line of the GP-25 and GP-30 underbarrel launchers, the RG-6 uses the same 40mm VOG-25 and VOG-25P caseless grenades. Those grenades have no shell per ce, and leave nothing in barrel after being fired. Thus, procedure of reloading is greatly simplified and sped up by removing the need to extract spent casings.
To accommodate those rounds, the weapon is reloaded from the front. The front drum-cover panel is swung up, opening up the chambers for manual reloading. The spring which revolves the chambers must be wound up manually, as well. The so-called "barrel" in front of the drum is actually just a smoothbore tube, serving only as a support for the foregrip and sights. The actual barrels, so to speak, are the drum chambers - each of which being factually a GP-30 barrel with rifling. The double-action trigger system is also borrowed from the GP-30.
The RG-6 has simple controls, otherwise - a ladder-type rear sight and a frame-type frontal sight, which can be folded for transportation. The buttstock is telescopic.
The RG-6 is in limited use in both the army and the MVD (internal affairs service) of Russia. The latter often used the RG-6 with the non-lethal tear gas ammunition Gvozd (meaning "Nail"). Training and illumination rounds are also available.
History[]
The weapon had seen some use during the Chechen Wars, and is reported to be very efficient upon the correct application. Trial and error had determined that the RG-6 to be very valuable in ambush situations, where the use of direct fire is usually complicated.
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