PKM

The PKM is a Soviet general-purpose machine gun, an improved version of the earlier PK machine gun designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov's design bureau and adopted by Soviet forces in 1969, chambered for the same 7.62x54mmR rimmed rifle cartridge used by earlier Soviet rifles such as the Mosin-Nagant, giving it a longer effective range than rifle-caliber assault weapons like the AK-47 while remaining light enough for a single soldier to carry and fire from a bipod. Belt-fed and gas-operated, the PKM can be quickly reconfigured between a lightweight infantry role on its integral bipod and a heavier sustained-fire role mounted on a tripod or vehicle mount, giving Soviet and later Russian forces a flexible squad and company-level support weapon comparable to Western general-purpose machine guns of the same era. Produced in vast numbers and widely exported, the PKM and its licensed and unlicensed derivatives remain in active service with dozens of countries' armed forces and numerous non-state armed groups worldwide well into the twenty-first century.