The circumstances of the appearance of glass bullets in Russia became known

For a long time, the existence of glass bullets was fanned by myths and legends. However, such cartridges were, and appeared thanks to the cartridge "hunger" and the high cost of lead.

Among the conversations about the origin of glass bullets and, in general, their presence in the history of world weapons, a variety of versions sounded. Someone said that they were used exclusively in the White Army, someone - only in the Red Army, and still others considered glass bullets to be a special form of atrocity.

It turned out that glass cartridges have been known in Russia and the world since the 19th century. When the civil war came, everyone began to fight against everyone, and therefore problems inevitably arose with the production of weapons, including cartridges. More often than others, partisan detachments suffered from ammunition "hunger", and sometimes they had absolutely nowhere to take weapons. In this case, it was possible to get ammunition either from smugglers, or make it yourself in an artisanal way.

In the second case, the main criterion is the availability of raw materials. For the manufacture of bullets, lead was used, with which there were serious problems during the years of civil hard times. Interruptions arose both with the extraction of minerals and with the supply of raw materials for future cartridges. At the same time, glass could be made quite simply. For this, only quartz, calcium carbonate and sodium soda were needed.

This is how the notorious glass bullets appeared, which then turned into an obligatory attribute of myths and all sorts of invented stories about treasure hunters and other "gentlemen of fortune". Real references to the need for the production of glass cartridges appear in the correspondence of Baron Ungern. It is easy to guess that such a decision was not a manifestation of atrocity or cruelty, but was caused by purely practical interests and was the result of a cartridge "famine" in the White Army. In the 1930s, glass bullets were not forgotten and were used in the Soviet Union, but not as live ammunition, but exclusively for training purposes.

Domestic cartridges of 6 mm caliber inspired the military from NATO, who plan to abandon their 5.56 mm caliber. "The father of the Russian machine gun" Vladimir Fedorov called this caliber optimal for hand-held automatic weapons.

Source: https://newinform.com