Vepr


 * Not to be confused with the Russian Vepr rifle and Vepr 12 shotgun.

The Vepr (Ukrainian: Вепр, wild boar) was announced in 2003 as the first indigenous Ukrainian assault rifle, designed by the National Space Agency of Ukraine. Note that on the Ukrainian Government Portal website (see below in External Links), the Vepr is classed as a sub-machinegun. It is one of several bullpup conversions of the conventional AK-47 design, along with the Polish Kbk wz. 2005 Jantar, the Chinese Norinco Type 86S, the Russian KBP A-91 and OC-14 Groza, the Finnish Valmet M82 and the South African Vektor CR-21.

History
Prior to the development of the Vepr, the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were equipped mainly with the AKM and AK-74 assault rifle designs, typical of Warsaw Pact countries. More recently, however, as part of ongoing reforms in the Ukrainian Ground Forces, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense has declared intentions to purchase thousands of Veprs by the year 2010.

Design
Although the Vepr has been proclaimed as a revolutionary upgrade to the AK-74, it is, in fact, an interesting yet fairly simple modification of the basic AK-74 system in a bullpup design, with the following modifications:
 * The standard gas-operated, rotating-bolt AK-74 mechanism is removed from its furniture and a new butt plate is mounted directly on the rear of the receiver;
 * A polymer cheek rest is fitted to the receiver cover;
 * The trigger and pistol grip are placed in front of the magazine;
 * The cocking handle is removed from the bolt carrier and a new cocking handle arrangement is placed on the left side of the forearm.

Common characteristics with the AK-74
The weapon still fires 5.45x39mm ammunition from 30-round magazines at an approximate rate of fire of 600 to 650 rounds per minute, the barrel length remains the same and the muzzle brake has been retained, which suggests that the Vepr's ballistic performance should be identical to that of the AK-74. The weapon's weight is almost the same as that of the AK-74M variant, and its length is comparable to that of a folding-stock AK with the stock folded. The main advantage of the bullpup layout thus lies in the fact that the weapon becomes much shorter and thus easier to store, to carry and to handle in confined spaces. However, the bullpup's overall superiority to conventional rifle configurations, in which the magazine and chamber are in front of the trigger and pistol grip rather than behind, has been questioned, even though the bullpup layout is more and more becoming an industry standard.

Right-handed use
The Vepr's only serious readily-visible drawback seems to be the fact that its layout, as that of the British SA80, does not favour ambidextrous operation, for three reasons:
 * Like the AK-74, the weapon still ejects to the right, which becomes a problem due to the fact that a right-ejecting bullpup weapon, held left-handed, presents the ejection port directly against the operator's face;
 * Notably, the standard Kalashnikov-type combined safety lever / fire selector lever arrangement has not been revised. In the original weapon, the selector lever was noted for its relatively uncommon safe-auto-semi options sequence (rather than the typical safe-semi-auto), but the only real problems were that the lever was made (in)famous for its characteristic "Kalashnikov Clack" and it could not be operated without letting go of either the pistol grip or the forearm. The use of the same selector lever in a bullpup configuration adds further problems: the lack of any other form of fire selector device, which would ideally be placed as close to the trigger as possible, results in awkward handling with the weapon shouldered, especially when holding it left-handed;
 * The cocking handle is still placed to one side, now favouring right-handed operators but making it difficult to work the cocking handle with the right hand while holding the weapon left-handed.

Accessories
The Vepr includes adjustable open sights and a conventional side mount, on the left, for day or night scopes. The front sight is strikingly similar to that of the American M16 series of rifles. A relatively large red dot sight of Ukrainian production can also be fitted as standard. The latest versions of the Vepr also include an integral 40mm underslung grenade launcher, with a dual trigger layout in which the front trigger fires the grenade launcher and the rear trigger fires the rifle.

In fiction
The Vepr is a recent design, but is already featured in at least one computer game: Point of Existence: 2, a mod of the Battlefield 2 title, the latter developed by Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts (see below).