RMB-93

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RMB-93
Type	Shotgun
Place of origin	Russia
Production history
Designer	TsKIB-SOO (Central Bureau for Hunting and Sporting Arms, now a division of KBP)
Designed	Early 1990s
Manufacturer	KBP Instrument Design Bureau
Produced	1993 to present
Variants	Several sporting and hunting variants
Specifications
Weight	2.5 kg
Length	Stock extended: 920 mm Stock folded: 671 mm

Caliber	12-gauge
Action	Double action only pump-action
Rate of fire	12 rpm
Muzzle velocity	340 meters per second
Feed system	6-7 round overbarrel tubular magazine

The RMb-93 is a pump-action shotgun designed and manufactured by the KBP Instrument Design Bureau of Tula, Russia. It is the baseline model of the Rys ("Lynx") series of shotguns, taking the modelname of Rys-K. The RMb-93 has been conceived as a combat weapon for Special Forces and Police units that might face Close Quarters Battle situations. The weapon is thus engineered to reduce size and encumbrance as much as possible. The working system of the RMb-93 is itself an odd slide-action operation called "Inverted Cycle", similar in concept to the one used in the South-African Truvelo Armory "Neostead" NS-2000 shotgun (the only other mass-produced firearm to be based upon this system). The feeding tube is placed over the barrel rather than under it, and tilts upwards for loading. Once the weapon is loaded, a shell is chambered by pushing the slide forward-then-backward, instead of the standard backward-then-forward motion of the forend found on most pump-action weapons. Having the RMb-93 a fixed breech face and movable barrel, the operation moves the entire barrel assembly. Once a round is fired and another is chambered, the empty shell falls downwards to the ground, pushed by its own weight. The design of the RMb-93 "Rys-K" carries several advantages: the ejection system makes the gun fully ambidextrous, and the magazine located over the barrel gives the shotgun a low center of mass and reduces upward recoil. The main drawback of the overall design stands in the fact that the weapon has a pistol grip with upfolding metal stock, which when folded finds itself right up the feeding tube. The RMb-93 thus can not be reloaded without extending or removing the stock, a disadvantage if it is being used tactically with a folded stock.

[edit] Variants and commercial availability

The RMb-93 "Rys-K" shotgun is commercially available to civilians in Canada, Russia, Italy and possibly in other Countries. For the civilian distribution in Russia and Canada, the shotgun is provided with a stock disconnector that prevents it from firing if the stock is not extended, so to comply with local laws and regulation about the minimum legal length for civilian firearms.

Additionally, KBP manufactures several variants of the "Rys" shotgun series for the civilian distribution. The RMb-93 "Rys-K" itself is manufactured with Phosphatized finish to resist salt corrosion (for use in maritime environments). The RMO-93 "Rys" is a purely sporting variant with wooden thumbhole stock and either wooden or synthetic slide-forend; very similar to it is the "Rys-OT" variant with longer barrel, synthetic or wooden slide-forend and standard wooden shotgun stock. The RMf-96 "Rys-F" shotgun is instead a longer-barrel variant of the RMb-93 "Rys-K", plus equipped with the above-mentioned stock disconnector.