Livinghistory Serbia

87The Small Arms Review • Vol. 9 No. 1 • October, 2005

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Miroslav “Mike” Hajducovic is aSerbian firearms enthusiast. He has livedhis whole life around guns; from the mili-tary to hunting, to collecting, and being inthe surplus arms business. It was part ofthe surplus business that gave him the op-portunity to meet with like minded shoot-ers from around the world, and for manyyears he has worked to bring about “Liv-ing History.” This is not just about shoot-ing, nor is it just about firearms. The ex-perience that Mike and his friends wantedto bring to the world was the Balkan expe-rience - the rich tapestry of struggle forfreedom that has typified this mountain-

I had been looking forward to this for years - fifteen years to be precise. Mike and some of his friends hadbeen planning this for at least that long, and every time he started to get “Living History” going, anotherwar broke out in the Balkans. They are up and running now, and SAR had the pleasure of going through thefirst live fire course, and we can now bring you this special report.-Dan

Lead photo, above: Living Historyattendee Newell Graham takes aimon the M55A3B1 three barreled20mm Hispano style cannon.

Right: A close-up photo of the im-pact area as an HE round from the40mm Bofors finds its mark.

88 The Small Arms Review • Vol. 9 No. 1 • October, 2005


ous area for thousands of years. The sevencountries that today make up the formerYugoslavia sit right at the crux of the col-lision point where the three great WesternReligions meet. The grinding of these tec-tonic plates of human spiritual ambitionhas created a war zone that has existed fora thousand years. This has turned into aproving ground for weaponry, and sincethe advent of the firearm, most modernweapons have appeared in this arena.

The interests of the majority of SAR’sreaders generally start in the late 1800swith the advent of the machine gun. Themachine gun makes some of its earliestcombat appearances in the Balkans: thereis a photo of a Schwarzlose 07/12 watercooled machine gun on a biplane, and it isdated 1913. Remember that the Serbs were

fighting major battles with the Turks in1912 and 1913, two years before the as-sassination of Archduke Ferdinand, thematch that lit the fuse on the War to EndAll Wars.

The Yugoslavs in their various ethnicgroups have spearheaded the manufactureof many types of firearms, and they havebeen the recipients of much foreign aid, aswell as having the weapons of theiroccupier’s armies. At the end of the FirstBosnian War, the Dayton Accords dictatedthe destruction of many of these stockpiles,but there are still inventories in the nationalarmories and examples in museums thatare worthy of scholarly study.

Serbia today is a country that is grap-pling with recent wars, dealing with thetragic loss of life that is part of civil war,along with the retribution of former en-emies and international courts. The Liv-ing History experience stayed out of thepolitics of these modern conflicts, and westarted our journey with a museum tour thatled us through the Iron Age and onward tothe great wars of modern times.

The average shooter today has no op-portunity to fire live, high explosive am-munition. For the firearms enthusiast whohas graduated from hand guns and longarms and moved into machine guns andcannons, there is still something missing.We may go to our shoots like Knob Creekor the new Wikieup shoot, where there areexplosive reacting targets, and homeloaded ammunition, but what is it reallylike to shoot a 57mm cannon with HE?How does it feel to touch off a LAW stylerocket and watch the full HEDP strike onthe target? You may buy an Oerlikon, but

Above: Mike Hajdukovic stands in for Branko Bogdanovic and explains thehistory of the SKS rifles in Yugoslavia. At left is the M59 first model withoutgrenade launcher, on the right is the M59 with launcher. The front sights aremarked for the type of grenade to be used.

Right: Ammunition used in the Liv-ing History included (L to R) 57mmHE, 40mm Bofors HE, 37mm RussianHE, 30mm AA, 30mm GS, BGA30 HEgrenade, BGA30 Target Practice,20mm Oerlikon HE-IT, 20mmHispano HE, 20mm Hispano AP-I,VOG25 HE. These are all on top of acase of M80 RPG18 style rockets.



finding TP ammo is virtually impossible,let alone shooting it like it was intended tobe shot - drums full of HE Tracer goingdownrange in a blizzard of laser red linesand explosions at the end.

This is the real “hook” for Living His-tory. It is not just in learning about theBalkans or simply looking at firearms. Itis the ability to go to the range, receiveinstruction from people who deal withthese weapons on a daily basis, gain a bet-ter understanding of how they work, andto shoot them as it was intended with brandnew manufacture, live HE rounds. Thereare places around the world where you cango and shoot LAW rockets, throw handgrenades, and fire machine guns, and doso for relatively inexpensive amounts of

money. Living History will cost you morethan these other places. The reason is thatall of the ammunition over 14.5mm isbrand new, factory certified HE, made atSloboda in Cacak, which is one of the bestHE manufacturing facilities in the world.This is not surplus ammo, and it costs moreto use on the range at Living History. It isa testament to the forethought that Mikeand his crew put into this, that they willnot risk using unsafe, old HE ammunition.One of our hosts at the range was MilovanLukovic “Lukek”, the Quality Manager ofthe Sloboda Company, and he was thereto assure that the ammunition was perfect.(I have been in places where I was offeredto shoot LAW M72 HE rockets, that wereVietnam era US manufactured, and there

Firearms at Living History:

I. Pistols1. Serbian pistols cal. 7.62 x 25mm and 9mm.2. Scorpion machine pistol cal. 32 ACP

II. Rifles3. Rifle M-24/47 cal. 7.9mm4. Rifle M-48 cal. 7.9mm5. Rifle SKS M-59 cal. 7.62 x 39mm6. Rifle SKS M-59/66 cal. 7.62 x 39mm

III. Sub Machine Guns7. M-56 cal. 7,62 x 25mm8. M-41 Shpagin cal. 7.62 x 25mm9. MP-40 cal. 9mm10. AK 47 ( Yugoslavian made) cal. 7.62 x 39mm11. Sten cal. 9mm

IV. Machineguns12. M-53 cal. 7,9mm with and without tripod13. M-84 (PKM) cal. 7.62 x 54R14. Browning M2HB cal. 5015. DSHK Russian cal. 12.7 x 108mm16. KPVT Russian cal. 14.5mm

V. AA Cannons17. M-55 three barreled canon cal. 20mm Hispano18. Oerlikon single canon cal. 20mm19. M-39 cal. 37mm Russian20. Bofors L/70 cal. 40mm21. 57mm US cannon

VI. Rockets M-80 cal. 64mm RPG18 (Yugoslavian Bazooka)VII. Automatic Grenade Launcher BGA-30mmVIII. Rifle Grenades with Bullet TrapIX. Under Barrel Grenade Launcher 40mm Russian (Kastyor)



is no way I am touching one of those offfrom my shoulder. I agree fully with theLiving History philosophy that the HE andfuzes should all be brand new and factorycertified for their classes).

The class itself is a week long experi-ence. Once you contract to go, you areexpected to get yourself to Belgrade be-cause the attendees usually have their ownmethods of using Frequent Flyer programsor discounts to fly to Europe, and the lo-gistics are much simpler if you simplyshow up in Belgrade for the class and theytake it from there. You fly into Belgradeon Saturday afternoon, and stay at the In-tercontinental Hotel at your own expense.The class started on Sunday morning witha private tour of the museum at the For-tress of Kalemegdan. The displays at themuseum are just the tip of the iceberg ofthe 250,000 artifacts housed in theBelgrade collections. By early afternoon,the attendees have been briefed on the his-tory of Yugoslavia, and seen some veryinteresting displays including machineguns that we in the West are almost unableto identify. We then boarded a small, mod-ern twenty seat bus and headed south toCacak (Chachak). This was a long ride,down roads that were curvy and very scenic.

By Sunday evening, we were at the Ho-tel Omorika in the Mount Tara region,about fifty kilometers off of the Bosnianborder. This was wild country, with a repu-tation for some of the best whitewater raft-ing in the world. Hotel Omorika is a tes-tament to the height of Tito’s regime, aluxury hotel in the wilderness, made forthe military to use. Today it is in need ofsome renovation, but it is spectacular none-theless. Future classes will not be stayingat this hotel because it was about two hoursfrom the shooting range and it made for daysso long that it was hard to enjoy the ameni-ties of the hotel and Mount Tara region.

Each day focused on different types ofweapons. The first day we spent in the

classroom, getting a history lesson andtechnical data on most of the small armswe were to be working with, including theMausers, SKSs, M53, and the PKM. Mikegave this class, taking the place of notedfirearms author Branko Bogdanovic,whose mother had taken ill the night be-fore. Mike has a deep love for both fire-arms and the history of Serbia, and it camethrough in his classroom presentation.Because this was a day of some jet-lag forparticipants, it was sort of low speed.There was a wonderful pig roast out onthe mountainside, and by the end of theday, we were all well versed in theYugoslav small arms production history aswell as the basic variants of the weapons.

The first day on the range is the day thatthe range instructors get to analyze theirstudents, to see who is safe, who needsmore attention, who can work alone. It isalso the day that the students get to learn

about the range and the instructors. Thefirst day was a culture shock for all in-volved, to say the least. The Serbian per-sonnel were unfamiliar with the US styleof going to a shoot where we pile brass onthe ground, and are somewhat ambivalentabout the targets. We like things that movewhen we hit them when firing machineguns, things that blow up. We like reac-tive targets. The range personnel hadthought we would be “printing paper” withhandguns up through submachine guns,and what they got instead was America,Knob Creek style. By mid day, everyonehad adjusted, and we had magazine load-ing systems going so that we could keepthe guns running, and the big hit of the dayhad to be the Skorpion VZ61 machine pis-tol. No one could get enough trigger timeon that to be fully satisfied, although weheated the Skorpion pretty thoroughly.

By the third day, we were working wellwith the staff, and they had anticipated ourshooting needs. It was their first class, af-ter all, and they weren’t sure what our fo-cus would be like. Our focus was shoot-ing. We fired all manner of Mauser andSKS rifles, MP40 and Yugo M56 machineguns, then up to the AK variants. At theend of each day, Mike brought out sometype of explosive to give us a taste of whatwould be coming later in the week. Oneday it was the M80 LAW style shoulderfired rocket, which is the Yugoslav version

Above: Class II Manufacturer John Kokinis climbs into the Yugo after the DShK barrage.

Armorer Certification and Military Training

The Living History staff has several other programs they can offer. Some of theattendees qualified for factory certification as armorers on the Kalashnikov (AK)series of rifles, as well as the DShK 38/46, KPV series, and PKM series. LivingHistory offers this service and can arrange for special classes geared for this objec-tive. In light of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of the civilian contrac-tors need these factory certifications, and the LH staff can arrange it. There arealso private groups available for US Military and Fed Ops for familiarization train-ing and live fire. Contact Living History for more information.



of the RPG18, another it was blank firingHE rifle grenades out into the target area.This really whetted the appetite.

We fired the MG42 variant called theM53, as well as the modern PKM. Wehad a PACT timer with us and clocked theM53 at 953 rpm, and the PKM (M84) at797rpm. When it came time for the largermachine guns, we fired the M2HB fiftycaliber Browning machine gun, and theDShK 38/46 in the same period. This wasgood, and gave us the opportunity to com-pare the fifties - ours and what was calleda “Fifty one” by US troops in Vietnam. TheDashika has taken on a new life in the newsagain; it is prevalent in Afghanistan andIraq. Having factory certifications avail-able for those of us who work in contract-ing was an added plus. The KPV-T14.5mm machine gun was also fired thisday, and the roar of the 14.5mm roundsgoing off quickly overshadowed the fiftycals.

The last two days of Living History, wegraduated into the larger calibers, and theHigh Explosives. Shooting the Oerlikonand three barreled Hispano were fantas-tic, but the 37mm Russian and 40mm Bo-fors guns were awe inspiring. We had fiverounds each for these two larger guns, andit was truly satisfying to touch them off.In the US, we have static displays of theseguns, but almost never are any fired, andcertainly not with HE rounds. The BGA-30 30mm grenade launcher, covered indepth in the last issue of SAR, was intrigu-ing as well.

Firing the 57mm US cannon with HEwas very special to a number of us as well.We have fired our own cannons with turnedprojectiles, downloaded ammunition, butnever with HE ammo. It was truly satisfy-ing to feel the thump in the belly on touch-ing it off, and then on the impact as well.

All of the larger guns we fired are veryvisual things. When you get to larger can-nons, say 105mm or 155mm, the round isso far away when it goes off that you canbarely know you hit. With the 57mm, itwas a tremendous “thump”, and then a sec-ond later the target area was lit up withanother explosion.

Each day, the Living History staff wouldarrange for us to have a good breakfast,and lunch on the range was frequentlymade on a Serbian military field kitchen.The soldier beans were just plain goodchow, and when they roasted a pig on theground, using a battery and a car wind-

shield washer motor to turn the spit, it waspure hog heaven. Not much more that youcan ask for - days of firing exotic weap-ons, blowing things up, and eating roastedpig with good company. Mike’s daughtersJasna and Jelena were there to make surethat all of the arrangements worked right,and they are the organizers of the comingLiving History classes. Both girls speakfluent English and Serbian, as well as asmattering of other languages, and their

presence helped a lot.Finally, we got to something that is re-

ally “out there” for Americans. We got toshoot LAW type rockets with full HEDPwarheads. These were the Yugoslav ModelM80, which is essentially the RussianRPG-18. We got to fire a number of thevery intriguing training rounds first, untilthey were sure we were safe with the sys-tem, and then we got to fire two rocketseach. These were brand new Sloboda

List of Ammunition for each attendee:

TYPE QUANTITY per guest

1 7.62 x 25mm 1000 pcs2 7.62 x 39mm 1500 pcs3 7.62 x 54R 1000 pcs4 9mm 500 pcs5 7.9 x 57mm 1000 pcs6 .50 Browning 100 pcs7 12.7 x 108mm Russian 50 pcs8 14.5mm Russian 50 pcs9 20mm Hispano 90 pcs10 20mm Oerlikon 20 pcs11 37mm Russian 5 pcs12 40mm Bofors 5 pcs13 Automatic Grenade Launcher 30mm 20 pcs14 Hand Launcher Rocket 64mm 2 pcs15 Under Barrel Launcher 40mm Russ 5 pcs16 Rifle Grenades 5 pcs17 57mm canon 2 pcs

Attendees of Living History are treated to excellent food, company and ac-commodations as well as exotic weaponry.



manufacture, certified from the militaryline. I had no hesitation in firing these off,and neither did anyone else. It was quiteimpressive to hit the six inch steel targetswith a rocket and see the shaped chargejet hole it cut, or to shoot at the smallYugoslav car that had been made into atarget. The car belonged to one of therange staff, and he seemed to take greatjoy in us hammering it with cannons, ma-chine guns, and rockets. I have had cars Ifelt that way about, too.

The only way to top that was firing real,High Explosive, rifle grenades or the40mm HE rounds for the underbarrel Rus-sian style launcher. None of us had everfired any barrel launched before, with theexception of the blank launched practicerounds that show up at gun shows. Thefirst type we fired were blank launched HErounds, but the real show was combat usefragmentation grenades that were bullettrap type. That means you use the sameround you use in combat, and the projec-tile is trapped in the disk in the grenade,driving it forward off the barrel extension,and arming it as it leaves your vicinity. Itwas clear from the explosions that thesewere much more powerful than the M203round, and it became apparent that therewas a lot of validity for the spec ops forceswho want to gear up with these instead ofan underbarrel 40mm. These were veryaccurate, and very powerful. It was a rushfor all of us to fire these and the RussianGP underbarrel grenades. Yes, I am talk-ing some adrenaline here. You can’t dothis at a range in the US, and most rangesin the world are working with decades oldsurplus. That might be fine for 8mmMauser ammo, but not for HE rounds orfuzes.

Every day and every night, Mike, Jasna,Jelena and the crew treated us to specialregional dinners. We got to try all kinds

of Balkan foods and Serbian specialties,and it was all interspersed with stories ofthe military history and the people ofSerbia. For something called “Living His-tory”, I would have to say their missionwas accomplished. They told me that theycan make special tours available to includewine tasting or gourmet meal trips, or justhistorical trips in the area. It might beworth piggybacking a few days on the endof your trip to Living History if you wishto do this. They can also set up privateshoots for groups of six or more.

The cost of the Living History class was$9,950 per person, and it included all ho-tels from Sunday night to Friday night, aswell as all domestic transportation, meals,and ammunition. It was possible to buymore ammunition as well. At $500 a popfor extra M80 LAW style rockets, it isworth planning ahead, and a schedule ofprices is available from Living History.

The only negatives to the class were ba-sically related to it being the first one theyhad. The travel between the hotel and therange took too much time, and they havefound a much closer hotel. There weren’tenough magazines for each gun, and prob-ably they should have some more of eachmodel gun there in case there is down timeon a gun - we like to keep shooting. Bothof those problems have been dealt with.Jelena tells me that they have piled up themagazines and extra guns for the next classin late September.

What did I think? It’s hard to give atechnical evaluation of an event that ismore of a shooting holiday than a techclass. I had a great time, and will be going

back with a group of friends to do it again.Serbia is a very safe country to travel in,but it is a good place to have a guide, andLiving History is pretty much 24/7 super-vised. I rediscovered my interest in shoot-ing Mausers, SKSs, and of all things, theTokarev in the right cartridge: 7.62 TT. Inow have to go find different guns withthe Kingdom Crest on it, just to collect.But I have very, very fond memories ofthe guns I haven’t been able to shoot inthe US, as well as a new understanding ofthe HE rounds and their capabilities. I fi-nally got to shoot an Oerlikon in HE, andthe RPG18 as well, as I had never had achance to shoot one before. A Bofors? Tryand shoot that in the US. It was great. Atthe end I was exhausted, well fed, educatedon this interesting part of the world and itsmilitary history, spent time with some goodfriends, made some new ones, and gener-ally had a blast. Mission accomplished. Ihighly recommend this.

For information on Living History:

Email: [email protected]: http://

www.livinghistoryserbia.com/

Living HistoryHeroja Milana Tepica 16

11040 BelgradeSerbia and Montenegro

Tel: +381-11-306-7099(From the US, dial 011-381-11-306-7099)

See Living History PhotoMontage on pages 94-97

Firing the Russian 37mm gun.



AK47s

The Serbs are noted for their manufacturing of the Kalashnikov series of weapons at the Zastava plant. SAR has covered themodels in the past, and it was the M70 series that we used at Living History. We had both underfolders and fixed stock guns. Theearly M70s had milled receivers, and in 1985 this was changed to a stamped metal receiver. Most of us have fired AKs before, sothis was nothing new to us, but the M70 series AKs are definitely a high quality gun. It was also very interesting to watch thedisassembly procedure by long time AK users, to pick up their tricks for reassembly on the trigger and springs. We timed theM70AB1 folder at 621 rpm, a bit slower than expected, but very controllable. As long as there was ammunition, we would shoot.Since we are “American Cowboys” but safety oriented ones, we decided to do an impromptu smoke test on one of these. We hadgotten the SKSs to the smoke point, and decided to get a bit more formal on the M70s. We took one gun and did a 100 round temptest with an infrared thermometer. Chamber was 120° F and the gas plug was at 280° F. Not too bad at all. We will repeat this ata later date to include accuracy and yaw at that point. We then fired it to the point of getting the wood to smoke and the readingswere 180° F at the chamber and 390° F at the gas plug. When the forend wood started to smolder, we realized that the smoke hadthe same “flavor” as the wood smoke at the meat smoking plant we had visited. They had been unable to tell us the name of thewood they used in curing the meat and sausage, so now we knew it was “Kalashnikov” wood. Perhaps the General can addKalashnikov smoked meat to his Kalashnikov Vodka line.



Rifle Grenades

The style we were using were theBullet Trap style fragmentation gre-nades. We were firing from7.62x39mm M70 rifles, but the sightsare set up for 223/ 7.62x39 on one side,and 7.62x51 NATO on the other. Withthe x51 cartridge, the range is extendedapproximately 150 meters. There is noadjustment necessary for using any ofthese cartridges other than point of aim,so operators that have the M16A2 rifleand the SR25 rifle in their inventorycan use these grenades on either, withstandard duty ammo. When the gre-nade begins its flight, the sight is leftin the air, evident in the photo.

Russian KPV-T

The Russian KPV-T is a 14.5mm heavy machine gun formounted use only. The “T” is for Tank, and in this case the gunwas mounted to a plate for firing. This is also the gun used inthe famous ZSU quad mount. There is also a 23mm ZSU, muchlarger, so don’t confuse these two. The basic gun is perhaps thelargest “tube” gun you will ever see, a tube receiver with a hugedouble wound recoil spring. The belts are non disintegratingmetallic “pull out” belts, requiring a stiff yank to load the firstround onto the belt. The base of a fired cartridge is used as thecocking handle, then discarded. We fired the KPV-T both re-motely and from a mechanical trigger on the rear of the receivertube. Our PACT timer recorded a surprising rate of fire of 769

rpm, which makes for an interesting combined rate of over 3,000 rpm for the Quad mounted ZSU. All of the ammunition was API,with the following markings: 3 at 12 o’clock, 78 at 6 o’clock and * at 3 & 9 o’clock.



Under Barreled40mm Grenades

The Russian underbarrel 40mm grenade launcher is the GP-25, called the Kastyor. The Serbian variant is very similar.These grenades do not have a cartridge case. The well in thebottom of the grenade launcher where the firing pin sits com-bined with the powder chamber in the GP round constitute thelow pressure chamber area. The round is loaded from the frontof the barrel, and fired from a suspended sling method, hold-ing the rifle off to one side. Sighting can either be direct, or,more interestingly, using a pendulum located on the left sideof the launcher. When the pendulum hangs freely, the range isset on the sight dial. The launcher is then held in a firingposition, and the operator raises and lowers the barrel to lineup two marks on the pendulum disk. Once lined up, the

launcher is aimed at the range the sight was set at. Now, all the operator has to do is line up the target and he can pretty well beassured of his range. This is very fast for firing, and two men can load and fire the GP series much faster than any other launcheron the market.

57mm Cannon

The US 57 mm cannon was fired into the 600 yard targetbox, where there were armor plates and the relic of a Yugothat we were targeting. Here, Newell Graham puts a directhit into the box.

BGA30 AutomaticGrenade Launcher

The fully automatic 30mm grenade launcher that is in use bythe Serb military today is the Zastava manufactured versionof the AGS17 or AGS30. SAR covered this in detail in Vol-ume 8 Number 12.



20mm M55A3B1 ThreeBarreled Hispano

The star of the show to me was the three barreled 20mmHispano cannon. The operator sits in the seat, sights throughthe optics and controls aim from the two wheels for traverseand elevation. Since both hands are on the controls, the leftfoot operates the firing mechanism. This cannon can be firedin single bursts, or in fully automatic, with all cannons firingin either mode. A single burst is three rounds going down-range. Our PACT timer read between 680-702 rpm for theM55A3B1. There is a generator to operate the controls orthey can be used manually. Each drum is sixty linkless rounds,and a special method of loading the drums is accomplishedusing a long bar to wind the tension out while hand loadingthe rounds. The hail of devastation from this weapon systemwas impressive, and with the modern fuzes the high explo-sive rounds can be timed to shorten the range. While theM55A3B1 is designed for anti-air and anti vehicle use, inclose perimeters, Sloboda can manufacture ammunition thatwill “time out” and explode at any range - if a protected areahas no-hit zones or civilian areas at 2,000 meters, the fuzescan be set for 1,800 meters. This means that any rounds thatdon’t find the target are detonated before they reach the “nohit” zone. While the Hispano technology is old school, it isvery reliable, and on the M55A3 system mount, it is highlymobile and very effective. I had planned on purchasing someextra ammunition for my finale, and decided to dump threesixty round drums of HE from the M55A3B1 in one burst. Itwas like a Knob Creek in one burst and drew a shout of ap-proval from everyone there including the range staff.

20mm Oerlikon

Most of the attendees of Living History were familiar with the 20mm Oerlikon Cannons, in fact two of us own fully transfer-able guns. There had been little hope of ever firing these two guns with real target practice ammo, let alone brand newmanufactured HE rounds, so this was a pretty exciting experience for all involved. Sloboda is one of the few places on theplanet that still manufactures ammunition for the Oerlikon, and they do so with modern fuzes that take the assumed risk out offiring this oversized advanced primer ignition open bolt machine gun. The gun we fired was a US marked MK4, on the Navalmount. We clocked it at 440-465 rpm with the PACT timer. Newell had to fire another drum as his grand finale, and it was quitean impressive display.

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