Kbk wz. 88 Tantal
Encyclopedia
The karabinek wzór 1988 (Carbine Model 1988) Tantal is a 5.45mm
assault rifle
designed and produced in Poland
in the late 1980s.
at the request of the Polish Ministry of Defense (the OBR institute had already been studying a possible 5.45mm weapon platform since late 1980). In 1985, the weapon’s parameters were confirmed and factory tests were conducted by the end of that year. In 1986 the first batch of prototypes was fabricated for evaluation and qualification testing.
These early prototypes, initially designated wz. 1981, were modeled on the Soviet
5.45mm AK-74
assault rifle and emphasized a high degree of parts commonality with the AKM
rifle. As the weapon was intended to be able to launch rifle grenade
s, a newly designed, multi-functional muzzle device and a sturdier folding shoulder stock were used (the wire stock is a copy of the wire stock used on the East German MPi-KMS-72 rifle). Additionally, the wz. 81 was equipped with a mechanically-limited burst fire mode, borrowed from the AKMS wz. 1980 prototype developed in the late 1970s by OBR.
By the end of 1987 the rifle was extensively overhauled and improved (among the changes made, a series of components were introduced that were meant to be interchangeable with the AK-74, including the bolt carrier, bolt, magazines and the burst fire mode was further refined). In January 1988, these product improved prototypes were again evaluated, and in 1989 the rifle was declared to have met its requirements, followed by an order for a pre-production batch, which was manufactured that same year. In 1990 the rifles were successfully evaluated and then transferred for final operational testing. In 1991 the rifle was introduced into service with the Polish Army
as the 5,45 mm karabinek wz. 1988 (kbk wz. 88).
The weapon’s design was authored by the team of engineers at OBR in Radom, under the guidance of B. Szpaderski. The rifle was produced exclusively with a folding wire stock by the Łucznik Arms Factory in Radom.
The Tantal is a selective fire
, gas piston operated
weapon that taps expanding exhaust gases off through a port in the barrel to a gas cylinder above the barrel. The barrel is locked against its longitudinal axis by a right rotating bolt
. A spring extractor is contained inside the bolt head, and a fixed ejector—inside the receiver housing.
The fire control selector, with its lever located on the left side of the receiver wall, enables fully automatic fire (lever in the “C”-marked position), semi-automatic fire (“P”) and 3-round burst fire mode (“S”). The selector can be operated with the safety either engaged or disabled.
The weapon is secured against misfires through a manually operated safety (whose lever, as in the AKM is located on the right side of the receiver), that disables the trigger bar and limits the movement of the bolt carrier. Sliding the safety selector to the top position (marked with a “Z” symbol) secures the weapon, lowering the lever down (“O” setting) disables the safety. The Tantal feeds from a double-column curved box magazine, made from a synthetic bakelite material or stamped metal, with a 30-round cartridge capacity.
The cold hammer forged barrel has a chrome-plated bore with 4 right-hand grooves at a 200 mm twist rate. It is equipped with a multifunction muzzle brake that can be used to launch rifle grenades.
The Tantal features a metal wire side-folding stock (folds to the right side), ended with a profiled shoulder pad. The rifle can also use a fixed wooden or synthetic buttstock designed for AKM or AK-74 rifles. Both the upper and lower handguard and pistol grip are fabricated from bakelite, although a limited number of Tantal-specific black polymer handguards and pistol grips have also been produced. Most handguards designed for use with the wz. 1996 Beryl assault rifle may also be installed on the Tantal.
The rifle has mechanically adjustable iron sight
s that consist of a notch on a sliding tangent and forward post. The rear sight’s drop arm has a range scale engraved with settings from 1 to 10 (corresponding to firing ranges from 100 to 1,000 m, graduated every 100 m) and a fixed setting “S” that is the equivalent to setting “4” on the range scale. Additionally, the sight assembly is fitted with a radium
gas illuminated vial that enables use in low light and near dark conditions.
Equipment supplied with the Tantal includes: three spare magazines, a 6H4 type bayonet
with scabbard, bipod
, four 15-round stripper clips (they enable rapid magazine charging), a stripper clip guide, cleaning kit, sling, magazine pouch and a lubricant bottle. The weapon's muzzle brake can also be replaced with a blank firing adaptor for use with blanks during training exercises.
The wz. 88 rifle fires the intermediate 5.45x39mm round with either standard, tracer or training cartridges, all produced locally by Zakłady Metalowe "Mesko" in the town of Skarżysko-Kamienna
.
carbine
, the karabinek-granatnik wz. 1974 rifle/grenade launcher combination and a “night” variant of the wz. 1988, equipped with a receiver side-rail used to mount an NSP-3 night sight.
Kbk.1990, a prototype made to fire 5.56 round
, but the Polish Army wasn't interested in developing this idea.
5.45x39mm
The Soviet 5.45×39mm cartridge is a rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was introduced into service in 1974 for use with the new AK-74 assault rifle. It gradually supplemented then largely replaced the 7.62x39mm round in service....
assault rifle
Assault rifle
An assault rifle is a selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles are the standard infantry weapons in most modern armies...
designed and produced in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
in the late 1980s.
Development
Design work on the new rifle officially began in 1984 at the government-owned Ośrodek Badawczo-Rozwojowy (OBR) in the city of RadomRadom
Radom is a city in central Poland with 223,397 inhabitants . It is located on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship , having previously been the capital of Radom Voivodeship ; 100 km south of Poland's capital, Warsaw.It is home to the biennial Radom Air Show, the largest and...
at the request of the Polish Ministry of Defense (the OBR institute had already been studying a possible 5.45mm weapon platform since late 1980). In 1985, the weapon’s parameters were confirmed and factory tests were conducted by the end of that year. In 1986 the first batch of prototypes was fabricated for evaluation and qualification testing.
These early prototypes, initially designated wz. 1981, were modeled on the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
5.45mm AK-74
AK-74
The AK-74 is an assault rifle developed in the early 1970s in the Soviet Union as the replacement for the earlier AKM...
assault rifle and emphasized a high degree of parts commonality with the AKM
AKM
The AKM is a 7.62mm assault rifle designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is an upgraded version of the AK-47 rifle and was developed in the 1950s....
rifle. As the weapon was intended to be able to launch rifle grenade
Rifle grenade
A rifle grenade is a grenade that uses a rifle-based launcher to permit a longer effective range than would be possible if the grenade was thrown by hand...
s, a newly designed, multi-functional muzzle device and a sturdier folding shoulder stock were used (the wire stock is a copy of the wire stock used on the East German MPi-KMS-72 rifle). Additionally, the wz. 81 was equipped with a mechanically-limited burst fire mode, borrowed from the AKMS wz. 1980 prototype developed in the late 1970s by OBR.
By the end of 1987 the rifle was extensively overhauled and improved (among the changes made, a series of components were introduced that were meant to be interchangeable with the AK-74, including the bolt carrier, bolt, magazines and the burst fire mode was further refined). In January 1988, these product improved prototypes were again evaluated, and in 1989 the rifle was declared to have met its requirements, followed by an order for a pre-production batch, which was manufactured that same year. In 1990 the rifles were successfully evaluated and then transferred for final operational testing. In 1991 the rifle was introduced into service with the Polish Army
Polish Armed Forces
Siły Zbrojne Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej are the national defense forces of Poland...
as the 5,45 mm karabinek wz. 1988 (kbk wz. 88).
The weapon’s design was authored by the team of engineers at OBR in Radom, under the guidance of B. Szpaderski. The rifle was produced exclusively with a folding wire stock by the Łucznik Arms Factory in Radom.
Design details
Selective fire
A selective fire firearm has at least one semi–automatic and one automatic mode, which is activated by means of a selector which varies depending on the weapon's design. Some selective fire weapons utilize burst fire mechanisms to limit the maximum or total number of shots fired automatically in...
, gas piston operated
Gas-operated reloading
Gas-operation is a system of operation used to provide energy to operate autoloading firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high pressure gas from the cartridge being fired is used to power a mechanism to extract the spent case and chamber a new cartridge. Energy from the gas is harnessed...
weapon that taps expanding exhaust gases off through a port in the barrel to a gas cylinder above the barrel. The barrel is locked against its longitudinal axis by a right rotating bolt
Rotating bolt
Rotating bolt is a method of locking originally developed by Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher and found in his Steyr-Mannlicher M1895 straight-pull bolt-action rifle designed for and issued to the Austro-Hungarian Army...
. A spring extractor is contained inside the bolt head, and a fixed ejector—inside the receiver housing.
The fire control selector, with its lever located on the left side of the receiver wall, enables fully automatic fire (lever in the “C”-marked position), semi-automatic fire (“P”) and 3-round burst fire mode (“S”). The selector can be operated with the safety either engaged or disabled.
The weapon is secured against misfires through a manually operated safety (whose lever, as in the AKM is located on the right side of the receiver), that disables the trigger bar and limits the movement of the bolt carrier. Sliding the safety selector to the top position (marked with a “Z” symbol) secures the weapon, lowering the lever down (“O” setting) disables the safety. The Tantal feeds from a double-column curved box magazine, made from a synthetic bakelite material or stamped metal, with a 30-round cartridge capacity.
The cold hammer forged barrel has a chrome-plated bore with 4 right-hand grooves at a 200 mm twist rate. It is equipped with a multifunction muzzle brake that can be used to launch rifle grenades.
The Tantal features a metal wire side-folding stock (folds to the right side), ended with a profiled shoulder pad. The rifle can also use a fixed wooden or synthetic buttstock designed for AKM or AK-74 rifles. Both the upper and lower handguard and pistol grip are fabricated from bakelite, although a limited number of Tantal-specific black polymer handguards and pistol grips have also been produced. Most handguards designed for use with the wz. 1996 Beryl assault rifle may also be installed on the Tantal.
The rifle has mechanically adjustable iron sight
Iron sight
Iron sights are a system of shaped alignment markers used as a sighting device to assist in the aiming of a device such as a firearm, crossbow, or telescope, and exclude the use of optics as in telescopic sights or reflector sights...
s that consist of a notch on a sliding tangent and forward post. The rear sight’s drop arm has a range scale engraved with settings from 1 to 10 (corresponding to firing ranges from 100 to 1,000 m, graduated every 100 m) and a fixed setting “S” that is the equivalent to setting “4” on the range scale. Additionally, the sight assembly is fitted with a radium
Radium
Radium is a chemical element with atomic number 88, represented by the symbol Ra. Radium is an almost pure-white alkaline earth metal, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, becoming black in color. All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226,...
gas illuminated vial that enables use in low light and near dark conditions.
Equipment supplied with the Tantal includes: three spare magazines, a 6H4 type bayonet
Bayonet
A bayonet is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit in, on, over or underneath the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar weapon, effectively turning the gun into a spear...
with scabbard, bipod
Bipod
A bipod is a support device that is similar to a tripod or monopod, but with two legs. It provides significant stability along two axes of motion .-Firearms:...
, four 15-round stripper clips (they enable rapid magazine charging), a stripper clip guide, cleaning kit, sling, magazine pouch and a lubricant bottle. The weapon's muzzle brake can also be replaced with a blank firing adaptor for use with blanks during training exercises.
The wz. 88 rifle fires the intermediate 5.45x39mm round with either standard, tracer or training cartridges, all produced locally by Zakłady Metalowe "Mesko" in the town of Skarżysko-Kamienna
Skarzysko-Kamienna
Skarżysko-Kamienna is a town in northern Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship in Poland by Kamienna river, to the north of Świętokrzyskie Mountains; one of the voivodship's major towns...
.
Variants
The Tantal was used to develop the OnyksSkbk wz. 1989 Onyks
The 5.45 mm subkarabinek wz. 1989 Onyks is a lightweight Polish carbine variant of the 5.45 mm wz. 1988 Tantal assault rifle, also based on the AK-74U Work on the weapon began in 1989 at the Ośrodek Badawczo-Rozwojowy state research institute in the city of Radom. The weapon’s technical...
carbine
Carbine
A carbine , from French carabine, is a longarm similar to but shorter than a rifle or musket. Many carbines are shortened versions of full rifles, firing the same ammunition at a lower velocity due to a shorter barrel length....
, the karabinek-granatnik wz. 1974 rifle/grenade launcher combination and a “night” variant of the wz. 1988, equipped with a receiver side-rail used to mount an NSP-3 night sight.
Kbk.1990, a prototype made to fire 5.56 round
5.56x45mm NATO
5.56×45mm NATO is a rifle cartridge developed in the United States and originally chambered in the M16 rifle. Under STANAG 4172, it is a standard cartridge for NATO forces as well as many non-NATO countries. It is derived from, but not identical to, the .223 Remington cartridge...
, but the Polish Army wasn't interested in developing this idea.