UKM-2000
The UKM-2000 (Uniwersalny Karabin Maszynowy, "Universal Machine Gun") is a 7.62×51mm NATO general-purpose machine gun designed and manufactured by Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów in Tarnów, Poland. Development On March 12, 1999, Poland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). A problem arose with modifying the weapons of the Polish Army to use the standard NATO ammunition. A decision was made to develop a new general-purpose machine gun. The construction was based on the design of the successful PKM machine gun that was previously produced under licence in Poland. To use the common NATO ammunition, the feeding method of the machine gun had to be fundamentally modified. The metallic disintegrating link specifically designed for ammunition belt-fed firearms and rimless 7.62×51mm NATO rounds used by NATO is a push-through design. The UKM machine gun extracts 7.62×51mm NATO rounds from open-M13 links by pushing them forward out of the link directly into the chamber for firing. The non-disintegrating closed-link metallic belt type used in the PKM machine gun is a pull-out design, which extracts the rimmed 7.62×54mmR rounds by pulling them rearward out of the link. In the second stage, the rimmed rounds are pushed forward into the chamber for firing. The 7.62×54mmR machine