Unusual/rare RPG-18 variant?

[tusig1156]

I just got another RPG-18. However, when I went to open this one up and look at it, here is the front sight it had:

Here is the markings on it:

I have other RPG18's purchased from the same source and none of them have this unusual front sight. I also have not been able to find this sight mentioned anywhere or pictured anywhere online. For comparison, this is what the front sight nearly always looks like:

What do you guys think?

 

[Ivashkin]

I just got another RPG-18. However, when I went to open this one up and look at it, here is the front sight it had:

What do you guys think?

And now looks on this picture from Manual for RPG-18
I don`t see anything strange in those RPG-18 :tinysmile_tongue_t: Both of them has one sighting device. Plastic or metall - what the difference?

 

[EOD]

Interesting find in several respects!
1. it is from 1974 what is quite early I think as the earliest Russian maual seems to be from 1973
2. the designation is not giving the real index but the nickname "Mukha" (fly) - highly unusual!
The Russian 1986 manual is still showing the plastic front sight while the East German (GDR) manuals is showing the stamped one (they made tehir own RPG-18s).
Could you show us the designation and lot data on your RPG-18 with the stamped front sight please?

 

[tusig1156]

Here is one that had the stamped front sight

Here is another that had the stamped front sight.

I had a 3rd one with the stamped front sight and it had markings very similar to the second picture, with the RPG-18 on it. These all came from the soviet bloc area so I doubt they are East German but who knows, they could be. I see that I guess there is a picture of my "rare" sight in that manual. I don't own a manual so I hadn't seen it before. I was just going off of my Internet research and all the RPG-18's I saw had the stamped front sight. Even the video game pictures and drawings had the stamped front sight. Thanks for the help so far.

 

[EOD]

That is odd, even the same lot and they have different sights?

Also I forgot the unusual fuze used on the early ones which is the V-659. Wish we had info on these!

our's here are all made in the USSR by "Signal", Chelyabinsk, which is a branch of "Pribor" Holding

All in all interesting artifacts!

 

[Ivashkin]

I had a 3rd one with the stamped front sight and it had markings very similar to the second picture, with the RPG-18 on it. These all came from the soviet bloc area so I doubt they are East German but who knows, they could be.

I think it isn`t from ex-USSR. it made somewhere else, because all russian names of guns unofficial! And on any made in USSSR RPG`s you couldn`t see any nikenames like "Mukha", "Netto" and etc.!

 

[EOD]

How comes that they copied the factory codes and not the correct designation and also invented a "new" fuze designation and then switched to different sights? Also only one country made these except for the USSR which was the GDR.
+ making these required quite a technology which could have only come from the USSR at that time and given the date of 1974 is correct this hardly would have happened with somebody who would fake a USSR code then.
We would need the USSR 1973 manual of the RPG-18 to say more I think.