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Initialization of development

The DBP95 5.8mm regular and DVP88 5.8 machinegun ammo are the two cartridges used in PLA's

Type 95 small arms rifle family. The DBP95 5.8mm is used with the Type 95 SAW variant, to

eliminate targets protected by infantry defenses in close range. As for the DVP88 5.8mm it is

issued with the Type 88 General Purpose Light Machinegun and Type 88 Marksman Rifle,to kill

any targets or high priority targets in 800m to 1000m range. These cartridges serve different

purposes, though they have similar appearances. The troops often got those cartridges mixed

up because of that, causes inconveniences in management,training and combat. Thus an idea of

combining the two cartridges into one has surfaced when designing an improvement for the Type

95 small arms family.


In June, 2004, A workshop on systematically improving the Type 95 small arms family was held

in Beijing, the development of a new variant of 5.8mm cartridge -- DBP10 5.8mm regular

version was officially initiated.


The formation of development program

The development program of the DBP10 5.8mm was based on the Type 95 5.8mm regular and Type 88

5.8mm machinegun cartridges. The development had gone through program designs, prototype

development, first sample appraisal and finalization of the design,four stages in total. The

general design idea was to "have an internal ballistics like a regular rifle cartridge,

external ballistics of a machinegun cartridge",meaning by adjusting the internal ballistics

parameters to fit Type 95 and Type 95-1 5.8mm SAW family, Type 88 general purpose  light

machine gun, Type 88 Marksman Rifle of different lengths, different requirements of internal

ballistics efficiency of the barrel length leads, and combat usage.

DBP10 5.8mm cartridge is formed by a bullet,metallic case,a primer and propellent substance.

There are two types of cartridge cases,painted steel case and compounded copper steel case.

The former one uses Boxer Primer,only one flash hole for ignition; the latter uses Bendan

Primer,which has two flash holes, with an anvil between them. The technical performances of

these types of cartridge cases are completely the same.

During the design process, through rationally choosing the external ballisics parameters and

optimizations of the bullet shape, like according to the principles of aero dynamics,

designing the curves tip of the bullet into a special shape (which is the head of a spline),

fully utilising the advantages of the 5.8mm caliber cartridge.

Through minimising the diameter of the steel core and thickening the lead sleeve , it increases the flight stability of the DBP10 5.8mm cartridge,which satisfies the requirements of flight stability and fire intensity of different barrels (lengths of 334mm, 463mm, 520mm, 557mm, 620mm) and of different barrel length leads (lengths of 178mm,210mm, 240mm) fulfilling the requirement of one cartridge serving multiple rilfes.