Yevgeny Dragunov demonstrates the SVD.
Yevgeny Fyodorovich Dragunov was a Russian weapons designer, best known for the semi-automatic rifle bearing his name, the Dragunov sniper rifle.
From a family of gunsmiths, Dragunov worked as a factory machinist before beginning military service in 1939. After 1941 he was senior armorer, working on Soviet and also captured enemy weapons during wartime. After 1945 he returned to Izhevsk and joined the Arms Design Bureau, working as a project engineer on sporting and civilian target rifles throughout the 1950s. One of these, the Biathlon target rifle, went on to Olympic gold. In 1959 Dragunov submitted his design for a military sporting rifle, the SVD, which was accepted into Soviet military service in 1963, and later became known as the Dragunov rifle.