Original Item: Only One Available. This is a full scale rubber replica non-firing prop gun of the Soviet Heavy Machine Gun, DShK. There are hundreds of movies and TV shows that feature this weapon, one of the most popular being the 1988 film “Rambo III” with Sylvester Stallone.
 
The vast Ellis collection was acquired beginning in 1908, when a pawn shop, Ellis Mercantile, began renting merchandise to early filmmakers. According to Ellis Props, it began when a studio employee wanted to buy a glass eye. The pawn shop decided to rent it in case the owner returned, and it continued the practice with other items. This all rubber example was acquired from the Ellis Props and Graphics liquidation auction. Ellis was the oldest and the largest Prop House in California until its liquidation auctions in late 1999 and early 2000. The original ELLIS AUCTION LABEL IS STILL ATTACHED to the receiver of this prop gun and reads DAY 5, LOT 5759.
 
This is a rather large prop gun and measures approximately 69” in length. The overall condition is just about what you’d expect of a film prop gun. The charging handle on the right side is a little “flimsy” due to the fact that it is just held on by thin wire and rubber, but it is still completely attached. There is no significant damage that can be seen or found.
 
This is an excellent example and is ready to be displayed in any Cold War and later collections! Especially Global War on Terror collections.
 
The DShK 1938 is a Soviet heavy machine gun with a V-shaped butterfly trigger, firing the 12.7×108mm cartridge. The weapon was also used as a heavy infantry machine gun, in which case it was frequently deployed with a two-wheeled mounting and a single-sheet armour-plate shield. It took its name from the weapons designers Vasily Degtyaryov, who designed the original weapon, and Georgi Shpagin, who improved the cartridge feed mechanism. It is sometimes nicknamed Dushka (a dear or beloved person) in Russian-speaking countries, from the abbreviation. Alongside the American M2 Browning, the DShK is the only .50 caliber machine gun designed prior to World War II that remains in service to the present day.
 
Requiring a heavy machine gun similar to the M2 Browning, development of the DShK began in the Soviet Union in 1929 and the first design was finalised by Vasily Degtyaryov in 1931. The initial design used the same gas operation from the Degtyaryov machine gun, and used a 30 round drum magazine, but had a poor rate of fire. Georgy Shpagin revised the design by changing it to a belt-fed with a rotary-feed cylinder, and the new machine gun began production in 1938 as the DShK 1938.
 
During World War II, the DShK was used by the Red Army, with a total of 9,000 produced during the war. It was used mostly in anti-aircraft roles on vehicles such as the GAZ-AA truck, JS-2 tank, ISU-152 self-propelled artillery, and the T-40 amphibious tank. Similar to the PM M1910 Maxim, when deployed against infantry, the DShK was used with a two-wheeled trolley, with which the machine gun weighed a total of 346 pounds (157 kg). After 1945, the DShK was exported widely to other countries in the Eastern Bloc.
 
In 1946, an improved variant was produced, with a revised muzzle and feeding system. Named the DShK 38/46 or DShK-M, over a million were produced from 1946-1980. The gun was also revised to become more reliable, and easier to manufacture. The new DShK was produced under license in Pakistan, Iran, Yugoslavia, Romania and Czechoslovakia. China produced their own variant of the design, designated the Type 54.
 
After the war, DShKs were used widely in Vietnam, starting with the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. While not as powerful as anti-aircraft cannons, the DShK was easier to smuggle through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. DShKs were a major threat to American aircraft in the Vietnam War,[20] and of the 7,500 helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft lost during the war, most were destroyed by DShKs.
 
In June 1988, during The Troubles, a British Army Westland Lynx helicopter was hit 15 times by two Provisional IRA DShKs smuggled in from Libya, and forced to crash-land near Cashel Lough Upper, south County Armagh.
 
DShKs were also used in 2004, against British troops in Al-Amarah, Iraq.
 
In the 2012 Syrian civil war, the Syrian government said rebels used the gun mounted on cars. It claimed to have destroyed, on the same day, 40 such cars on a highway in Aleppo and six in Dael.
 
The DShK began to be partially replaced in the Soviet Union by the NSV machine gun in 1971, and the Kord machine gun in 1998. The DShK remains in service, though it is no longer produced.