Russia to Set National Standards for Ammo Containers

The project is supervised by the Rosstandart’s Technical Committee 701 "Facilities for reliable storage of money, valuables and data storage media" that includes 43 participants. The secretariate is based on the leading institute in standardization of raw and other materials, FSUE "VNII SMT". "We develop the generally accessible part of the standards at the investors’ funds. We’ll take state budgetary money only to improve the classified military part. The question is primarily about the shell containers. The money are needed to research into materials and test the products", Valery Ilyukhin, Chairman of the Technical Committee 701 told Mil.Press Today.


As a result, Russia will obtain three new national standards: for up-to-date ammunition containers, weapon containers, and testing methods of such products. Moreover, the Russian Defense Ministry wants to select the optimal requirements to the storage cases for different kinds of weapons and ammunitions. As a development for traditional wooden boxes, the military will consider metal, metal-polymer, and polymer containers. The cases must be practically tested at the arsenal storage, specified Ilyukhin. The discussion is already attended by the representatives of military cases producers like PT-Polyurethanes, and Sterkh. In addition, Profpolymercase and the cragle designer Gemma Graphics confirmed to Mil.Press Today their intentions to join the standards development as well.

The sessions of the technical committee on the standards development were held at NPO Pribor, Techmash, and the 3rd Central Research Institute of Defense Ministry with involvement of industry-oriented institutes, the Main Missile/Artillery Directorate, and the State Defense Order Supervision Department.

The first reports on the military’s steps to replace the wooden boxes for ammunition appeared in 2015. Deputy defense minister, Yury Borisov, told then that the new cases will protect ammunition from the 15-minute fire exposure at 500°C. In the end of 2017, the Russian military agency opened a tender for almost a billion rubles on supplies of the polymer cases for tank and mortar rounds. The tender was won by PT-Polyurethanes.

In the procurement docs, requirements to the containers’ tests were regulated only by non-specialized GOST standards (RV 15.307-2002, System of Development and Production Commencement. Military Equipment. Testing and Acceptance of Batch-Produced Items, and RV 15.301-2003, System of Development and Production Commencement. Military Equipment. Production Commencement of Items. General Provisions). According to Valery Ilyukhin, Chairman of the Technical Committee 701, all new products must be supplied to the Armed Forces only under national standards, but not technical specifications. Otherwise, they shall be considered prototypes, he added.