The SVD was one of the first purpose-built sniping weapons, incorporating revolutionary features like a sports rifle buttstock fitted with a pistol grip, a detachable cheek rest, a PSO-1 reticule ...

Designed by Yevgeny Dragunov in the late 1950s, ... The SVDM’s new handguard as well as its pistol grip are now polymer-based, offering end-users a reduction in weight, ...

In 1989, the Swiss military magazine Schweizer Waffen-Magazin published an article about the SVD, which read: “The Soviet Dragunov sniper rifle using the classical Russian 7.62×54mmR cartridge ...