precisely for a designated marksman as opposed to a scout sniper (whatever the soviet designation for that was). it's still used in Russia today by special tactics police (SWAT equivalent). It uses that same 7.62x54r cartridge that pretty much every soviet military rifle used. RE rangefinder: pretty much all optics of the time had a way to determine range, even the old PE and PU optics from the mosin. The SVD does have a more sophisticated range finding system in the PSO-1 optic tho.
precisely for a designated marksman as opposed to a scout sniper (whatever the soviet designation for that was). it's still used in Russia today by special tactics police (SWAT equivalent). It uses that same 7.62x54r cartridge that pretty much every soviet military rifle used. RE rangefinder: pretty much all optics of the time had a way to determine range, even the old PE and PU optics from the mosin. The SVD does have a more sophisticated range finding system in the PSO-1 optic tho.