RPD seems so worthless as a light machine gun due to heavy recoil, it might actually be more useful as an improvised camera support. How the guy who designed lightly recoiling DP27 in 7.62x54R managed to make a 7.62×39 weapon with such jarring kick, I have no idea. I’ve shot two samples so far, didn’t fire over ten rounds form either. This was on the lowest gas setting, too.
To be fair, it can probably be fixed with the changing of the gas regulator to one with smaller openings.