Yevgeny Fyodorovich Dragunov (; February 20, 1920, Izhevsk – August 4, 1991) was a Russian weapons designer, best known for the semi-automatic rifle bearing his name, the Dragunov sniper rifle. From a family of gunsmiths, Dragunov worked as a factory machinist before beginning military service in 1939. After 1941 he was a senior armourer, working on Soviet and also captured enemy weapons during wartime. After 1945 he returned to Izhevsk and joined the Arms Design Bureau, working as a project engineer on sporting and civilian target rifles through the 1950s. One of these, the Biathlon target rifle, went on to Olympic Gold. In 1959 Dragunov submitted his design for a military sniping rifle, the SVD, which was accepted into Soviet military service in 1963, and later became known as the Dragun