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Mikhail Kalashnikov, Creator Of World's Most Popular Assault Rifle, Has Died At 94
It is perhaps ironic that the creator of the AK-47 assault rifle, also known as the Kalashnikov named for its creator Mikhail Kalashnikov, and of which there are between 70 and 100 million in circulation making it the world's most popular weapon, has just passed away from what is essentially old age, at 94. "It is difficult and sad to realize that Mikhail Kalashnikov is no longer with us. We have lost one of the most talented, memorable and committed patriots of Russia, who served his country throughout his life,” said the statement from the press secretary of the Udmurtia administration Viktor Chulkov.
RT reports that Kalashnikov, who had been suffering from heart-related problems in recent years, had been in intensive care in Izhevsk - where the plant that produces the eponymous rifles is located - since November 17. The official cause of death will be revealed following a mandatory autopsy.
More on Kalashnikov's passing from RT:
A public funeral will be organized by the regional administration, in consultation with surviving relatives, though no date has been named so far.
For most of his life, Kalashnikov was feted as a straightforward hero.
The self-taught peasant turned tank mechanic who never finished high school, but achieved a remarkable and lasting feat of engineering while still in his twenties.
But as the rifles, inextricably linked forever to their creator by name, were more and more commonly seen in the hands of terrorists, radicals and child soldiers, the inventor was often forced to defend himself to journalists.
He was forever asked if he regretted engineering the weapon that probably killed more than any other in the last fifty years.
"I invented it for the protection of the Motherland. I have no regrets and bear no responsibility for how politicians have used it," he told them.
On a few occasions, when in a more reflective mood, the usually forceful Kalashnikov wondered what might have been.
"I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists," he said once.
"I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example a lawnmower."
Indeed, at his museum in Izhevsk, where he spent most of his life working at the factory that was eventually named after him, there is an ingenious mechanical lawnmower Kalashnikov invented to more easily take care of the lawn at his country house.
It’s not what he will be remembered for.
Considering his age and circumstances, it was hardly surprising that Kalashnikov felt he could best serve his country by creating weapons.
His life story, as presented in a prepared obit by the FT:
Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was born on 10 November 1919 into humble surroundings in western Siberia. After basic secondary schooling he became a technician on the Turkestan-Siberian railway. When the second world war came he was drafted as a tank mechanic to the front near Bryansk in the west of Russia. Within months he was injured and it was in hospital that he became obsessed by his dream.
“I decided to build a gun of my own which could stand up to the Germans. It was a bit of a crazy escapade, I suppose. I didn’t have any specialist education and I couldn’t even draw,” he said. His first designs attracted little attention, but on release from hospital he went back to his engine workshop in Siberia to try to make a prototype.
It was not long before he was on his way to Alma-Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan, with his first model in his hand. On arrival in the town, he was arrested for carrying unauthorised firearms, but the police soon released him when he told them of his dream project.
Kalashnikov went straight to the Communist party for advice and was sent to several provincial institutes. After a determined battle with the bureaucrats, he finally made it to Moscow. But the diminutive sergeant was scorned by the top brass, including generals such as Vasily Degtyaryov, the Soviet Union’s most prominent weapons designer between the wars.
Kalashnikov was so shy that he signed his sketches “MikhTim”, the first syllables of his first names. But he persevered, and by 1949 had been awarded the Stalin Prize and made a Hero of Socialist Labour. The same year he was transferred to Izhevsk to supervise production. So secretive were the testings of the rifle that photographs were forbidden and cartridge cases had to be picked up after firing. By the mid-50s the AK-47 literally, the Automatic Kalashnikov made in 1947, was standard issue to the Soviet armed forces.
It was only in the 1960s, when he became a member of the Supreme Soviet, the then parliament in Moscow, that Kalashnikov emerged from the obscurity of Izhevsk. Even in the early 1980s, however, he was ordered not to reply to a letter from an American academic for fear of inadvertently disclosing information.
In May 1990, on his first visit to the old cold war enemy, he was introduced in Washington to Eugene Stoner, designer of the M-16, the closest thing to an American equivalent of the AK-47, which was first issued to US troops in 1961. Kalashnikov’s clothes were shabby. The few dollars in his pocket had been given by his factory and by the American institute sponsoring the trip. He later recalled: “Stoner has his own aircraft I can’t even afford my own plane ticket.”
Kalashnikov’s personal life was fraught with tragedy. He met his wife Yekaterina at an army testing range near Moscow. She was a graphic artist and helped him put his designs on paper. They married in 1943 and had four children, although he saw little of them because of his work schedule. Yekaterina died in 1977 after a long illness, and his youngest daughter Natalia moved in to keep him company, only to die in a car crash six years later.
His hearing failing him, he lived alone for his final 10 years, although Yelena, another of his daughters, would visit him on Sundays to do the cleaning. His only perks were a driver and a country dacha by the lake. On his trips abroad, usually as part of a Russian delegation to an arms fair, he would always be accompanied by Yelena, who smoothed the path with her passable English.
Kalashnikov retained the title of chief designer at the Izhevsk factory that produced the AK-47 and related models, and in his later years would go to work on designs for new hunting rifles. He was an avid shooter, and with his son Viktor and a close-knit group of friends would go hunting for elk in the snow. Relaxing after a hunt in the factory’s dacha three hours outside the town, he often took to musing about his life.
His reflections were tinged with sadness that his rifle had become the tool of terrorist groups from the former Soviet republics, to Africa to Northern Ireland. “I wanted my invention to serve peace,” he once said. “I didn’t want it to make war easier. Constructors have never been given their just deserts in this country. If the politicians had worked as hard as we did, the guns would never have got into the wrong hands.”
Some visual info on the legendary gun:
Finally, a summary on the legacy of the world's most popular gun from Weapons and Warfare:




The Long Road to the AK-47
No firearm in history has enjoyed the fame or popularity of the assault rifle known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. Created by a Soviet weapons designer at the dawn of the Cold War, it was mass-produced and distributed worldwide in the millions, leading to its canonization in the revolutionary Third World of the 1950s and 1960s. Indeed, far beyond its utility, the AK-47 became a Cold War icon, appearing on revolutionary flags, in songs and poems, and in televised insurgencies as proof of communist fervor and supposed martial superiority. And it continues to play a major role in warfare today, most visibly in guerrilla conflicts in Africa and the Middle East.
The AK-47 has succeeded so wildly because it is almost an ideal realization of the personal firearm: where most weapons have had to contend with tradeoffs between accuracy, lethality, speed of fire, reliability, cost of production, and ease of carrying and use, the AK-47 managed to find a sweet spot maximizing these traits. In fact, the weapon is so reliable, effective, and easy to use by untrained operators that its advent made it widely possible for just about any group, even with little money, modern technology, or formal military training, to mount significant, deadly assaults against a much larger and more advanced force — a fact that has transformed the face of warfare and created a revolutionary romance that still surrounds the weapon.
Since gunpowder is not static in power in the way that human muscle is, once fiery arms were invented in the fourteenth century, they would in theory constantly improve in a way that bows, slings, and swords could not. But in reality, centuries of technological stagnation followed the invention of the first gun: for example, the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century “Brown Bess” flintlock musket remained almost unchanged during its use by the British Empire over the course of more than a century. Early muskets and their predecessors had slow rates of fire and poor accuracy and reliability, and thus did not always ensure battlefield superiority over arrows, edged weapons, and hand-launched missiles. Benjamin Franklin famously advocated the use of bows by the cash-strapped Continental Army, arguing that they were cheaper, easier to use, and could send more arrows per minute than the musket could fire balls.
The problem was that the various qualities of a good handheld weapon were often mutually exclusive. Increased lethality, for instance, was usually attained by increasing the weight of the firearm and bullets, which often reduced reliability and mobility, and made weapons too expensive to outfit an entire army. So the development of personal firearms was often haphazard, especially during periods of general peace. Black-powder, muzzle-loading, smoothbore (unrifled) firearms were the norm for centuries. Only in the mid-nineteenth century did sophisticated metallurgy and techniques of mass production at last begin to usher in rear-loading models, cartridge ammunition, more powerful and smokeless gunpowder, rifled barrels, and interchangeable, machined parts. The result was a giant leap in the ability of soldiers to kill one another on a mass scale, as the ancient science of effective body armor was unable to keep pace. By the nineteenth century, the personal arms race was on.
The watershed years were those of the American Civil War, which created a race for more rapidly firing and lethal arms. The war that began with the use of muskets and Minié balls ended with the Henry repeating rifle, which allowed a skilled single shooter to load and fire up to twenty-eight times per minute. The war also saw the development of the Gatling machine gun, and, somewhat later, the Maxim, the first fully automatic weapon. The more advanced models of these machines could in theory spit out six hundred rounds per minute, allowing two-man teams to lay down a volume of fire greater than what was possible from a whole company of riflemen. The new machine guns proved revolutionary, especially in the colonial wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, in which small numbers of Westerners could trump numerically superior foes, sending a chilling message of technological superiority. The venerable traditions of the mounted lancer, the cavalryman, and the skilled swordsman slipped into decline with the advent of the machine gun.
But the early machine guns, though rapid-fire and quite lethal, were heavy and they often jammed, leaving their operators defenseless. And they were costly and difficult to move and maneuver. Nevertheless, during World War I, improved mobile Maxim, Vickers, and Colt-Browning machine guns reigned supreme across the trenches, overpowering the firing rates of bolt-action, clip-fed rifles. In response to the machine gun’s lethal tyranny on the battlefield, early twentieth-century tacticians began dreaming of an everyman’s mini-machine gun that would diffuse such killing power into the hands of millions of combatants.
The result was the generation of the so-called submachine gun, most prominently the German MP-18, the Italian Villar Perosa and Beretta Model 1918, and the American Thompson (or Tommy Gun). These weapons fired pistol cartridges, allowing for the employment of existing stocks; they were relatively light at around ten pounds; and they could in theory be shot at astounding rates of fire of well over 400 rounds per minute. Whereas World War I was defined by heavy machine guns battling each other in antipodal fashion across clearly defined fields of fire, battles of World War II were frequently fought in jungles, forests, and urban streets, in which the enemy was typically near and highly mobile. Submachine guns proved popular during this war — and spawned a number of cheaper imitations — thanks to their adaptability to a situation in which constant streams of bullets were directed at soldiers from every direction by constantly moving enemies, and enemies were more likely to be stopped by sudden, rapid fire than by precisely aimed shots from small, longer-barrel weapons.
Yet, for a variety of reasons, the new submachine guns could still not entirely replace clip-fed repeating rifles. While they delivered far more bullets per minute, their short barrels allowed only for poor accuracy and limited range. The less powerful pistol cartridges and greater recoil from near-continuous fire also meant that few submachine guns were deadly beyond two hundred yards — a potentially fatal limitation at the times when rifle sharpshooters had clear fields of fire at over a thousand yards. The constant rapid firing, together with the grime, heat, and filthy conditions of battle, made the submachine guns jam far too frequently. And another problem developed during the war that transcended the weapons’ advantage of rapid firing: heavily-laden soldiers simply could not carry enough additional bullets — often larger-caliber .30 and .45 ammunition — to take advantage of their guns’ voracious appetites.
On the other hand, repeating rifles, even when semi-automatic and equipped with enlarged clips and improved barrel and stock designs that allowed a good chance of hits at great distances, did not allow enough shots per minute for the increasingly close-order combat in which enemy soldiers might appear suddenly en masse, and in all conceivable landscapes. Their longer barrels and clumsy shoulder stocks certainly proved a hindrance during close-in fighting. Other tradeoffs arose as millions of combatants joined the Allies or Axis powers in a global war, allowing little time to ensure traditional marksmanship training for men from such widely disparate backgrounds. The advantages that could be gained from employing a more accurate, slower-firing, traditional semi-automatic rifle were often lost by the inexperience of the users. There had been design attempts during World War I to bridge these differences, the most successful of which was the American Browning Automatic Rifle. It was almost as accurate as a rifle, but with a weight of over fifteen pounds and a small magazine of just twenty rounds, riflemen often had to shoot from a prone position, with a barrel tripod and plenty of available magazines nearby.
But in the post-World War II era, a true breakthrough addressed the apparently irreconcilable advantages of submachine guns and repeating, clip-fed rifles. The brilliant compromise became known as the “assault rifle,” the most prominent of which was the Russian Mikhail Kalashnikov’s AK-47 (for automatic Kalashnikov, model 1947), which came into wide use in the early 1950s. Kalashnikov, who benefited from the designs of earlier German and Russian prototypes, seemingly at last solved the six-hundred-year-long dilemma of providing an accurate rifle that was not only capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute, but was still deadly at ranges of 300-400 yards and beyond. And at under ten pounds, the AK-47 was easy to carry, simple to operate, and highly dependable. Moreover, by using a medium-sized bullet (the 7.62x39mm cartridge, equivalent to about .31 caliber) rather than larger .40 caliber rounds, the AK-47 achieved a deadly muzzle velocity of over 2,300 feet per second. In short, Kalashnikov seemed to have squared the circle by creating a light, cheap, rapid-firing, accurate, reliable, and lethal weapon that was neither rifle nor submachine gun. The gun proved perfect for revolutionaries in Third World countries, and the Kremlin would gleefully reward its new friends with mass deliveries of their wondrous weapon.
The sudden ubiquity of the AK-47 stunned the United States and Europe, and seemed to turn the so-called First World’s advantages in marksmanship and weapon craftsmanship on their heads. Illiterate insurgents, amply equipped with cheap AK-47s — now produced even more inexpensively by an array of Soviet satellite countries — suddenly had at their disposal more firepower than American soldiers. And what did it matter if Western riflemen were in theory better trained or shot a better calibrated and more accurate weapon, when mere teenagers in the tens of thousands could pepper Western troops with bullets?
The widespread export of the AK-47 marked yet another Sputnik-like moment in which state communism seemed to outpace Western entrepreneurialism. And just as the Soviets’ Sputnik success would set off the space race, and as there were other rivalries between the Soviet T-34 tank and its American counterparts, and between MiG-15 and F-86 jet fighters in the skies of Korea, so too was there a competition in assault rifle technology. Not until the early 1960s did the Americans accept that their old reliable M1 and its replacement M14 were woefully wrong for the new non-traditional theaters of the Cold War.
If a new American assault weapon were to follow in the Kalashnikov model, it would have to trump its Russian competitor with greater accuracy and lethality. This goal was seemingly accomplished with the M16 rifle, invented in the 1950s by the legendary arms designer Eugene Stoner. The sleek black assault rifle employed plastic and aluminum alloys to reduce the weight to two pounds less than the rival AK-47. And it used even smaller ammunition — the 5.56x45mm high-velocity bullet that was to become the standard NATO round.
The result was that, by all accounts, the M16 proved to be an exceptionally reliable and accurate assault rifle. Its smaller-caliber bullet was in some ways as lethal as the AK-47’s larger ammunition, as it had a muzzle velocity of over 3,000 feet per second, and the bullet tended to break up after penetrating flesh. The M16 also proved somewhat easier to handle and had less recoil than the AK-47. And soldiers could carry far more of the lighter-weight ammunition. The ensuing shoot-off between the two weapons in the Vietnam War was supposed to make clear the American gun’s advantages in rates of fire, accuracy, and lethality.
But just the opposite proved to be true — at least in the first four years of the M16’s wide use. Jamming was chronic, apparently due to initial design flaws in the gun, manufacturing problems with the gunpowder, and soldiers’ frequent failure to clean the weapon regularly amid the humidity and dirt of the jungle. In contrast, the AK-47 seemed nearly indestructible, in part due to its simpler construction and greater tolerances. In Vietnam, at least, the verdict favored the notion of an uncomplicated assault rifle that compensated for lost accuracy by achieving greater reliability, simplicity of use, and a larger bullet.
The AK-47 further exasperated Westerners by its cheap fabrication from stamped metals and its brilliant operation with just a few working parts. By the late 1960s, soldiers were taking apart, cleaning, and reassembling the weapon in about half the time required for the M16. Something that felt and looked so “cheap,” and that was produced by the Communist Bloc notorious for its shoddily manufactured products, surely, it seemed, could not be comparable to a rifle designed by the Americans, the British, or the Germans, with their far more distinguished firearms pedigree.
Yet the Communist Bloc continued to meet world demand with millions of AK-47s. And when the Soviet Union collapsed, its former republics and clients often sought to unload their stockpiles at discounted prices. Ironically, the United States eventually became the largest purchaser of the AK-47 in its efforts to supply poorer allies — such as some areas of the former-Yugoslavia, post-Saddam Iraq, and Afghanistan — with cheap, reliable assault rifles without its own large fingerprints on the arm sales. The result today is that some 75 million AK-47s have been produced, with most still in circulation, making it the most ubiquitous weapon in the history of firearms — dwarfing the M16’s eight million.
The debate between exponents of the AK-47 and the M16 has never been resolved, in part because both guns continued to evolve with subsequent improved models and have now both been superseded by more recent designs; in part because ideology and national chauvinism were inseparable from dispassionate analysis; and in part because the relative value of accuracy versus reliability is so subjective. In any case, NATO troops in general felt that their improved models of M16s by the 1980s had proved superior, even as some of the old problems of jamming and insufficient stopping power sometimes reappeared during the harsh conditions of sand and heat during the most recent Iraq War.
The story of the AK-47, amid the ongoing saga of rifle evolution, has in recent years spawned a number of popular books. The best is C. J. Chivers’s scholarly The Gun. Chivers takes a properly skeptical view of many of the claims by Mikhail Kalashnikov surrounding the birth of AK-47, and offers a sober and fair account of the acrimonious rivalry between the M16 and AK-47. In dispassionate fashion, Chivers concludes that few inventions of the twentieth century have done so much to kill so many through “war, terror, atrocity, and crime.” But after such a clear-headed analysis of the AK-47, he surprisingly offers the emotional hope that eventually the seasons, aging, and wear and tear will finally rid the world of this nearly indestructible menace — and with it the bestowing into the hands of untrained near-children the world over the power to kill indiscriminately and en masse. To this hope, one might rejoin that the fault is not in our stars, but in our selves.
Larry Kahaner’s book AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War is a lighter but nevertheless engaging story of the contemporary AK-47 as a cultural phenomenon. He too reminds us that many of the terrorist movements and insurgencies in Asia, Latin America, and especially Africa would have been impossible without the widespread dispersion of the AK-47, the ideal weapon for impoverished, poorly trained mercenaries. He points out that the acrimonious controversy between the AK-47 and the M16 resurfaced again forty years after Vietnam during the post-Saddam Hussein insurgency, when improved versions of both assault rifles collided in the streets of urban Iraq. And the verdict was again ambiguous, as U.S. troops still largely preferred their own weapons but developed a grudging respect for the insurgents’ “bullet hoses,” which shot streams of deadly large-caliber bullets at close ranges and seemed impervious to the sand and heat of the Iraqi landscape.
Then there is the book by Mikhail Kalashnikov himself. Now a nonagenarian, Kalashnikov was presented in 2009 with the title Hero of the Russian Federation, the country’s highest honor. With the help of his daughter Elena Joly, Kalashnikov wrote an autobiography, first published in French in 2003 and available in a 2006 English translation. Kalashnikov fought during the worst months of the German invasion of Russia; in 1941, in a failed counter-offensive, he was almost killed when his Red Army tank regiment was cut off and overwhelmed.
During a long subsequent illness and recovery, Kalashnikov’s innate gun-making talents were noticed. And so, despite his lack of formal design training, he was soon promoted to work with a team of Soviet engineers, quickly emerged as a senior designer, and was mostly responsible for the AK-47. The most fascinating chapters in Kalashnikov’s story are about the nightmare of life in Stalin’s Soviet Union, in which any achievement, commercial or intellectual, earned envy that in turn might translate into accusations of being a counter-revolutionary, would-be elite, often with deadly repercussions.
As Chivers and Kahaner point out, and as is discernible in Kalashnikov’s memoir, his relationship with his own deadly invention over the last two-thirds of a century has proved erratic. Kalashnikov is proud of his promotion to the rank of lieutenant general in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and under Communist rule he was twice honored as a Hero of Socialist Labor. Yet even as Kalashnikov details the horrors of Stalinist Russia that resulted in his own family’s brutal exile, he concludes, “I consider Stalin as one of the great national leaders of the twentieth century, and as a great army leader.”
Kalashnikov takes great trouble to note that the AK-47 grew out of an effort to protect his homeland from a repeat of the sort of barbaric invasion that Hitler unleashed, adding that he did not profit, at least in Western style, from the sales of some 100 million weapons that bear his name (including variants on the AK-47). And yet Kalashnikov seems almost longingly to note the millions of dollars in profits that came to Eugene Stoner from his M16, even as he ostensibly prefers the public acclaim in Russia that was never accorded to Stoner in the United States. That same paradox characterizes Kalashnikov’s occasional regret that his invention became the signature weapon among terrorists and bandits — many of them now deadly enemies of Russia itself — juxtaposed with his pride in the astounding success of a supposedly defensive AK-47. Speaking at a ceremony honoring the sixtieth anniversary of the weapon, he claimed, “I sleep well. It’s the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence.”
So what in the end are we to make of the AK-47, given that people ultimately kill one another and design weapons that do it so effectively? A perfect storm of events explains the gun’s lethal role in eroding civilization over the last six decades. The impoverished post-colonial world was eager for the sort of advanced weapons that had characterized a near-century of endemic warfare in the more advanced West, and the Soviet Union was eager to fan liberationist movements against the West. It took the postwar glamour of international communism, the industrial muscle of the Soviet Union, and a Russian genius with no higher education but great practical savvy to at last provide millions with such parity, meeting the requirements of a new arms lethality at very little cost. The result was the tragedy of a global assault rifle that has been crucial to self-described liberationists in furthering so often the cause of tyranny.
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The stamped metal ones were made in satellite countries. The real Russian ones were excellent.
I have an SKS from the Red Army arsenal. I even researched it to the arsenal at one time, but I cannot remember now. It is quite well-made. About 20 years ago there were a lot of Chinese SKS's available cheap. I bought one and compared it to the Russian; the Chinese rifle looks like the machining was done by beavers. The rifle was actually stolen from me by a low-life, so I hope it jammed on his ass. The Russian is still safe, inside a safe, inside a rifle sock. It has an integral bayonet.
I'll take the 'stamped metal piece of junk' over an AR that jams any day of the week.
http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2011/10/10/ar-15-v-s-ak-47-v-s-mosin-nagant/
Is that why AR's go for $5K on the black market in the third world and AK's are carried by poor, illiterate rebels? BTW, the so called jamming problems by the AR were fixed long ago. Anyone with any money would choose an AR over an AK any day.
A high price isn't everything. The AR platform may be more fun at the range to some, but it's w/l record in conflicts ain't that great.
Orlov, Dmitry (2011-05-31). Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Experience and American Prospects
The US military's inability to win a war probably has a lot more to do with it's leadership than the rifle that they field.
It's hard to argue with that.
I will agree to that if you put "political" inserted before "leadership."
Are you seriously claiming that we aren't "winning" in Afghanistan because of the M16/M4 rifle? What's the problem? - are the soldiers missing with it becasue it's inaccurate? Are the guns jamming that much? (See eg Wiki: below) or are the Taliban just not dying from hits becasue the 5.56 NATO is so ineffective?
Take a look at the casualty stats on both sides and I think you'll find that we have no problems killing the shit out whoever we want to.
Wiki on M4 reliability:
Reliability[edit]In early 2010, two journalists from the New York Times spent three months with soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan. While there, they questioned around 100 infantrymen about the reliability of their M4 Carbines, as well as the M16 rifle. Surprisingly, troops did not report to be suffering reliability problems with their rifles. While only 100 troops were asked, they fought at least a dozen intense engagements in Helmand Province, where the ground is covered in fine powdered sand (called "moon dust" by troops) that can stick to firearms. Weapons were often dusty, wet, and covered in mud. Intense firefights lasted hours with several magazines being expended. Only one soldier reported a jam when his M16 was covered in mud after climbing out of a canal. The weapon was cleared and resumed firing with the next chambered round. Furthermore, a Marine Chief Warrant Officer reported that with his battalion's 700 M4s and 350 M16s, they've had no issues.[53]
"we have no problems killing the shit out whoever we want to."
That's great, I suppose, but having the fanciest weapons did not force our "enemies" to capitulate to anyone since WWII. Well, except the scrappy Grenadians. Ask the Germans about that. They had some pretty fancy weapons too, and the StG 44 is a good example. (All milled parts, fine machining, complex, expensive, heavy)
There must be moar to the equation than that apparently.
That's an entirely different issue though. It's not like we'd be having a different results if our troops carried AKs.
Witness the Viet Nam debacle. We won every single major battle (in spite of the crappy M16) but still lost the war. Maybe there's more to winning (or losing) than the weapons employed?
Agreed. It's hard to ignore the fact that those refusing to capitulate are fighting on their own soil and not on ours. :-)
If we were defending our own soil; I doubt we'd just give up if all we had were millions of lousy stamped AK's.
(I personally don't think they're lousy btw...)
Before my tragic boating accidents, I had plenty of other weapons more accurate than AR/AK to choose from.
Um, the Stg had a stamped steel receiver, it was not milled. Internals of any gun back then would have had to have been "milled"--I don't think you understand what that word means. Do you mean "forged" and not "cast?"
Smaller rounds have been proven to be VERy effective. The AK-74 went smaller.
I've had AKs jam, too. All the ARs I ever owned were reliable weapons unless I did something wrong.
Wll hoist a vodka for Comrade this evening.
Great product for what it was intended:
Giving a 12-16 year old kid an hour of training, then throwing him into a hail of bullets where he will die, and the rifle will be picked up by the next poor fool running behind him.
It's not a very elegant or precise rifle, but it get's the job done I suppose. Rather sloppy though. Oh, and Mikhail Kalashnikov designed the AK about as much as I built the hoover dam. It was designed by a Kraut, but that wouldn't look too good for the Motherland propoganda now would it.
Even Sun Tzu recognized that one's own German engineers have to be better than your enemy's German engineers. I don't have the exact reference handy however.
It was intended for Soviet conscripts, and they received more training that that.
The writer of this article repeatedly and incorrectly refers to magazines as clips.
It should be Detachable Box Magazine so as not to confuse it with an internal magazine.
"Detachable Box Magazine" is OK, but it sounds like old ad copy from Remington in 1925.
I cringe every time I see clip misused...
I'm just so over that issue. If you watch old Vietnam documentaries, the SEALs, LRRPs, and Recon Marines called them "clips." Those people were BTDT, good enough for me. Calling a box mag a clip has to have come from at least the WWII era, so right or wrong, there is some history behind it.
Thanks guys for pointing this out. It was like fingernails on the chalk board reading this article, particularly because this is an article about firearms and the author should know better. I expect this lack of knowledge only from gun-control crazy senators and congressman.
FYI, for those who don't know, the terms are not interchangable and refer to different parts. An excellent example of this is the Lee Enfield rifles used by the Brits in the first half of the 20th century, which have a 10 round detachable MAGAZINES that can be reloaded with stripper CLIPS (usually 5 rounds each)
.....or the "clip" holding your Garand rounds, the enbloc clip.
Obviously not a "gun guy."
He lived long. Was he afraid to die?
The most famous russian invention and died a poor man. Ain't communisms great.
I'll take the AK over an AR15 anytime.
Both designs have their strengths and weaknesses. The important thing is to choose the correct tool for the job at hand.
It's all you. There's absolutley nothing wrong with the AR IMHO. Way better ergonomics than the AK, you can actually hit stuff with it more than 100yds out (fantastic sights).
Having said that - If I only had time to grab one rifle - my M-14 is the one coming with me.
For diminutive folks the AR is a good self-defense weapon. Further, most stuff is closer range, in which case the minimal recoil from the AR is going to allow one to better keep on target there as well.
If I have only one thing to grab it would be my ass. If it's still there then it means I'm still alive, and, if need be, I can kiss it goodbye if that's the way that it's going to end. Ha ha... Still prefer the tractor though, as I tend to have it with me quite a bit.
The AR requires cleaning and the bolt carrier needs to be lubed correctly. The AK doesn't need a lot of attention. That's my point. Plus I am not a believer in the kinetic energy argument; that a small-grain bullet is lethal because it's very high speed. I would rather have a caliber that will go through stuff.
That's just me, I respect peoples' opinions.
You do know that the M1A could not stay competitive with the ARs in NRA highpower and service rifle competition? The .30 has only a slight advantage at 600 yards, but you lose to the recoil as the rifle beats you up. Also, the M14 is a very difficult rifle to maintain long term, whereas an AR is easy to re-barrel and keep running, easy to swap in parts, and so on. Nobody who shoots a lot agrees with you. If you want a reliable "old school" rifle, get a FAL.
yup, the FAL is a motherfucker.
"308; because sometimes, bad guys are behind stuff"
You'd change your mind if you ever shoot a service rifle match. Try shooting an AK at 600 yards.
Sad news. The competent are getting fewer and fewer.
I think in memory of Mr. K's passing, all stores should have AK's 20% off till 2014.
Good guys die, assholes live forever......
http://www.csmonitor.com/var/archive/storage/images/media/images/2010/02...
[sound of respirator]
Your government...
[sound of respirator]
is bereft of honourable men.
[sound of respirator]
How do you like THAT trickle-down?
[sound of respirator]
Ammo is super cheap for it, put an aimpoint and a low mount and at 100 yards it's golden. Sometimes I like it more than all others, and Krebs is plus.
That's that. Merry Christmas to all.
"Ammo is super cheap for it"
Until it isn't.
Almost zero commie caliber ammo is mfg'd in the USA.
80% of it is russian/ imported. Chinese has been gone for some time.
When that little door slams shut, ammo will dry up forever. True, you can find some winchester & federal brass case hollowpoint for $1.00+ / round. Not exactly cheap.
Cheap was 1200 rd cases of chinese @ .06/ round.
Try finding some 9mm MAK out there in ammoland right now.
Prior to firearmeggedon 1 year ago, I switched over to all NATO calibers.
swapped & sold all the commie stuff.
Nothing against AKs, SKS, etc. Teriffic equipment. Just not a good long-term bet.
Pappy (supposedly pro-gun) Bush slammed the door on SKS and AK rifles from China, as well as FALs by EO. "Workin' mans friend" Bill Clinton did the same for Chinese ammo. O'bomb-a has directed BATF to disallow the import of parts kits that include a barrel. All three of those cocksuckers should die in a fire.
But only after getting VD first.
That's the way I think!
Also a reason why I like diesel: I figure that the last things that won't be running are diesels.
There's a WHOLE lot that needs thunking about, especially when one is trying to predict the future (which is never what it used to be).
"the last things that won't be running are diesels"
I love it.
=]
Buy it cheap and stack it deep. You won't need till ya need it. And you will know EXACTLY what to do. It's an AK/SKS/MOSIN and what not. Buy it and stack it. Shoot the Nato etc stuff in mean time. Stack the .40's if ya know what i mean. Grab firing pins as well.
Keep a .50 cal ammo can FULL of extra parts. Better, keep two of them, not stored together. Go to Brownell's, the parts are available at decent prices. I am lucky I had training, so I have all the tools ever invented for the AR. But you do not need all the tools. Get a copy of the actual Army or Marine manual and keep it with the parts. Read it first, very thoroughly, then stash it in the ammo can. Throw in a desiccant bag and you are set.
9mm MAK? No problem. Buy a case trimmer and a set of MAK dies and use 9mm Luger brass. Done. I only ever bought one box of actual 9mm Makarov ammo. I shoot cast 90gr. lead bullets. Very economical.
I have shot a few AK's and would have to argue the accuracy claim. The best group I ever shot with one wass 6" at 50 yards- I shoot 1" groups at 200 yards with my 300 mag...........
But i guess if u can carry the ammo....
Wait - you peel apples with your fingers?
Anyone who has spent some real trigger time, especially combat run and gun time with an AK knows how much of a pig they are. They can be run quickly with practice, but accuracy point is definitely a problem. Effective range absolutely sucks. But hey, better than a sharp stick if that's all that's available. Everyone should know how to run one at speed because they are everywhere.
Winner! Winner! Chicken dinner!
+100!
The AK 47 has German design roots.
It is perhaps ironic that the creator of the AK-47 assault rifle, also known as the Kalashnikov named for its creator Mikhail Kalashnikov, and of which there are between 70 and 100 million in circulation making it the world's most popular weapon, has just passed away from what is essentially old age, at 94.
Then again, perhaps it is not at all ironic but just and appropriate that the designer of a great gun lives the longest.
Definetly can see your point, it's a tough one for precision, I don't try groups with this one. I just aim to hit the 12 inch gong, and hear "ding" over and over. Never a load failure, its reliable. More for fun on this one. Good call
... and it makes a very distinct sound when fired at you ...
My name's Gunnery Sergeant Highway and I've drunk more beer and banged more quiff and pissed more blood and stomped more ass that all of you numbnuts put together.
This is the AK-47 assault rifle, the preferred weapon of your enemy; and it makes a distinctive sound when fired at you, so remember it.
I always use to chuckle at these BIG ASS 11Bravos toting a "little" AR and a little VC with a BIG AK.
Just offbeat sense of humor.
Father of Male Enhancement Tool dies. What will all the limp dicks do?
Go 9mm?
Smells like someone needs to douche.
So do use a magic talisman to protect you and your loved ones, or do you rely on the even more laughable and mythical government to do that?
*chortle*
AK Viagra!
My rifle is not a penis extender.
I don't need that.
What I need is a tool that I can use to kill animals, and to protect my people.
There are people, and there are animals.
We all have to decide which one we want to be.
I like my AK's in 5.56x45 and 7.92x57.
Mine is for the Air jordon/TV snatchin FSA hoard for when the time comes. If i want over 200 yrds, it's the swicharoo.
And get extra firing pins.
Imagine if Russia was a bystander in WW11! The Bill of Rights and the Constitution woulda been ripped up. Oh wait. . .
World War 11?!? The Jews are just working on getting us into World War 3 now. Unless there was a memo we didn't see!!!
Are you figuring it all out yet?
The MIC must live on! (it's an endless unveiling of sequels)
if you like your AK, you can keep your AK (for now). Ok?
I like my AK and my AR and I will keep my AK and AR, Bitches.
You can have it muzzle-end first!
My sympathies to the people of Russia on the loss of their great countryman. His invention was genius. Others may hold him responsible for the deaths it caused but then Henry Ford would deserve the same condemnation.
It rattles. The sights suck which has been remedied to some extent with a decent scope rail. Put the magazine in improperly and your opponent may very well shoot you before you get it sorted out. Most do not have a hold open device on the magazine which could cause the gun to go click at the most inopportune moment. Run a magazine through it and the barrel will give you third degree burns if you touch it. The finish is crude and it’s heavy. Having said all that, it has one redeeming value, the thing shoots every time you pull the trigger.
For that reason, an AK should be in the back of everyone’s gun safe.
Not sure about the rattling part but yes it is heavier than it looks. The round it shoots is nothing special but it can shoot a lot of them. You can take the whole thing apart in the dark and then reassemble it.
"Most do not have a hold open device on the magazine which could cause the gun to go click at the most inopportune moment."
Bullshit! Do you really need that feature? You do not know where the bolt is?
Come on, AR's are for pretentious fucks who can't seem to spend enough money on rails and toys that they will never use. That is what AR folks do because they just love the platform because it was designed in the U.S.. I hate to tell you but jam-o-matic AR's suck ass. I'm not trying be a dick to you I am just telling you the truth. Hey, I have an M1A that I just won't shoot it because it is a bitch to clean. I think I shot it last in 2005. Too many moving parts my friend and the nead for "grease rifle" which I have plenty of. I shot my AK about three weeks ago after not cleaning for some time and it worked just fine. .223 ammo much less .308 ammo? Where are you going to find it and for what price?
You have it right though, the thing does fire every single time. I have never had a misfire or jam....ever. Hands down, it is the best battle rifle ever invented.
Wow. I didn't know I was a pretentious fuck because my iron-sighted AR has a light on the front (so I can see who I'm going to shoot when it's dark - what a useless feature). Thanks for clearing that up for me btw. (I've also got a light on my wood-stocked Rem 870P - I guess that makes it a poseur gun too?)
Why don't you tell me how many jams I've had in ARs while you're at it? (Answer: 0)
Bolt hold-opens are good because they let you know that your shit is empty before you try and fire. Great - your AK "doesn't jam," but once on every mag it's going to go "click" instead of bang without any indication to the user.
Which part of field-stripping the M14 is giving you problems?
Watch these Russian school kids field strip their AK's. Try that with an AR.
AK-74: Fast Assembly & Disassembly In Russian School
Everybody has seen the twinkie test by now; but if you HAVE to jam a twinkie into a gun for some reason. Stick it in the AK. It'll still work fine.
AR-15 vs. Twinkie
AK vs. Twinkie
Well, I can make quick work out of maintenance on my tractor but I'm NOT expecting my wife to do the same. When she uses it it's of a limited duration, and, frankly, it's I who gets the real work done on it. The point here is that MOST skirmishes are done and over with LONG before we're even thinking about maintanance shit. Sure, if I'm going to send the wife out for several days through the thick jungles amongst folks armed with AKs, well, maybe...
Those sucked into the lure of the Wild West would be well advised to read real history. It was women who did most of the guarding of the homestead (as the men were away). So, yes, realiability is important, especially when you have very little access to replacement parts or have little capacity to stock (invest in) spare parts and whatnot.
NO gun/rifle etc is 100% sure-fire. Anyone suggesting otherwise is suffering from human hubris.
Mrs. horseman can reassemble her rifle in less than 3 minutes...wearing blackout goggles.
I prefer my wife spending more effort/energy/time on other things in the dark :-)
At some point each cannot be totally sufficient at all things, so there's places where one has to do more. And in this case, as much as I don't like it, I'll clean the weapon. Better that she do what it's meant to do for her- protect her. Me? If something jams as a result of insufficient maintenance (which, again, in the heat of any short-lived battle one isn't likely going to do anyway) then I'l take a run and at look to smack someone with the weapon.
I'd once read of an ocean racer, sailboat, about how he prepared his boat. He said that he didn't look to spend much time on his "life raft" because, he said, if the "big boat fails then what good is the little boat." Focus on the most important aspect.
Here's a good speed-AR field strip video for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irykjLjuKo8 That works for me.
Regarding the Twinkie test I'd actually like to see it done with the same protocol.
Notice that the bolt was locked-open on the AR when he inserted the Twinkie, and that the bolt was closed when it was inserted into the AK - unless you are going to tell me that this is why bolt hold-open devices suck...
=]
Edit: Ahhh - I seem that I'm not the only one who noticed the stacked test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhOb8q9CI-E
Still a fail btw. I guess I'll have to remember not to store my Twinkies in my ARs magwell anymore.
The thing with an AR is that it's design keeps most of the crap out of the action unless you are trying to fill the action on-purpose. As long as you've got a mag in it and the bolt's closed - you're just not going to get that much crap in it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etEgTlozYIc
PS here's a nice AK fail video - so it can happen to you AK guys too btw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOqPNT1zhZc
Ford vs. Chevy - Tele vs. Strat - AK vs. AR...
It's just one of those things people love to argue about.
EDIT: A Stratocaster with P90 pickups is, hands down, the best guitar in the world lol.
Hard to argue with P90s in anything.
=]
I'm warming up mine right now.
Fire is going nice. Fridge full of beer. Yeah baby.
Someone will be along talking up humbuckers any minute LOL!
Merry Christmas bitchez!
+100!
I raise my glass to Mr. Kalashnikov. What a simple and wonderful weapon. It is my favorite weapon even over my extremely expensive and more powerful M1A/M14. The AK rifle has an intimidation factor built into it that no other rifle has and is quite accurate out to 100 yards or so. Even a woman can use one. Mrs. M was not far off on her shooting but she is, well, a she. Any one of those shots she fired would have hit you and you would have been down or seriously reconsidering what it was that you were doing. If you miss, shoot MOAR!
http://www.boatingaccidentnews.com/weekend-at-woodtickville/
Took much of Schmeisser brothers' work
http://www.henrymakow.com/compiled_by_gary_gwhen_did.html
I am remiss. I forgot all about Werner Gruner.
He was a great guy!
An AK-47 has the propensity to turn concealment into cover while the M14 turns cover into concealment.
Never a naughty word from LC about the venerable M14.
Hell, I wish I had a WW2 BAR.
Add 1 high five from a user.
Here is what socialism/communism gets you: Design the most widely sold rifle in the world, and what does it get you? A CHEST FULL OF MEDALS. The man owned no car, lived in a hovel, and got by on a meager state pension. But at least his dentures were paid for!
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the designer of the best damn rifle in the world had no place to lay his head.
Now he does.
Good night, sweet prince.
In my time, our people are free at last.
And you are remembered as a hero.
Never seen so much bogosity in my life.
Don't get me wrong - Russianizing the StG44 was a major achievement, and does not denigrate the ability of the man. But the idea did not spring from his mind like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.
Having been trained as an armorer on the M16/M4 some years ago, I have an obvious preference for Stoner's rifle. I only do private work now, but the feel of that rifle is instinctive. I do not get to shoot as much as I would like to.
There is no way The Argument will ever be settled, which is a good thing, between the AR and AK.
I also have an AK, which is ready for use nearby.
Why?
The AK at short range (home/self-defense) is preferable to me. I operate on the principle that your pistol should always be within reach, in order to get to your rifle. It is a down-and-dirty-it-will-work-period rifle.
Now, if there is a general breakdown of L&O, the AR comes out, because I do not miss with it and my instinct with that rifle is better. I use the 62-gr. SS 109 in the battle rifle and the lower-grain loads in the carbine. I always use two tracers at the end of the mags.
I am not as up on innovations as I was once. I know they have piston ARs now, but it would seem like it would alter the recoil. I have never shot that variant. This entire article and the comments have been great.
A Merry Christmas to all, our home is warm and well-guarded. Santa has a ballistic vest, and my dog will bite you.
I've heard is that the piston mods are good for super-short barrels and short suppressed guns, but don't add much - if anything past 14.5".