Did any RB reader the History Channel special on Mikhail Kalashnikov and his famous AK-47?

BTW - AK-47 is the nickname of Utah Jazz Forward Andrei Kirilenko who wears number 47.

Talk about awesome marketing.

Someone name AK-47's wife, who I understand is a big time recording artist in Russia (Yuri being a music man should probably be exempted from this inquiry).

Heh. We at the "Guns and Butter" houshold own a civilian version of it (semi-auto only, no bayonet lug), made in Romania.

The common term AK-47 is actually inaccurate. The original AK-47 was milled (machined from bar stock), making it much more expensive to produce. What is commonly referred to as AK-47 today is actually AKM (modernized AK-47) and its clones, which are stamped, a considerably less expensive and faster process.

The rifle is not widespread because "it is simple to use." Most rifles are very simple to use and can be mastered by children.

AK's are actually pretty crude weapons. They are not very ergonomic and have poor sights compared to modern Western rifles, making getting hits at long distance more difficult.

They are generally inaccurate weapons, having poor barrels, poor metallurgy, and it doesn't help that "Soviet-bloc" ammunition is of low quality in general.

Plus as a modern "assault" rifle goes, it is on the heavy side.

On the positive side, it is very robust and reliable, due to the generally sound, simple design and loose fit. It keeps on firing with very little maintenance even in dirty environments. It also breaks down into a few parts quickly without tools.

In other words, it makes an ideal weapon for uneducated, ill-supplied peasants who lack basic mechanical aptitude. That just about describe the former Soviet army and its proxies.

The main reason why it became so widespread is cost.

Because the Soviet Union subscribed to the philosophy of "quantity has a quality all to its own," it and its allies produced a massive quantity of these rifles and dumped them on the Third World, making them cheap and disposable.

When given a choice between the two AND cost is not a consideration, most trained professional soldiers generally opt for a variant of the American M-16 over it. For example, when given the choice between the Israeli Galil (updated version of Finnish Valmet, in turn a modernized version of AKM) and the M16/M4, the IDF readily chose the latter, preferring the accuracy and light weight of the latter.

Nonetheless, it is what the professionals call an "adequate" weapon, and considering its superior reliability with low maintenance, is a good rifle to take to rugged areas.

By the way, although Kalashnikov himself denies it, the lineage of the weapon is very clear. It was either copied from, or heavily influenced by, the WWII German MP43/StG44, the first real successful "assault rifle" (in fact, StG, standing for "Sturmgewehr" was the origination of the term "Assault Rifle").

It is kinda amusing (not for Kalashnikov, of course) that Eugene Stoner, the inventor of M16, became a multi-millionaire with a personal plane whereas Kalashnikov was never really paid for his design.

Masha Lopatova is Andrei's wife.

Masha Lopatova is Andrei's wife.

I loved Lord of War and it inspired me to write a review of it which turned into a bit of a moan about the way the arms industry is viewed by anti-arms campaigners. The review is here.

AK-47. The very best there is.

And that only applies to knockoffs.

If I had to pick the best money could buy, I'd pick something like the German H&K G36.

ak47 is the most reliable there is, in a real combat situation you wont have time to deal with cleaning out your rifle and making sure you dont drop a pin or spring int he dirt. Obviously none of you morons were in a real situation where you have to depend on your gun shooting when the trigger is pulled. American and German made rifles are pretty, light and accurate but in a firefight accuracy pass 100 meters wont do you any good. All modern firefights happen in close quarters, in mostly urban terrain or landscape. When was the last time you saw anyone shooting across the plains or wide open deserts? If you want to play sniper then grab an SVD or any other rifle, if you want to make sure that a large number of bullets fly out of your barrel reliably and in the general vesinity of your target, then you will need a nice assault weapon. Also please stop comparing m4s and m16s to ak-47s.. original aks were made in 1947 and cannot be compared to guns made in the 90s or later. If you want to compare then pick on ak-74s or ak-101s or later which have a superb accuracy and less recoil. Russia knows how to make good weapons, and make them on a budget. Quantity will always rule over quality for any military force in any given combat situation!

i've got two russian made ak's plus a couple of the knock-offs . the russian made ones seem to be the best shooters overall. yes i have extensive years in the armed forces and have used about every kind of small arm--and cost was no object . the AK is THE most dependable . the 7.62/51 nato and 5.56 versions can pull a 1-inch MOA as well.

So much misinformation from James, let me correct some of it:

"The common term AK-47 is actually inaccurate. The original AK-47 was milled (machined from bar stock), making it much more expensive to produce."

The original AK-47 was stamped. Production switched to a milled receiver after receiver failure persisted in the first manufactured lots.

"AK's are actually pretty crude weapons. They are not very ergonomic and have poor sights compared to modern Western rifles, making getting hits at long distance more difficult."

This statement is laughable. Open sights are in no way "poor" compared to aperture sights, especially when it comes to assault rifles. While diopters are good to show off the supposed accuracy of your weapon when shooting at paper targets on the range to impress the weapon-buying generals, the fact is that engaging anybody at 400 or even 300 meters with iron sights from an assault rifle is a myth - doubly so with a Soviet-army style organization which assigns a sniper to each squad (a concept that the "modern" Western armies are only now discovering in the form of the "designated marksman"). Even adding an adequate number of machine guns to a platoon makes the need for the riflemen to have a super-accurate rifle obsolete, something shown by the Wehrmacht in the 1930s. The current thinking about the role of the assault rifle in NATO-countries is still influenced by the pre-WWI US Marine conception of the rifle. As far as your opinion that AKs are crude weapons, it is also a reflection of the same pre-WWI "accurate rifle" paradigm - tight fitting parts may improve the consistency of the shots, but they decrease the reliability while simultaneously raising the cost of the weapons. If you knew anything about Russian firearms, you would know that this was a deliberate design viewpoint of Kalashnikov, and a major break from Degtareyev and the pre-revolutionary arms designer schools. As far as ergonomics goes, to each his own, but IMO the AKMS is both the best rifle and best submachinegun when it comes to "feel." There is a reason why Zastava keeps making their M90 and M85 rifles that way. And before you complain about the safety, please keep in mind that the primary reason that the Canadian Rangers are stuck using British colonial-era Lee Enfield rifles is because the safety lever on the M16 knock-offs cannot be operated with the heel...

"They are generally inaccurate weapons, having poor barrels, poor metallurgy, and it doesn't help that "Soviet-bloc" ammunition is of low quality in general."

Let me guess, you have Hungarian knock-offs, right?

"Plus as a modern "assault" rifle goes, it is on the heavy side."

The AKM is lighter than the M16A4 and the G36. The M4 is really a fancy submachine-gun firing assault-rifle caliber ammunition, with all the loss in accuracy and "effectiveness" this entails - even the Marines are now discarding the "accurate long-gun" paradigm.

"In other words, it makes an ideal weapon for uneducated, ill-supplied peasants who lack basic mechanical aptitude. That just about describe the former Soviet army and its proxies."

You say you are a former member of the armed forces, US I assume? You should be very happy you never had to put your assumption to the test.

"Because the Soviet Union subscribed to the philosophy of "quantity has a quality all to its own," it and its allies produced a massive quantity of these rifles and dumped them on the Third World, making them cheap and disposable."

Wrong - there are cheaper rifle designs the Soviets could have adopted that were nearly as reliable (for example, Koborov's blowback rifles, which were twice as cheap to produce and as reliable as the AKM in testing, but had less flexibility when it came to firing special ammunition - interestingly enough an inferior version of a similar blowback mechanism was independently developed by MAS for their FAMAS rifle in the 70s). If you want to see a firearm produced for the sake of quantity, take a look at the British Sten submachine gun. In the category of cheapest firearm ever designed and fielded for the longest time, it has no competitors. It doesn't help that it is also one of the worst firearms ever designed.

"When given a choice between the two AND cost is not a consideration, most trained professional soldiers generally opt for a variant of the American M-16 over it."

Not true. How many guys doing PSD in current hot zones do you know? What do you think they use? The split is actually pretty close to 50-50 between Stoner-systems and Kalashnikov-systems.

"For example, when given the choice between the Israeli Galil (updated version of Finnish Valmet, in turn a modernized version of AKM) and the M16/M4, the IDF readily chose the latter, preferring the accuracy and light weight of the latter."

That is completely wrong. The real reason is that Israel is only allowed to spend US defense aid on procurement from US companies. In effect, it costs nothing for the IDF to acquire M16s.

"By the way, although Kalashnikov himself denies it, the lineage of the weapon is very clear. It was either copied from, or heavily influenced by, the WWII German MP43/StG44, the first real successful "assault rifle" (in fact, StG, standing for "Sturmgewehr" was the origination of the term "Assault Rifle")."

When does he deny it? Have you ever read anything he's written? Do you actually know anything about the way the MP 44 works? Kalashnikov did have free access to the MP 44, and he did experiment with similar concepts, but he threw out almost every single detail of the MP 44. The two-part receiver (something that the M16 has), the clumsy return mechanism (hey, another something the M16 shares with the MP 44), the tilting bolt, the gas piston, the left-side safety lever and charging handle, the tight part fittings. The MP 44 had the right concept, but as Kalashnikov found out in his development, all the details of that particular firearm were wrong.

You can't be 70007 serious?!?

to James J:

You said:
"Obviously none of you morons were in a real situation where you have to depend on your gun shooting when the trigger is pulled."

I have been in combat on more than one occasion. My M-4 did just fine, never giving me any failures. But then, I care about my life, so I cleaned it every day. You talk about distances as if it was a negligible factor, but typical engagement distances in Afghanistan are around 800 meters. Well beyond the range of even the most quality manufactured and best maintained AK's. And I've got news for you... Hadji doesn't take care of his equipment. They treat their EQ like they treat their women...with no appreciation or respect - just work it till it stops. Superior marksmanship always wins. Look at any of the great firefights where Americans were outnumbered through out history. My surmise is that in the hands of a competent and trained army the AK is outstanding. In the hands or Malik Abdul who cleans it with water and greases it with cow fat it ain't too effective. But give me my M-4 any day. And BTW, I ain't hating. I have 2 AK's. One Romanian AKS-74U and one Hungarian Underfolder.

its not the gun its the man behind the gun

has anybody any idea where to buy an AK47 in Europe without "paperwork"?
Thks.!!
martin@venezuela.zzn.com

Hey i might be in Iraq if it keeps up so does anybody know if u can bring your own firearms?

The rifle program should provide the military with match grade bearing ridged trigger in a 7.62x54R altered to a rebated rim shell type with a base similar to that on the M39. It would work in both the regular rifle and belt fed machine gun with the rifle in a 20" barrel with mount points for the grenade launcher. This gets rid of the M39 which isn't effective against vests or helmets and makes the move to a single round eliminating confusion in the field with the delivery of the wrong type of ammunition.

The rifles can be issued looser without grenade launchers for marksmen who need to practice more with the launcher simply issued and snapped on if needed. The alternative rifles should be maser rifles with the beams set physically to pattern out at 2000m as a safety feature.

By configuring the maser emitter tip as if using a mask, using an array of emitters to enhance the wound channel with a rotating thumb selector to triple the firing duration of the pulse. The scope should use a auto ranging passive radar return and light amplification with the passive radar as a ghost image. The selected frequencies should rotate randomly and the scope should have a clear see through electronics with a manual cross hair as a back up with 40mm straight body and power of 1 with electronic zoom to 36 using an exposed up or down button.

The rifle should be of the inline design to cut recoil impulse to the shooter and made from titanium to eliminate stock breakage.

The magazine pouches should be designed to hold 20 round magazines but wider so as to also hold the 40mm grenades side ways. This allows the same magazine pouch to be used with the maser rifles and the extra grenades placed in the pouches so the same web gear can be used while keeping the magazine short enough so it doesn’t get in the way.

The rear sight should be on the action cover similar to that on the Finnish rifle for better aiming with a broken scope removed. The grip should also be made more ergonomic and full auto should be dropped to force the move to aimed fire and cut ammunition waste.

The gun should track to 200m as a default calibration and have a target circle so that the electronic cross hair remains in the target circle and auto ranges to the item it is placed on to 1500m for a rifle and infinity for the maser.

The calibration mode should track the projectile in flight and calibrate an algorithm to set the point of aim at 200m using a randomized wide beam directional signal in the IR range as a random radar and monitor for the maser emission and impact point to generate a similar algorithm for a maser. Both methods only use the active mode in calibrate and active mode with the regular mode being passive to limit detection.

A sniper version of the maser rifle should be made with a narrow beam so it can be used against any target in visual range such as aircraft as the beam width doesn’t spread out as in the other maser variant from emitter tip variation. All rifles should have a laser dot emitter in the front sight assembly with an on and off for short range use and the machine guns should be of the maser type with emitter mask set to pattern out at 4000m as a safety feature.

The rifles can be general use and work with the light armor on the cars with the masers issued in a war to do away with the ammunition problem and use radiologic batteries. It even cuts out most of the expensive shoulder fired missiles and the scope can have a simple floating dot for aimed grenade fire with the side sight on the grenade launcher used only for in-direct fire. Grenade use is reduced as the scopes pick up people hiding behind walls and even the standard rifle can penetrate most house walls.

The control buttons on the scope should be under a sliding flat on the side of the scope to limit accidental manipulation in the field and the buttons small enough so that a finger tip can press them..

AK 47 is really amazing. I think that would be best forever.
No one and never any best would be built further more.

AK is unique forever!