Posted on 10/13/2010 10:47:17 AM PDT by C19fan
Great piece,,,
If I could only have one gun to defend myself with it
would have to be the AK...
I love my AKs.
I would not be surprised if the availability of the AK and SKS on the US market was the cause of much “assault rifle” anxiety on the part of the ruling class. Most people would not buy an AR-15 on a whim, as it was expensive. But people WOULD buy a $99 SKS or cheap AK, along with some ammo, and stick it in the attic “just in case”.
Buy an AK-74
One common misperception is that the AK-47 is reliable and effective, therefore it is abundant. This is not really the case. The weapon's superabundance, its near ubiquity, is related less to its performance than to the facts of its manufacture. Once it was designated a standard Eastern Bloc arm, it was assembled and stockpiled in planned economies whether anyone paid for or wanted the rifles or not. This led to an uncountable accumulation of the weapons. And once the weapons existed, they moved. Had the weapon not been hooked up to the unending output of the planned economy, it would have been a much less significant device. If it had been invented in Liechtenstein, you might have never even heard of it.
With all of the info I have absorbed about the AK in the many years I have been reading about the rifle I have never related the architecture of the Soviet economy to the ubiquitous nature of the AK in the world.
Sure the soviets wanted to export communism to the world but exporting revolution perhaps was as much a byproduct of having tons of these AK sitting around as it was politics?
I don’t really believe that but it is an interesting thought and might in a small way be true.
While they look somewhat alike from the outside the actual mechanism that operate within the firearm are in fact very different. The AK-47 series uses a rotating bolt while the STG-44 uses a early form of delayed blow back that later was used in the Cetme of Spain & the G-3 rifle. Form follows function, also the AK-47 series of weapon is a handy carbine good from bad breath range to around 250 yards. 8^)
While they look somewhat alike from the outside the actual mechanism that operate within the firearm are in fact very different. The AK-47 series uses a rotating bolt while the STG-44 uses a early form of delayed blow back that later was used in the Cetme of Spain & the G-3 rifle. Form follows function, also the AK-47 series of weapon is a handy carbine good from bad breath range to around 250 yards. 8^)
With all due respect, N, you may be confusing the Stg44 with the Stg45. The Stg45 was the delayed blowback rifle. The Stg44 was gas operated.
The AK was inspired by the Stg, definetly. However, they were still two different designs, with the AK more influenced by AMERICAN weaponry. Pete Kekkonen stated of the relationship between the two rifles:
“Back to the question re German influence on AK-47: There are some resemblances between AK and StG 44, but they are just superficial similarities. M. T. KALASHNIKOV copied details of many American (not German) firearms, including the breech bolt of U.S. M1 Carbine, a safety/selector lever from REMINGTON Model 8 hunting rifle and principle of trigger mechanism from BROWNING AUTO-5 shotgun, but many applications of these ideas are modified or improved by Kalashnikov himself and many major innovations are his designs, without known predecessors...
Actions of German assault rifle (with a tilting breech bolt) and that of AK-47 (with a rotating bolt) are, especially, quite different. So are also cocking and safety arrangements.”
>BTW, Schmeisser was held captive in the USSR and forced to work in the same arms factory where Kalashnikov supposedly “invented” the AK.
And yet, there’s no Schmeisser characteristics in the AK-47. From what I heard, there certainly were in some of the earlier prototypes.
I recently found out that while Schmeisser was indeed in Izhevsky, Kalasahnikov designed the AK in Kovrov.
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