Posted on 04/17/2006 5:35:46 AM PDT by jmc1969
Actually, the AK-47 is a VERY different creature from the Kraut gun. Yes, the Kraut gun inspired and influenced the AK, but they were still completely different. For example, Pete T. Kekkonen, a Finnish gun buff who appears to be well versed states the following about the AK/MP relationship:
"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."
You guys can look it up here if you like:
http://guns.connect.fi/gow/QA4.html
Yes, the two weapons look similar, but that could be a case of 'form follows function'.
Yeah, sure. And the Russians invented the telephone, airplane, tevevision, radio, and computer. You gave yourself away with your repeated references to the "Kraut" gun.
I was just tired of hearing that old canard that the AK is just a German design, and I was a little cranky. I never said that the Russians invented the telephone, or airplane, or TV, or radio, or computer. Those are all American inventions, I believe. Just like much of the AK was derived from American weapons, especially John Moses Browning ones. If you're gonna borrow from someone, you may as well borrow from a legend.
I'm no fan of the Russians trying to claim that they invented everything (next thing you know, they'll say they invented the wheel, maybe even fire), but they're just as inventive as everyone else...no less, and no more.
Actually, the notion that small caliber rounds and weapons were intended to wound, not kill, is basically jsut a urban legend. The small caliber concept was invented for the Vietnam War, to give our ARVN allies (and of course us as well) a selective fire personal weapon that was fairly lightweight, easy to carry around rugged terrain, and carry plenty of ammo for it too.
I can top that. I once saw a scene in a movie (forget the name), in which the "tough as nails" lady detective chambered a round in her Beretta 92 by holding the gun in one hand -- by the slide -- and them sharply snaping her arm (snap-snap). The frame shot back and forth due to the momentum, and she had that satisfied "I know what I'm doing, I'm the only one in this room professional enough to chamber a round in a Beretta 92" look.
It was obviously a "Hollywood gun", rigged with a featherweight spring so that the slide would operate when firing blanks. Mz. Actress however didn't know that. She obviously knew that "the gun" was so easy to work, and so, improvized that "tuff move" (this was before Hollywood figured out that guns were a lot deadlier when held sideways) to show her stuff. That was "Idiot Move #1". "Idiot Move #2" was when the director said to himself, "I like it, I like it!" and kept it in the film.
Enough of that kind of crap and you start thinking that maybe they should require a proficiency test before letting someone handle a firearm. Or at least an IQ test. :)
So? Mikhail done good.
What's so hard about saying it?
People forget that even though he was in the stifling, oppressive, overbearing communist hellhole of the USSR, he was a natural born entrepeneur, an individualist, a tinkerer. He would have made a great American. He didn't succeed because of the Soviet Union -- he succeeded in spite of it.
Oh, please, pull the other one.
A fragment of a .22 bullet is going to travel through about five feet of bone and muscle? LOL!
The AK-47 on the other hand is a much heavier round. Furthermore, it has a tendancy to tumble in flight
More twaddle. The only way it'll "tumble in flight" is if the barrel is so shot-out as to be a loose smmothbore.
The Yugoslavian X39 bullet is designed to tumble, though -- but only after it impacts the target.
Don't go making stuff up, or repeating nonsense you read somewhere, that has zero basis in fact.
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