AP74 Rifle Review
Becoming a Cool Kid 44 years later
The Armi Jager AP-74 was a reasonably priced .22 rimfire clone of the AR-15 rifle imported from Italy back in the 1980s.
In 1979 I was a pretty typical 13-year-old kid growing up in the Deep South. Skinny, naïve and awkward, I filled the margins of my school notebooks with poorly executed drawings of soldiers, military vehicles and guns. Lots and lots of guns …
Nowadays they’d likely put me in jail. At the very least, I’d end up on some ghastly watch list. Back then I was just some kid who liked to play Army. I had plenty of company. School shootings were but a gleam in old Lucifer’s eye and the treatment for ADHD was exercise. It was, in short, a simply splendid time to be alive.
All proper man-children covet guns. I have a dear friend whose perspective on firearms is not quite so generous as is mine. In fact, he decreed that his kids would grow up without exposure to war toys of any sort. One evening my wife and I went over to share a meal. I glanced out the window to see his two boys tearing about the yard shooting each other with angled sticks. We are all of us savages at heart.
Will wrote this caption: “This is one happy redneck.
The AP-74 is a great plinking gun.”
Hard Times
Back in 1979, I suppose somebody someplace had money but I sure didn’t. I made a buck and a half cutting the grass every few weeks but the cash went toward model airplanes, glue and paint. I lacked both the discipline and the means to accumulate any proper wealth. However, it didn’t mean I couldn’t dream.
Mr. Flowers was a Vietnam veteran who ran a gun shop out of the back of his house down the street from where I lived. I rode my bike over all the time just to keep him company and listen to war stories. He always gave me his old issues of Shotgun News. They came out three times a month back then. While certainly grateful at the time, I realize in retrospect this kept him from having to throw them away.
I pored over those old catalogs in a manner that approached unseemly. Machine guns were cheap and plentiful, because nobody wanted them. All AR-15s sported a Colt pony on the side and HK roller-locked weapons were unobtainium considering my non-existent budget. However, tucked in amongst all the open-bolt MACs and overpriced SPAS-12 shotguns was something that seemed a bit more affordable. Back then I coveted an Armi Jager AP-74 .22 rifle in the worst way.
The AP-74 looked enough like the real steel to have been used in several movies back when actual M16 rifles were tough to find.
The Gun
Armi Jager made these cool rimfire black rifle knockoffs in Italy. They also sold under the name Mitchell and Adler. Eventually they produced sort-of clones of the French FAMAS, the British SA-80, and the AKM mostly chambered in .22 rimfire. Back then, however, the AP-74 was the only show in town.
The AP-74 was actually offered in both .22LR and .32ACP. The .32-caliber versions never were terribly common. However, the AP-74 was a standard fixture most everywhere serious guns were sold.
The AP-74 was a surprisingly nice rendition of a period Colt Model 602 M16. There was no forward assist and the open three-prong flash suppressor sported a tapered cross section. The furniture looked like a more serious infantry rifle but was of lighter weight and somewhat flimsier.
The controls were close but not quite right. The fire selector was typically a crossbolt push button, though some versions had a rotating lever. The front pivot pin was a two-headed screw, while the rear pin was not positively retained. The bolt release was right where it should have been. However, instead of the familiar pivoting paddle of the AR-15, it was a sliding stud that moved up and down slightly to retain the bolt to the rear.
The charging handle could pass for the real deal in dim light, and the rear peep sight and front post would have been familiar to anyone who wore an American military uniform after about 1965. Rear sight adjustments required a screwdriver rather than a bullet tip. The most serious departure from the hallowed source code was the magazine. For starters, the magazine release masqueraded as a screw.
At a glance, it looks like the AP-74 sports a standard 5.56mm 20-round box magazine. However, the magazine in this case is simply a cast part of the lower receiver. The AP-74 actually feeds via a single-stack 15-round magazine that looks like something you’d shove into the butt of a Ruger .22 pistol. Original magazines are rarer than honorable politicians today.
The pressed steel ejection port cover looks and acts just as it should, popping open automatically on the first round fired. Sling swivels accept standard GI slings. The slip ring doesn’t seem to be spring-loaded, so I have no idea how to get the handguards off. The gun fires via unlocked blowback as one might expect.
The AP-74 (top) was a decent rimfire facsimile
of the Colt Model 602 rifle shown here.
The Dream Languished …
I don’t recall what these guns cost back then, but it didn’t matter. They might as well have been stockpiled on the moon. I didn’t have any money. And then I discovered a powerful and profound secret. By careful application of charm and diligence, I could actually transform my time into genuine money. A lot of diligence and a lot of time could produce decent quantities of money. That intoxicating axiom drives me forward to this very day.
I got my driver’s license at 15 and started working as a janitor in a print shop the following day. After that first sweaty summer I took a similar posting in a local drug store, straightening the shelves and mopping the floors. I can still clean the heck out of a toilet using skills I inculcated working at Westgate Drugs.
I made $56.26 every other week working after school and Saturdays. It took me a full year to accumulate the $486 required to buy my first Colt SP1 AR-15 rifle. Then I met the cheerleader who would eventually become my wife, and I’ve been various stages of blissfully broke ever since. It seemed I was simply destined to leapfrog over the cool little AP-74 rimfire rifle until I recently tripped over a copy at a regional gun auction advertised online. My precious bride asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I told her, “That.”
This is a pretty typical 25-meter group fired off of a sandbag rest.
The AP-74 performs like a fairly standard .22 rifle.
The magazine on the AP-74 is just a molded part of the lower receiver.
The actual magazine release is the screw head located at the bottom.
The Armi Jager AP-74 feeds from a single-stack magazine not
unlike that of your typical .22 pistol. These magazines are unobtainium today
Ruminations
The AP-74 really does look like a real AR-15, even up close. So much so it was used as a big screen stand-in in such epic productions as the 1978 Dawn of the Dead, La Femme Nikita in 1990 and The Professional in 1994. Though my personal gun collection has grown a bit since 1979, I am thrilled at long last to be able to add this classic AP-74 to the mix.
Nobody buys a vintage AP-74 because it is the best, most efficient, most accurate rimfire rifle in the store. You seek out an AP-74 because it just looks so freaking cool. That’s what snagged me in 1979 and that’s what holds me today.
