The AK-47
Comrade Kalashnikov’s Masterwork
The AK and AR have been rivals since they met in the steam of Vietnam. Renowned AK expert Jim Fuller
is quick to point out the AR is not as unreliable as believed, nor is the AK inaccurate.
We all think we know the AK-47 — a simple, rugged rifle that may not be particularly accurate but runs no matter the conditions or care given. Many of us have seen the Khyber Pass video of the guns being beaten out of scrap metal with rocks, and know you can basically write the alphabet with the countries that have used the AK.
My embrace of the legend crystallized one particularly loud afternoon nearly 20 years ago with a shorty M16 and a Krinkov, both full-auto. The ’16 never ran, while the AK thumped along until we cooked the lacquer off the handguards. Early prejudices die hard, but a recent week in Gunsite’s AK Armorer/Operator class gave me a much more nuanced view of the rifle. But first, history.
Perhaps the most produced firearm of all time, the AK-47 has earned its place in gun history.
While undeniably effective and easy to use, it is hard to master.
If you’re fascinated by gun design history, the AK presents an intriguing rabbit hole.
It would appear Mikhail Kalashnikov “borrowed” design concepts more freely than Russian biographers acknowledge.
Commie Spring
The traditional tale has the AK springing forward from the fertile mind of faithful Communist Mikhail Kalashnikov while he recuperated from wounds received fighting the Nazis — a triumph of the Soviet working class and the benevolent guidance provided by its faithful commissars. Without taking anything away from Kalashnikov’s end product, the truth is a bit more complicated and like most stories of firearms development, involves a good deal more theft.
The assault rifle concept was birthed by the German Sturmgewehr (StG), a select-fire weapon blending the power of a traditional infantry rifle with the firepower and controllability of the submachine gun. The Russians began experimenting with the intermediate-powered 7.92x33mm cartridge of captured German rifles around 1943. According to Mikhail Dragunov, son of the sniper rifle designer, they tested a mind-boggling 314 variants in 5.6, 6.5 and 7.62mm diameters before arriving at the 7.62x41mm cartridge of the first AK prototypes. Quickly refined to the familiar 39mm length, it spanned the gap between the 7.62x25mm Tokarev pistol cartridge and the 7.62x54mmR of the Mosin-Nagant bolt gun, fitting neatly in the Russian cost-cutting model of using the same barrel stock for everything.
German gun designer Hugo Schmeisser was involved with the Sturmgewehr and found himself among the assets exported to Russia after the war. His involvement in the AK is disputed ground, but it’s hard to believe the Russians brought him to Mother Russia for info on gun design and didn’t ask him anything about it.
Nonetheless, the role of the StG in AK development seems to be largely inspirational. Its direct descendant is HK’s G3, which retained its roller lock and pushpin assembly as well as its sheet metal receiver, perhaps the only thing it shares with the AK, which refined it extensively into a receiver/trunnion/barrel assembly. Interestingly, the experienced eye will notice similarities between the G3 and AK bolt carriers, but both are quite different from the StG, making it an interesting coincidence.
Acknowledging that, though, seems to have been a bit much for the Russians, who raised a monument to Kalashnikov in Moscow in 2017 only to discover, to their collective horror, that it featured a detailed drawing of a StG.44. It was promptly taken off with an angle grinder.
Kalashnikov himself was quite a bit more candid and readily admitted studying other gun designs, some of which provided a lot more than ideas. The super-cool underfolding stock that appeared almost from the birth of the AK-47 was first found on the German MP40 sub gun (and ’38 before that). The locking grooves on the bolt carrier are dead ringers for those in the operating rod of the Garand. The right-side safety lever is an odd addition, considering Kalashnikov’s early prototypes had a thumb-operated one on the left, but he was said to be particularly proud of it.
I imagine he was joined in this by John Browning, who patented the Remington Model 8 rifle bearing the same safety design in 1900, nineteen years before Kalashnikov’s birth.
The controls on the AK are basic: bolt handle, safety that also keeps the bolt from being drawn
all the way back when activated, and mag catch.
The safety is bent sheet metal, which can be a bit sharp, and can take quite a bit of force to rotate down.
Pivot your hand up off the grip and use two fingers.
The bolt blocking safety simplifies chamber-checking: Reach over the gun, pull the charging handle back
until it stops and insert a finger in the chamber. It’s quick and works in the dark!
Is it Safe?
What can you say about the safety? It’s on the wrong side and operated with the wrong part of the hand, though in fairness in a cold climate with heavy gloves, it might be ideal. According to Gunsite instructor Monte Gould, who’s spent a lot of time overseas training friendly nations, some AK users such as Russia and Ukraine just don’t use it once the shooting starts, making it less of an issue. For the rest of us, it requires pivoting the shooting hand up and using a couple of fingers to force it down against what can be significant resistance. A shelf of bent sheet metal, it also makes gloves an attractive option to keep from cutting your hand.
This brings us to a paradox. Designed for conscripts, the AK is simple to use in the “go-bang” sense but difficult to master. Rocking the mag in can be fast, but requires a specific angle and depth of insertion. Otherwise, it won’t move back, won’t seat, or locks firmly in the wrong position. The massive vertical foregrip on some variants has got to make it even tougher.
The only solution is practice: I went back to my room at night and did reps until I learned to visually index the mag with the divots on either side of the mag well. With the mag in and safety off, reach under the gun, grab the bolt handle and run it. You’ll only leave the safety on a few times before you remember it won’t let the bolt go all the way back and your chamber is still empty. On the other hand, this makes it easier to chamber check because with the safety on you can pull the bolt back without fear of overrunning it and ejecting the chambered round.
This brings us to the hard part. The AK is not quite as out-of-the-box as one might wish. The one I borrowed from instructor Erick Gelhaus got me through the class, but in a week of sun, sand and sleet in the high desert, I saw more different malfunctions up and down the line than I thought possible. Separated case? Yep, sometimes a rough military chamber won’t let go of soft brass commercial cases. Lacquered steel case ammo gluing itself into a hot chamber? Not an urban legend. Light firing pin hits when the gun’s lube gives out? Yep, at 500-round intervals. And more: failed optic mounts, mismatched parts, etc.
The AK47’s original chambering, the M43 7.62x39mm, was intended to fill space between
the 7.62x25mm round used in pistols and subguns (left) and the 7.62x54mm of the Mosin-Nagant (right).
While the AK is generally monotonously reliable, it is not magic. This casing separated
during a ball-and-dummy round, and promptly got stuck on the snap cap that followed.
No Miracles
As Jim Fuller of Fuller Phoenix (formerly of Rifle Dynamics) said, “it’s such a great design, it can be built horribly wrong and still work … at least for a little while.” Like the 1911 platform, the AK-47 can vary widely in quality (and price), parts from different manufacturers may not interchange and some hand fitting may be required. It’s a mechanical device and should be set up thoughtfully in terms of parts, mags and ammo. It also requires lubrication if not cleaning. The AK is reliable, but it’s not magic.
It’s also plenty accurate within the ranges intended. According to Fuller, while AKs can often do far better, the accepted accuracy standard is 3″ at 100 yards. Lest it sound overly imprecise, this is the West German Bundeswehr standard for a G3 … for sniper use. And there are plenty of 1 MOA AKs in this world.
The M43 cartridge (the official name of the 7.62x39mm) was designed to perform to a maximum of 300–400 meters, and that’s about where the ballistics taxi is going to drop you off. While possible to shoot to 600 and beyond, other calibers are better suited. The trajectory argues for a 150-yard zero and around 300 yards, it seemed to be more affected by wind than the .223 and .308s I’ve fired on the same course. This, of course, is largely academic: It’s useful to see what a defensive carbine can do at its outer limits, but the range at which it is likely to be used is far, far shorter.
75+ years and one Cold War later, the AK has earned its place in history and there is a good argument to be made it is the most effective fighting rifle ever produced, especially for the use of the non-professional soldiers for which it was designed. Some 70 million plus or so are believed to be in existence, and it’s served as the foundation for an entire family of weapons, a goal the Russians were pursuing as far back as the 1920s. Other than a brief dalliance with machined receivers, it’s made pretty close to the way it always was. And this provides the opportunity for a little modernizing, which we’ll cover in a future story.
