Bet you money that you've never seen an AK-47 in real life.
Bet you BIG money.
The AK-47 was not produced for very long, just 10 years. Those ten years were fraught with manufacturing problems and quality issues; with quantity production only being achieved in 1956. In 1959 it was replaced by the AKM. The AKM is the overwhelming majority of AK production.
Milled receiver AK-47 were made by the client states of the Soviet Union and almost none of them are designated AK-47 by the makers. MPi-K is what East Germany called their AK-47 and MPi-KM is their AKM. China calls it the Type 56 Carbine (a name they also apply to their AKM). Bulgaria calls their milled gun the AKK.
You've likely seen a variant of the AK-47, but it's unlikely you've seen an actual one. It's even less likely if you're not a soldier that you've seen one.
Why?
Because they are vanishingly rare in civilian hands!
"But there are AK's all over gun shows!"
That variant thing comes into play again.
A semi-auto AK has a much to do with an AK-47 as an AR-15 does with an M16. Closely related, but definitely not the same in functions and legality. Semi-auto AK's are the bulk of what you see here in the states, and lately those are "US" made guns from parts kits thanks to executive orders from putatively "pro-gun" presidents <cough>BUSH<cough>.
A genuine AK-47 is legally a machine gun. Just about every nation who made an AK wasn't on friendly gun-selling terms with the USA prior to the 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act. That led to very few guns being imported. I would speculate that most transferrable AK's are pre-86 conversions of semi-auto guns and the majority of them will be of Chinese origin.
Click here to submit $0.00 US for a lifetime subscription
Posts
Comments
Just when I think I'm a Gun-nut, you come out of the woodwork and make me feel like I'm still the teenage smug anti I was decades ago!
ReplyDeleteSee also every time I use SMLE in error, or call some full-auto Stoner Carbine an "M4".
Ya KILL me, dude! :) (In all seriousness I love these posts because I love to learn)
Did you know you don't have an FAL either? The inch pattern guns are their own thing...
ReplyDeleteThat I DO know. I also know my rifle is a total mix-master. Besides the flat muzzle it LOOKS just like an L1A1, and the lower is a Birmingham L1A1 bit from '61, as is the bolt and bolt carrier.
DeleteStill the receiver is a century one that takes inch attachments, but accepts metric mags.
I can't really call it an L1A1, because it isn't really one of those either...so I just say "FAL", not because its a Belgian rifle, but because that's its family lineage.
Yeah its a total mix-master and a chimaera to boot!
It's also interesting there's no stigma attached to the FrankenFAL like there is to the FrankenAR.
DeleteDepends on the group. I think your notation is just the difference between the FAL Files and ARFcom forums.
DeleteHell my good buddy Wally is contemplating suspending orders for a while just so he can catch up with his AR receiver orders. He's MADE complete guns (well at least lower upper, barrel and furniture...not sure about small parts or the action), and most of his lowers he just ships off to the local FFL incomplete.
Certainly an all-colt AR has a certain collector's value, just like an all matching numbers Garand or Mosin, but when it comes to people stomping in the woods, or protecting their home, I don't think many AR owners much care what parts their gun was built from so long as it works.
I think my next FAL will be a DS Arms simply because I have little desire to cobble a gun together from a parts kit, and my gun is a century that in fact did NOT work when I first got it.
But will I care if the gun was 100% manufactured in Illinois from US parts, or uses a ton of imbel surplus parts? Nope.
Likely the first AR I get will also be a franken-gun.