Gratuitous AK Picture Thread
Back when I got turned on to the majesty of the Kalashnikov design I started saving pictures of interesting stuff. I know everyone has probably seen most of these somewhere, but I hope that there might be something new and interesting among the same old stuff.
1) 100 round magazine. Apparently they're not Photoshop.
2) 75 round magazine. I think I'd rather have a drum...
3) Saiga in .30-06. Yes, it's an AKM-length receiver. That's one of the ugliest stocks I've ever seen in my life. Also note the trigger guard, and oddball top cover, and the nifty front sight, and what looks like a crosswise safety over the trigger.
4) Nicely done AK in .45. Note the front sight/gas block mod.
5) 2XTM pistol with Suomi drum. Note the sight front sight - it looks like a regular gas block turned backwards, shortened, with a blade attached to the top. I'm not sure what's going on between that and the top cover. Heavily modified RSB, or something handmade?
6) pistol in 9mm. Note the re-angled rear on the receiver, how the front of the receiver was turned up, the reshaping of the trigger guard, and what looks like ball milled indents on the barrel shroud. And, of course, the bayonet mount.
1) 8mm with a Krikov lid and skeleton stock.
2) Afghan bling! Man, this thing screams for a pair of fuzzy dice...
3) AK-54R. I've seen a couple of these now. It's a PSL with
the barrel shortened, gas block moved back, and AK stock bits. I will build one of these when I get some of my current projects finished.
4) AK with Thompson foregrip on AMD-65 front end. What's not to like?
5) billet aluminum top cover
6) bullpup kit. Note cut on back of receiver.
Hmm... why do the pictures show up out of order on this one? <sigh>
1) Chibajoe bullpup Saiga shotgun
2) Chinese underfolder bayonet bits
3) Croatian APS95. Note the lack of a conventional TSB and the carry handle/sight (scope?) arrangement. I get the idea they designed this for a fixed stock, because the sharp slant cut at the back needs an extension for the folding stock. The front handguard looks PSL-ish, but I think it's just thinner than a regular AK guard.
4) double underfolder in action.
5) the "Franken-AK". Looks like a Valmet gas tube rear with a square tube, among other things. I like it.
6) Magal in .30 Carbine. The Israeli progenitor of the Bizon.
ill take one of each
1) PAR-1 pump action AK
2) overfolder conversion
3) another overfolder conversion
4) yet another overfolder. All of those use PPsh bits
5) someone who didn't like the "backwards" Romanian foregrip. And I agree with this guy; the Romy is great if you're holding the gun at your hip, not very comfortable if you're holding it up at your shoulder. Plus slanting it this way would clear a normal underfolding stock.
6) Saiga .410 with full-length barrel, gives it a Tabuk-ish look.
1) I think he built the platform on the back of the top cover. Conventional RSB. The builder ground off the sight bits and smoothed things out. I'm not sure what the foregrip is from. Conventional gas tube with the front wood retainer trimmed off. Note the enclosed front sight. Lots of nice details on this build.
2) another shot of the same rifle. Better view, possibly earlier since it has the front wood retainer on the gas tube. Either there's a snotload of work on the gas block or he made it himself. Looks like it might be adjustable, too.
3) this is supposed to be an SKS.
4) supposed to be an "SR-99". Looks like a Valmet that some crazed benchrester put the mega-bling to.
5) Valmet shorty. Progenitor of the Krinkov? Looks like the stock swings up from a left-side pivot, which technically would make it an overfolder. The stock would be offset when down.
6) Vektor CR-21 bullpup. Yes, there's an AK inside the plastic shell. Frame from a really bad Scottish movie; the guy is a British actor, most famous for playing a con man in a TV series called "Hustle."
1) Galil (paratroop?) with left-handed bolt handle. Note the sprung cover; probably a couple of hairpin springs around the flat-headed retainers. The bolt pushes it down as it moves back. Fails the "too much rail" test, though.
2) takedown AK. Slip fit barrel, Uzi barrel nut.
3) Turbothis' homebuilt front trunnion. Chinese type with no bullet guide.
4) Chinese Type 81. Notice the Valmet-type slanted front, stamped receiver. SVD-style op rod. After a lot of staring at Type 81 pictures, the best I can figure is all the changes were done to reduce the weight of the rifle. It would be hard to find much to trim from an 81. Which is weird, considering the Type 56 and others are substantially heavier than the Soviet rifles. Note also the bulged cheeks like an RPK or Yugo.
5) another shot of a Type 81
6) The filename is "AK22-2.jpg", but this might be one of those .17 cartridges. I would have just pushed the barrel through the front until the headspace was right and moved on; this guy did it the hard way by cutting the barrel to clear the locking lugs, then pushing it in from the back. I can't fault his workmanship, but I wonder why he did it that way.
1) Type 1 AK-47, the original. Note the front trunnion, which is considerably longer than the AKM, and how the receiver it cut away instead of bulged like a Yugo. You can see how the Saiga shotguns inherited this feature half a century later. A sheet metal tang holds a two piece grip like some early SMGs. Frankly, when I saw how the pistol grip attached to an AKM I thought "WTF?", surely that cheesy nut and long skinny screw wouldn't hold the recoil. But it does. Also note the rear trunnion and how squared-off the trigger guard is.
2) A bunch of people have made variant of this type of stand. It's a neat idea. (nice Yugo, too!) I was thinking about making a wall rack that would hold the rifles vertical. Yeah, I could set the buttstocks on a shelf and use a notched board to hold the barrels, but that's so... ordinary.
3) PSL too ordinary? How about an Iraqi al-Kadesih? It's their version of the PSL, but of course entirely different. 7.62x54R. I wouldn't kick one out of my gun rack...
4) billet gas block; I think this is turbothis' .303 build. But I was more interested in the block he made to hold the top cover. It's sandwiched between the barrel and trunnion, cut out in the back for the cover to slide into. Very elegant solution if you want a smooth-top AK.
5) the back of the cover anchor
6) an AK laid out with CETME wood.
1) Someone didn't like the look of one of the big blocky DEZ aftermarket gas blocks, so he put it on a diet. Too bad he didn't do something about the axle nut...
2) My Chinese military milled receiver had full round rivets on the trigger guard. But this scan from an old Soviet armorer's manual shows clipped rivets.
3) custom gas block. And interesting wood, too.
4) FAL foregrip bits. Grip too, I think.
5) front charging handle conversion. What I *think* he's done is use a larger diameter gas tube, with the gas piston sliding inside the charging handle tube. The shiny ring at the rear is a stop collar clamped to the gas piston. The charging tube just sits there unless you pull the handle. I'm still fascinated by the front charging handle idea, but on the other hand, it's yet another opening for dirt and debris to enter the firearm. No free lunch, as the saying goes...
6) Nice wood. This is supposed to be a G3 mag adapter. But you're not going to get a G3 mag up inside an AK trunnion without substantial cutting on either the trunnion or the magazine. If this thing actually worked, I'm assuming the trunnion and receiver both got carved quite a bit. I can't tell how the guy mounted the adapter, either. Even though G3 mags are cheap, I can't see the point when M-14 mags require much less work. For that matter, why not just suck it up and buy the right .308 mag to start with? Yeah, they command a premium price, but do you really need 20 of them? Your shoulder is probably going to be sore after the first three or four...
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