RIP - Mikhail Kalashnikov

The inventor of the iconic AK-47 assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has died at the age of 94, . . . in Izhevsk in central Russia - where the plant that produces the eponymous rifles is located.



He was forever asked if he regretted engineering the weapon that probably killed more than any other in the last fifty years, though nine out of ten AKs are not produced in Izhevsk, and perhaps as many as half are manufactured illegally.
[Estimates of the number of AK-47s presently on the planet are as high as 100-million.]
He once answered: "I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example a lawnmower."

Ref: rt.com

Guess he'll be honored with a 21 AK-47 salute.

Methinks the Rusky doth protest too much.

"Famous Soviet arms builder Mihail Kalasnikov recently acknowledged he didn't worked alone at the design and development of the AK-47 assault rifle, but he benefited from the help of Hugo Schmeisser, the most prolific small arms inventor of the Third Reich. Kalashnikov and Schmeisser meet each other at the small arms factory of Izhevsk, writes Life.ru as quoted by Agerpress, the Romanian national news agency.

According to the Russian historian Aleksei Korobeinikov, Schmeisser arrived in Ijhevsk immediately after the war. The city of Suhl, Schmeisser's hometown in defeated Germany, was situated in the Soviet occupation zone. Schmeisser and another couple of dozens German small arms specialists received from the Soviet occupiers an offer they "couldn't refuse": to work at a Soviet small arms factory in the Urals."

Don't know anything about his guns, but I sure enjoyed him on Dancing With the Stars.

Personally, for pure head exploding accuracy at more than a mile , I would rather have one on these :



The M107 Long Range Sniper Rifle (LRSR) is a .50 caliber rifle with attached optics/electro-optics that supports all weather, day/night tactical dominance via rapid-fire direct fire engagements with armor penetrating, incendiary, dual-purpose ammunition. The M107 is based on the Marine Corps M82A3 Special Application Scoped Rifle

Although ther AK is decent for that up in your face close quarters warfare. Bob

I saw a PBS show on the AK-47 and it was very interesting. I've also fired a friend's non-automatic Russian built version. The ammo was also from Russia. Instead being brass casings, they were steel.

It's made out of stamped steel instead of cast parts. I have to believe because of the lower tolerances (bigger spaces) it probably wasn't as accurate as the M16, but if you're putting 60 rounds down range at a high rate, I'm not sure how much accuracy counts.

The lower tolerances of the cheaply built weapon worked better when it got dirty in the mud or from firing from what my friends that were in Vietnam say than the M16.

I do believe they did work out the problems with the M16 by the time I enlisted in '78 as it was then called the M16-A2. Currently I don't know what they call it, but I believe they've added a new handle on the front grip, shortened the barrel to make it more urban warfare friendly and some other modifications. I don't even know if it is still called an M16 anymore, but it's still the same basic rifle.

I also remember the M14 which became a sniper rifle in Vietnam if my memory serves me right.

the shortened M16 is called an M4. based on a suprrior design by Eugene Stoner. The AK is a fine weapon for illiterate communists.

It's not so much the weapon, but the man/woman behind it that counts. Fuck that Russian. Give me a U. S. Marine every time! May he rot in hell.

The deadliest weapon in the world.