AK-47 maker Kalashnikov gives rifles makeover
02 Dec 2014
The Russian manufacturer of the AK-47 assault rifle has unveiled a new
look for its guns, as well as a new logo, at a glitzy event in Moscow. The
company is also branching out into fashion, launching a line of branded
survival gear. The firm, which relies heavily on the export market, is among
the targets of Western sanctions imposed over Russia's role in the Ukraine
conflict. The Kalashnikov, or AK-47, is one of the world's most recognizable
weapons. The gun is relatively cheap as well as easy to manufacture and
maintain, contributing to its popularity with guerrilla forces and national
armies in Asia and Africa. It is thought that more than 100 million Kalashnikov
rifles have been sold worldwide. The inventor of the rifle, Soviet Lt-Gen
Mikhail Kalashnikov, died last year.
Assault rifle inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov dies at 94
23 Dec 2013
The inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has
died aged 94, Russian TV reports. The automatic rifle he designed became one of
the world's most familiar and widely used weapons. Its comparative simplicity
made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable and easy to maintain.
Although honoured by the state, Kalashnikov made little money from his gun. He
once said he would have been better off designing a lawn mower. Mikhail
Kalashnikov was admitted to hospital with internal bleeding in November. He was
born on 10 November 1919 in western Siberia, one of 18 children
Yemen: Al-Qaeda Kalashnikov prize for Ramadan
06 Sep 2013
Machine guns and automatic rifles were handed out to winners of a
religious competition organized by al-Qaeda in Yemen. The contest was held
during the fasting month of Ramadan in the south-eastern governorates of Ibb,
Ad-Dali and al-Bayda. The prizes included Russian-made Kalashnikov rifles,
Chinese machine guns, Austrian Glock pistols, as well as motorcycles and other
gifts.
Russian army ends purchase of Kalashnikov rifles
27 Sep 2011
The Russian army says it is halting orders of the famous Kalashnikov
assault rifle until a newer model is developed by its manufacturer. Chief of
the General Staff Nikolai Makarov told Russian media that the army already had
too many of the weapons in its stores. A new model is expected to be ready by
the end of the year. News of the army's decision is reportedly being kept from
the rifle's designer, Mikhail Kalashnikov, now 91.
Kalashnikov Backs Weapons Control
26 Jun 2006
The inventor of the infamous AK-47 assault rifle has backed stricter gun
controls as a key small arms conference gets under way on Monday in New York.
Mikhail Kalashnikov said he backed UN moves to halt the illicit distribution of
small arms. In giving his backing to the Control Arms campaign, Mr Kalashnikov
said: "When I watch TV and see small arms of the AK family in the hands of
bandits, I keep asking myself: how did those people get hold of them?"
Chavez and Russia in Arms Deal
26 July 2006, CNN
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said today that his oil-rich nation will
sign major arms deals in Moscow to acquire Russian fighter jets and produce
Kalashnikov assault rifles, as Russia shrugged off U.S. criticism of the
weapons sales. On a visit to the city of Izhevsk, where Kalashnikovs are
made, Chavez said contracts to buy Su-30 jets and set up Kalashnikov rifle and
ammunition plants in Venezuela would be signed in Moscow on Thursday, the
Interfax news agency reported. He has used surging oil revenues to modernize
Venezuela's military, signing multibillion defense deals with Russia and Spain.
Venezuela earlier agreed to buy 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles and wants to
set up factories to produce them under license.
Shantaram by Gregory
David Roberts, 2003, Excerpts
The Russian AK – Avtomat
Kalashinkova – was designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the 1940s. Kalashnikov’s
AK-47, the most influential and widely manufactured of the new assault rifles,
operated by diverting some of the propellant gases produced by a fired bullet into
a cylinder above the barrel. The gas drove a piston that forced the bolt back
against its spring, and cocked the hammer for the next round. The rifle weighed
about five kilos, carried thirty rounds in its curved metal magazine, and fired
the 7.72 millimeter rounds at around 2,300 feet per second, over an effective
range greater than 300 meters. It fired more than a hundred rounds per minute
on auto, and about forty rounds every minute on the semi-automatic, single-shot
function.
The rifle worked perfectly after
total immersion in water, mud, or snow, and it remained one of the most
efficient and reliable killing machines ever devised. In the first four decades
after its development, fifty million of them were produced – more than any
other firearm in history – and the Kalashnikov, in all its forms, was carried
as a preferred strike weapon by revolutionaries, regular soldiers, mercenaries,
and gangsters all over the fighting world.
Gideon's Spies
by Gordon Thomas, 1999
Marine Colonel Oliver North was put
in charge of supplying the arms. In all, Iran would receive 128 US tanks; two
hundred thousand Katsha rockets captured in south Lebanon; ten thousand tons of
artillery shells of all calibers; three thousand air-to-air missiles; four
thousand rifles; and fifty million rounds of ammunition. From Marama Air Force
Base in Arizona, over four thousand TOW missiles were airlifted to Guatemala to
begin their long journey to Tel Aviv. From Poland and Bulgaria, eight thousand
Sam-7 surface-to-air missiles were shipped, together with one hundred
thousand AK-47s. China provided hundreds of Silkworm sea-to-sea missiles,
armored cars, and amphibious personnel carriers. Sweden provided 105-mm
artillery shells, Belgium air-to-air missiles. The weapons were shipped with
certificates showing Israel was the end user. From IDF military bases in the
NegevDesert, the consortium arranged for chartered transport aircraft to fly
the weapons to Iran.
Bandit Country, The IRA
& South Armagh by Toby Harnden, 1999
At the beginning of October 1986,
30 Libyans took two nights to load the Villa, a converted Swedish oilrig
replenisher, with 80 tons of arms including seven RPG-7s, 10 SAM-7s and a ton
of Semtex-H, a Czech-made plastic explosive. Before the collapse of the
communist regime in Czechoslovakia, more than 1,000 tons of Semtex, a brown,
putty-like substance, had been exported to Libya. Manufactured at Pardubice, 90
miles from Prague, it is odorless and cannot be detected by X-rays. Semtex will
not explode even when exposed to a naked flame but when used with a detonator
can produce a blast many times more powerful than a fertilizer-based explosive.
Semtex was first used by the IRA in South Armagh and radio-controlled bombs
were developed there.
It was the first of four arms
shipments, with a cargo courtesy of the Libyan government, to be landed by
Murphy in Ireland. On board the Casamara were 300 boxes of weaponry
including AK-47s, Taurus automatic pistols from Brazil, seven Soviet made
RPG-7s and three Russian DShK 12.7 mm heavy machine guns.
The estimated 650 AK-47 assault
rifles landed in the four shipments are still in use. Invented in the
Soviet Union by Mikail Kalashnikov in 1947, the AK-47 was first issued to the
Red Army hand has since been used by guerilla organizations throughout the
world. Reliable, robust and easy to keep in working order, it can fire a
hundred rounds per minute and is effective to a range of 300 yards.
The Last Phoenix by Carl Douglass, 1997, Excerpts
“The AK-47 or Avtomat Kalashnikova,
1947 model, or Kalashnikov Assault rifle, was invented by a Soviet gunsmith
named Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov or at least copied and improved from a
World War II German model. The weapon weighs 4.8 kilograms fully loaded, and is
87 centimeters long without its extended bayonet. It has a thirty round
detachable magazine that fires standard M-43 ammunition – that’s 7.62 by 39
millimeter – intermediate powered cartridges. It is a gas operated, blow back
system, rotating bolt gun with a muzzle velocity of 715 meters per second, and
it has an effective range of 300 meters on full automatic, 400 meters on
semiautomatic setting, and perhaps a little more on single shot setting. On
automatic it fires a cyclic rate of 600 rounds per minute and 40 rounds per
minute on semiautomatic. The weapon is essentially an elongated machine pistol
that fires from the open breech position to avoid cook-off. The standard model
has a simple, sturdy wooden stock, but there is a collapsible folding metal
stock model available.”
“There is a reason why this
masterpiece is the most popular light arm in the world. It is produced in the
greatest quantities of any infantry gun and is used in more than thirty-five
countries because it is cheap, light, durable, reliable, and most importantly,
continues to function with lethal accuracy under the most adverse conditions.
It has a straight-line stock to maintain accuracy during rapid fire or in
bursts. For the purposes you new “Christians in Action” have, there is an added
advantage. The bolt action is quiet; if you are careful about it, you can work
the mechanisms virtually silently. And it can easily be fitted with a hush
puppy [burst suppressor-silencer]. Any idiot can learn to use the weapon with a
minimum of training. It is easy and quick to dissemble and clean, easy to
maintain, easy to strap to one’s body, and takes up little space because it is
slender. By the end of this day everyone of you will be able to load and fire
the weapon on all three settings, disassemble, clean, and reassemble in the
light in thirty seconds and in the dark in a minute”
