Category Archives: AK & Related Rifles

Used to discuss AK-47, AK-74, and related rifles

AK & Related Rifles

News: Vepr rifles now on the banned list – June 20, 2017

Well, this sucks – Molot, the maker of Vepr rifles and shotguns has been added to the treasury’s list of people and organizations US businesses can’t engage in commerce with.

Here’s the website source:  https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20170620.aspx

MOLOT-ORUZHIE, OOO (a.k.a. OBSHCHESTVO S OGRANICHENNOI OTVETSTVENNOSTYU ‘MOLOT-ORUZHIE’; f.k.a. OBSHCHESTVO S OGRANICHENNOI OTVETSTVENNOSTYU PROIZVODSTVENNO INSTRUMENT KACHESTVO), 135 ul. Lenina, Vyatskie Polyany, Kirov Obl. 612960, Russia; Registration ID 1094307000633 (Russia); Tax ID No. 4307012765 (Russia); Government Gazette Number 60615883 (Russia) [UKRAINE-EO13661] (Linked To: KALASHNIKOV CONCERN).

Notice the part I set in bold black – linked to Kalashnikov Concern.  It may be because Molot was bankrupt and the speculation was that only Kalashnikov Concern was in a position to buy them.

FIME has not commented yet – they are the importer and their website is at:  http://www.fimegroup.com/home.php

So, we’ll see what happens next but do expect supplies of Vepr rifles to be limited/run out on the primary market and prices to rise.

AK & Related Rifles, Russia and also USSR

Video: Процесс производства оружия на ВПМЗ Молот // Production process at the VPMZ MOLOT factory March 2017

     

Molot published this walk through of their production facility in March 2017.  It’s in Russian but with English subtitles.  It’s only 5:31 long and worth your time.  Yeah, I drooled when I saw the injection molding.

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AK & Related Rifles, China, Weapons by Country

Video: Chinese Type 56 AK-57 (Shooting and History) by Forgotten Weapons

 

This is a cool review of an actual North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Chinese Type 56 AK.  It was a captured rifle and brought back to the US.  Ian of Forgotten Weapons does one of his usual exemplary reviews of the rifle and discusses its history.

 

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AK & Related Rifles

Video: I Have This Old Gun – Chinese Type 56 (AKM) Rifle

The NRA did a nice American Rifleman TV segment on the Chinese Type 56.   It’s only 5:37 long and worth your time.

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AK & Related Rifles

I miss the Romy G AKM Kits – They were a great learning experience, reliable and fun to shoot

You know folks, I miss the old Romanian Garda kits.  I literally built about a dozen of them trying different variations on rivets, screws, welding and so forth.  You could get them from $79-119 with the barrel and sometimes even a Tapco G2 fire control group (FCG) included.  Copes, Centerfire, DPH and others had pallets of them.  My wife would give me the eye any time a box showed up from one of them 🙂

That was the good times and then thanks to yet another ridiculous ATF ruling, the kits with barrels were forbidden for import, the well dried up and prices rose.  I actually cut most of the completed rifles up and sold them for parts when kit prices went in the $300+ range.  I sure had a ton of fun with friends and family at the range.  What I personally enjoyed most was making them.  Boy, I made a ton of mistakes along the way but learned too and also learned to respect a lot of concepts that Kalashnikov and his designers put into the rifles including pushing for reliability, simplicity, and so forth.

At any rate, I was going through some photos from January 2013 and thought I would share a few pictures of guns that ran like tops.  These two rifles work great and I learned a ton making them.  The finishes are shades of Minwax stain with hand rubbed urethane stain on top.  I eventually moved to boiled linseed oil but that was long after I built these.  I always liked seing how the stain would take to the wood.  This is also before I started making grips – the wood one is from Ironwood and I don’t recall who made the plastic one.  The finish would have been air dried Duracoat on these.

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AK & Related Rifles

How to cut the folding stock weld on a Vepr IV

Back in 2014 I bought one of the 5.56 Vepr IV RPKs.  Boy was it nice but it had a folding stock that was spot welded.  I installed a Tapco G2 FCG, the appropriate muzzle device and one of my Molot Gen 2 grips and then US mags.  I’d planned to replace the gas piston but wound up selling the rifle to fund other projects.  I did, however, snap some photos.

The rifles were amazingly allowed into the US and were gorgeous but I could not abide by the tack welded open stock or funky US grip.  First, I removed the butt stock to get it out of the way and protect it.  I then used my cordless Dremel with a cut off wheel to slice the tack weld enough to pull it open and then sanded the edges smooth.

 

I then applied Brownells’ Oxpho Blue to the fresh bare steel to blacken it.  The end result – you’d never know the tack was there.

 

To the left is the grip that IO put on the rifle when they imported it.  To the right is my Molot Gen 2 grip and it is in subsequent photos also.  We make each grip by hand here in Michigan so they count as a 922r compliance part.

Like so many of my firearms, it sat in the safe for a year or two and I never hard time to fire it.  Eventually, I decided to sell it to fund other projects.

7/20/19 Update:  This rifle is #1 on my list of “I wish I never sold it”  They are worth a fortune now.

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AK & Related Rifles

Video: Two Computer Graphic Videos of AH-94 Nikonov Operation

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Here are two videos that use computer graphics to demonstrate the operation of the Russian AK-94 5.45mm rifle.0

Here’s the first video that gives more overall information (in Russian though):

Here’s the second video that gives a very clear view of loading:

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AK & Related Rifles

Video: Rocket Surgery: Inside the Russian Nikonov AN94 by Forgotten Weapons

The Russian AN94 Nikonov is a rather bizarre rifle that is often described as complex and expensive.  Just those words alone should make you realize the rifle is a hard departure from the relatively simple and inexpensive Kalashnikov design maxims.  I have been hoping to see a more thorough breakdown of the AN94 and Ian of Forgotten Weapons does just that.  This is a great video released April 11, 2017.  You definitely should check it out as he does a great job taking the rifle down and explaining how it operates.  When I saw the pulley, cable and extra sub-assemblies required to do the two round burst, I just shook my head.  Time will tell how rugged it really is.

Here’s the video:

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