As my wife will tell you, I like T-shirts and, of course, I like AK rifles so the two go together! There are so many cool designs out there these days, I thought you might like to see them. Plus, since they are on Amazon, you know you will have their excellent customer service backing you up.
I hope you have some fun looking at the photos at least plus it is time to get ready for summer and having fun outdoors!
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In March, the Prime Minister of India inaugurated the Indo-Russian Rifles Pvt Ltd factory that will manufacture 75,000 of the AK-203 assault rifles. The AK-203 is the current model of the AK service rifle chambered for the 7.62×39 cartridge.
A common criticism is that AK rifles aren’t very accurate. Vladimir Onokoy, a technical advisor to the Kalashnikov Concern assembled this video to demonstrate how the 203 can accept modern optics, has a repeatable zero and can deliver acceptable accuracy at 100 meteres.
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Guys, I must confess that I have a coffee addiction 🙂 As most of you know, I am into AK rifles as well. As part of that interest, I have read every biography I could find of Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov to try and better understand what led to the creation of the AK-47 and the eventual family of Kalashnikov designs.
Recently I was searching on Amazon and surprisingly found a coffee cup with a great photo of a young Kalashnikov that was tastefully done and, of courcase, had to order it. I had to wait a few weeks as it shipped from Germany.
When it arrived, I was surprised that the graphic was a different color than what the Amazon ad depicted. I thought about returning it but I do like the cup. The following shows you the cup that arrived – it is pretty cool and the color has grown on me.
My wife’s reaction was “Why did you buy another coffee cup?” To which I answered “But honey, this is Kalashnikov” at which she just turned around while shaking her head 🙂
In case you are looking for a conversation piece, check out this cup. Here’s the listing on Amazon.
7/3/2019 Update: It’s holding up just fine. It does make for a cool conversation piece when people use it. “Who is this guy?” is usually how it starts 🙂
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During his visit to Russia in 2018, Larry Vickers was interviewed by Vladimir Onokoy, a technical consultant with the Kalashnikov Concern, about Larry’s views on the traditional AK platform.
The two discussed a number of topics and I’ll just hit some personal highlights that I found interesting:
Larry mentioned that people get hung up on the design of the safety and the short sight radius but the positives of the design far outweigh the negatives. This is especially true because the safety works just fine once you get used to it and the addition of a good red dot is a game changer. I agree with both points.
Vladimir asked Larry his caliber preference. Larry said if he had to only pick one, it would be 7.62×39. That’s definitely my go-to caliber for the rifle.
Larry made a really interesting point – the tapers of the 7.62×39 and 5.45×39 aid in reliable feeding in the AK platform. The 5.56×45 is at a disadvantage because it does not have the same degree of taper. That caught my attention – I never really stopped and thought about the impacts of case taper on reliability given how to AK operates. Interesting point.
So, is the AK obsolete? In my opinion, it is an extensible platform but watch this interesting video and here Larry’s thoughts first hand.
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As you well know, I am very interested in AK rifles, their history and how they are evolving. In September 2018, Kalashnikov Concern released a very interesting video that shows you some of their early AK variants.
In the video, Vladimir Onokay, a technical consultant with the Kalashnikov Concern, will show some unique AKs manufactured in 1948 at the Izhevsk motorcycle factory as well as models produced until the 1950s.
Please note that the following video is hosted in Russia and you may need to let it buffer a bit for smooth viewing. It’s just over 4 minutes long and any student of the AK design will find it very interesting.
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This is a promotional video hosted by the Kalashnikov Concern of the 7.62×51/.308 AK-308 rifle. It looks pretty slick and borrows quite a bit from the AK-12 but some noticeable differences are the 20 round magazine and different muzzle device.
Here’s the Video
Please note that all images were extracted from the video and remain the property of their respective owner(s).
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In 2017, the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation held their annual international military-technical forum known as ARMY-2017 outside of Moscow. There were over 1,000 exhibitors and over 500,000 visitors. It was an ideal spot for the Kalashnikov Concern to show off their short AK-12K, AK-15K and RPK-16K weapons.
In the video, Vladimir Onokay, a technical consultant with the Kalashnikov Concern, does a great job showing the three weapons and giving an overview of each’s design points.
AK-12K in 5.45×39
Some things he pointed out were:
Free floating handguard
It has Picatinny Rails for mounting accessores
Front sight on the gas block and with the rear sight at the end of rail, the sight radius is longer than traditional AKs
The muzzle device is more for controlling flash during night operations
He showed the windowed magazine for quick round counts
The rear stock is adjustable
AK-15K in 7.62×39
The AK-15 is simply the AK-12 but chambered in 7.62×39. He does make the interesting comment that they found a sweet spot in weapons weight of 3.2-3.3 kilograms for controllable fire in 7.62×39. They try to make the weapons as similar as possible and this is really a family of weapons that can be made in different calibers.
The RPK-16K in 5.45×39
This light machine gun sports a 95 round drum and has swappable barrels. A short one for close quarters battle (CQB) that requires a shorter weapon and a longer barrel for other use.
The Video
It’s an 8:00 video and has some great footage.
I hope you enjoyed this!
Please note that all images were extracted from the video and are the property of their respective owner.
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I always find turnaround stories interesting. While we often focus on the older AK rifles, there is a fascinating story about how Kalashnikov Concern modernized and developed world class capabilities. They produced the video that spurred me to write this post to share with you.
In the 1990s, Izhmash and Izhvesk were in tough shape. They were only using 10% of their capacity and government orders were reduced. By 2010, they were in a deep crisis. In 2012, the two groups were consolidated into the Kalashnikov Concern as part of RosTec — I’ll just say “Kalashnikov” going forward.
Kalashnikov leadership embarked on a large scale improvement journey leverage lean quality management concepts, CNC automation, and significant IT investments (ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning, MES – Manufacturing Execution System and WMS – warehouse management system are mentioned or briefly shown).
Kalashnikov wisely focused on their people — and I think this last part is key. They addressed a poor work environment with medical facilities, a cafeteria and training in modern methods. They even have a university that produces 300 graduates each year. Getting people to learn and change are always the hardest things to do yet also the most critical.
As a result, they improved productivity by 2.5 times, shrunk their time to market and removed a considerable amount of waste.
This video is a few years old but is a fascinating 8 minute journey starting with their origins through their turn around story. There are a lot of photos of CNC systems, brightly lit and clean factory areas, the warehouse, class rooms and more. It’s very impressive.
If you are interested in more information on the Kalashnikov Concern, click here.
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