Avtomat Kalashnikova Modernized / 1959 / Length: 35 inches / Weight: 8 pounds Anatomy Of An AK-47 -- Popular Mechanics
How the AK-47 became the go-to Rifle for insurgents, rebels and warlords the world over.
At the dawn of the Cold War, former Soviet soldier Mikhail Kalashnikov, 26, led a team in the design of a lightweight assault rifle, the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947. Now, 65 years later, some 100 million AK-47s have been produced—10 times the number of U.S. Army M16s. The original weighed roughly 10 pounds and married the best features of a submachine gun and a long-range rifle. "The AK-47 is often said to be poorly made, but many of its features were well-matched to the conditions of war," says C.J. Chivers, The New York Times war correspondent and author of The Gun, a history of the AK-47. The rifle is effective, if unoriginal. "Think Mr. Potato Head. This gun is a bunch of pre-existing systems combined into a new whole," he says. A revised AK-47, the AKM, entered production in 1959; the most prevalent AK, its knockoffs are manufactured all over the world (the gun below has Chinese origins). Chivers gives a guided tour.
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