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If you\u2019ve gotten crappy products from China, it\u2019s because the company that had them made does not care about you or your customer satisfaction. It\u2019s not because the Chinese are incapable of producing high-quality products. The Polytech AKs are a testament to that. So, if you are smart, start searching those small-town gun shows and maybe you will find a gem of a Chinese AK hidden in the \u201cChinese Junk\/Commie Shit\u201d pile. Or maybe, like me, you are praying that our new President will open up the gates so that we can get more awesome guns from China again. One can only hope \u2014 BC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We love to talk guns on the air. Check out Skillset Live HERE<\/a> or wherever you download your favorite podcasts! Also, be sure to grab a copy of Skillset Magazine at OutdoorGroupStore.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","post_title":"Chinese AK: 7 Variants and What Makes Them All Different","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chinese-ak-variants","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2023-10-31 23:13:26","post_modified_gmt":"2023-11-01 03:13:26","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.athlonoutdoors.com\/article\/chinese-ak-variants\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":127952,"post_author":"608","post_date":"2019-07-15 10:28:20","post_date_gmt":"2019-07-15 14:28:20","post_content":"Thanks to modern movies, TV shows, and, most notably, video games, the AK-47 is arguably one of the most famous firearms ever made. The now infamous AK-47 was probably best summed up in the 2005 Nicholas Cage film Lord of War.<\/em> In\u00a0the opening sequence, Cage\u2019s character, Yuri Orlov, offers the following monologue:\n\n[in_content post=\"205509\" alignment=\"align-left\" \/]\n\n\u201cOf all the weapons in the vast Soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova<\/em> model of 1947, more commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It\u2019s the world\u2019s most popular assault rifle, a weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9-pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood, it doesn\u2019t break, jam or overheat. It\u2019ll shoot whether it\u2019s covered in mud or filled with sand. It\u2019s so easy even a child can use it, and they do.\u201d\n\nAs the above monologue continues, Cage\u2019s character adds the facts that the Soviets put the AK-47 on a coin, and Mozambique had it on its flag. Today, it enjoys recognition as the digital gun of choice among video gamers around the world. Hip hop sons mention its name; countless movies show it.\n

AK Stand-Ins<\/strong><\/h3>\nYet, while the AK-47 is famous today, less than 40 years ago, it was largely unknown to most people outside of military circles. Even as American soldiers faced it in Vietnam, few back home knew much, if anything, about this firearm. It wasn\u2019t really until the late 1980s that the AK-47 got its close-up in movies.\n\nPrior to the 1990s, the AK-47 was a favorite among insurgents and revolutionaries, but even in movies depicting those soldiers, the AK-47 rarely appeared. Not a single AK-47 is even seen in the 1968 John Wayne film The Green Berets.<\/em> That would remain true for many of the early Vietnam War films to follow.\n\nThe U.S. government actually had a ban on all weapons imported from the Warsaw Pact nations during the Cold War (between 1947 and 1989), and as a result, actual AK-47s weren\u2019t available. The AK-47s used in Apocalypse Now <\/em>were in fact Chinese Norinco Type 56 copies of the AK-47, and until the late 1980s, this would be as close as most Western filmmakers could get.\n\nMeanwhile, even in the Soviet Union, the AK-47 was seldom the star. It\u2019s generally believed that the AK-47\u2019s first appearance in a movie actually came in 1956 in the Soviet-made romantic comedy Maksim Perepelitsa<\/em>. The weapon is seen in a few scenes when the title character serves in the Red Army. This movie wasn\u2019t even screened outside of Russia until the end of the Cold War, and even today, it\u2019s almost impossible to find on home video.\n\n\"Kalashnikov<\/a>\n

Covert Kalashnikov<\/h3>\nHowever, it is noteworthy that Soviet military censors even allowed AK-47s to be used at all, as Western military leaders only knew that the Red Army had issued a new select-fire rifle. Even in the intelligence community, little was known about it.\n\nThat film actually came out a year before the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, an event that has largely been credited as the first time Western military analysts were able to take note of what had been only a rumored Soviet automatic weapon at the time. What is also noteworthy is that it would be nearly two decades before the AK-47 appeared in any movie outside of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe United States\u2019 ban on Warsaw Pact weapons actually kept the AK-47 from getting its close-up even in films about Vietnam, but the Israel Defense Forces managed to capture thousands of the assault rifles in the Six-Day War of 1967 and the subsequent Yom Kippur War of 1973. As a result, many of these were lent or sold to the country\u2019s film industry.\n

Big-Screen Debut<\/h3>\nThe first \u201cWestern\u201d film to feature a true AK-47 was the 1977 Israeli-made feature Operation Thunderbolt; <\/em>it\u00a0chronicled the daring Israeli commando raid on the Entebbe Airport on July 4, 1976. That movie was actually one of three films made about the raid (there were two American movies made around the same time). But it was the only one that accurately depicted the Ugandan military equipped with AK-47s. Another film released in 2018, 7 Days in Entebbe<\/em>, features AK-47s in the hands of the Ugandans as well as the hijackers\/terrorists.\n\n\"Kirk<\/a>\n\nWhile not exactly an \u201caction star,\u201d Kirk Douglas, who famously played Spartacus, has the largely forgotten distinction of being the first American actor to use an AK-47 in a film. He briefly carried one in the 1978 Brian De Palma horror thriller The Fury<\/em>. Scenes were filmed in Israel, and again, captured firearms were provided by the film\u2019s armorers, hence the AK-47 made its American big-screen debut to little, if any, fanfare.\n\nHowever, a wave of Vietnam War films made in the 1980s brought attention to the AK-47. But again, due to the ban, American filmmakers typically made do with the Chinese Norinco Type 56. Today it\u2019s often easy to spot these, as many featured a folding bayonet\u2014something true AK-47s never had. The overall shape of the gun was close enough for many filmmakers. After all, few Americans had even heard of the firearm.\n\nIt wasn\u2019t until the 1986 Chuck Norris film Delta Force<\/em>, utilizing Israeli armorers, that American producers finally included real AK-47s. The producers of Rambo III<\/em>, released in 1988, also turned to Israeli armorers, and that film also featured real AK-47s. However, both Delta Force <\/em>and Rambo III<\/em> still relied on Type 56 stand-ins as well. A limited number of AK-47s were available at the time.\n

The Empire Crumbles<\/h3>\nWith the fall of the Soviet Union, vast quantities of AK-47s were suddenly available. And the embargo on the importation of the firearm ended. Throughout the 1990s, real Soviet-vintage AK-47s were finally available for use in movies.\n\nBut even so, in the firearm\u2019s most famous shootout in the movie Lord of War<\/em>, the pivotal scene still lacked sufficient actual AK-47s. When Nicholas Cage\u2019s character is in a weapons arsenal in Ukraine inspecting the firearms, those are actually SA Vz. 58 automatic rifles produced in the Czech Republic. While the Vz. 58 is similar to the AK-47 externally, the two weapons feature no common parts, including the magazine.\n\nThe reason for these stand-ins is that, while the scene was set in Ukraine in 1991, it was actually filmed outside of Prague in 2004. According to the director, Andrew Niccol, in the DVD commentary, those were real guns rented from a real arms dealer, as it was cheaper for the production to rent 3,000 real guns than to rent 3,000 blank-converted props!\n

Hollywood Goes AK<\/h3>\nIn the 1990s the firearm also began catching the eye of movie and TV producers, video game makers and rappers. The gun<\/a> became so iconic that you\u2019ve already seen it in various TV shows. In the pilot episode of The Sopranos<\/em>, Carmela actually wielded one.\u00a0The AK-47 has made appearances in Breaking Bad<\/em>, Tyrant<\/em> and The Night Manager<\/em>, among countless other TV shows.\n\nRapper King Lil G may have one of the most famous songs about the firearm, aptly named \u201cAK47.\u201d Meanwhile, Lil Wayne\u2019s track \u201cKill\u201d calls out the firearm repeatedly. But it was actually the ska band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones who first mentioned the AK-47; it happened in the song \u201cGuns and the Young\u201d way back in 1992. Such diverse musical artists as British glam rockers Manic Street Preachers, industrial band KMFDM and heavy metal\u2019s Megadeth have all written songs that include the AK-47. It\u2019s a firearm that has managed to transcend music genres as easily as an electric guitar.\n\n[in_content post=\"198193\" alignment=\"align-right\" \/]\n

Toasting The AK-47<\/h3>\nAs the inventor of the AK-47, Mikhail Kalashnikov never made any direct profits from the production of the AK-47. But the weapons designer said he was always more motivated by the calling to serve to his country than money. Despite that fact, he owned 33 percent of the German company Marken Marketing International. The company revamped the trademarks and produces merchandise with the Kalashnikov name, including vodka, umbrellas, and knives.\n\n\"Kalashnikov<\/a>\n\nA total of 13,000 special AK-47-shaped bottles of Kalashnikov vodka were produced and shipped in wooden boxes designed to look like Cold War rifle crates. These were only exported from Russia to Australia, so they have become extremely popular among collectors.\n\nOther companies have cashed in on the AK-47, producing their own rifle-shaped bottles. It was part of a wave of spirit imports, including a Red Army Vodka bottle shaped like an artillery shell. Another similar brand offered its vodka in a bottle shaped like a Soviet Red Army canteen. Clearly, the spirit of Kalashnikov lives on in spirits as well as firearms.\n\nThis article is from the March 2019 issue of Tactical Life magazine. Grab your copy at <\/em>OutdoorGroupStore.com<\/em><\/a>. For digital editions, visit\u00a0<\/em>Amazon<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong>","post_title":"How the AK-47 Became a Pop Culture Firearms Icon","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"kalashnikov-pop-culture-firearms-icon","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2023-05-31 16:16:57","post_modified_gmt":"2023-05-31 16:16:57","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.athlonoutdoors.com\/2019\/07\/15\/kalashnikov-pop-culture-firearms-icon\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":128194,"post_author":"180","post_date":"2019-06-14 08:08:51","post_date_gmt":"2019-06-14 12:08:51","post_content":"\n\nWhat does a government do when it has hundreds of millions of rounds of surplus ammunition? A logical choice is to build a weapon to shoot that ammo. After Yugoslavia had built 1.2 million Zastava M48 bolt-action rifles<\/a> from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, the Yugoslav army needed a modern rifle to put its hoard of 8x57mm Mauser ammo to use. Specifically, the Yugoslavs wanted a semi-automatic squad DMR, and the M76 was born.\n\n[in_content post=\"203893\" alignment=\"align-left\" \/]\n\nWhen the Soviets designed the SVD, or Dragunov, they chambered it for the powerful 7.62x54mm rimmed cartridge. That helped the Soviets use their stores of ammunition and manufacturing capabilities to create more rounds originally designed for the 1891 Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle. Faced with similar circumstances, the independent-minded Yugoslavs went another route.\n\nSeveral years ago, Zastava Arms began exporting M76s, which the company had been building for years. Based on the AK-47, the M76 looks like a longer, stretched-out version. One American importer brought several M76 systems into the U.S. and then sold them to the public. Afterward, the BATFE\u2019s technical branch found a way to label the M76 as a prohibited weapon. The agency discovered that those first imported M76 rifles retained the auto sear feature, qualifying the rifle as a machine gun in its eyes, even though the M76 was never intended to be fired in full-auto. (That qualification is applied to any semi-auto with an auto sear or with a cutout in the receiver to accept one.) Ultimately, the BATFE tracked down every one of the M76 rifles that had been sold and then confiscated and destroyed them.\n

M76: The AK Blueprint<\/h3>\nIt appears the engineers at Zastava had taken the Communist-supplied technical data package for the AK-47 and scaled it up for the 8x57mm cartridge. They ignored the auto sear feature and left it as part of the M76\u2019s design.\n\nFast-forward several years. Century Arms of Delray Beach, Florida, figured out how to offer the M76 legally to the public. Steven Kehaya, Century\u2019s engineering and product development manager, had the company mill new, legal-for-sale semi-auto receivers and make new 4140 ordnance steel barrels. Using the new barrels and receivers, along with TAPCO trigger assemblies and refurbished M76 parts kits, Century Arms built the M76 Sporter rifle\u2014a gun any serious ComBloc-firearms aficionado would want to own. And while this was a few years ago, and Century no longer offers the gun in its current catalog, you can still find the model on the secondary market.\n

Sporter Specs<\/h3>\nCentury\u2019s M76 Sporter precisely matches the specifications of the original M76. Without a magazine or optic, the M76 weighs 10.25 pounds. Its overall length is 44.5 inches, and the 21.5-inch, button-rifled barrel is cut with four grooves and has a 1-in-9.5-inch right-hand twist rate. The buttstock, pistol grip and upper and lower handguards are made of native teak. The stock on my test sample looked like it lacked a sealing finish; either it was removed in the refurbishing process or had never been applied.\n\nThe M76 Sporter can fire 8x57mm Mauser ammunition with a variation in muzzle pressure by virtue of a three-position gas regulator. That also lets the rifle keep running when dirty. The regulator is adjusted by rotating a ring held in place with a spring clip. The test rifle arrived with the regulator in the first position, and testing was conducted without adjusting the gas setting. A sling attachment point is attached to the front of the gas block assembly. A corresponding rear sling attachment with two wooden screws is located on the bottom of the buttstock.\n

M76 Gas Piston System<\/h3>\nWhen the rifle is fired, powder gases are diverted into the gas cylinder on top of the barrel. The elongated AK-style piston drives to the rear, and the bolt carrier, which is attached to the piston extension, travels back until gas pressure drops. When the bolt carrier is on its way back, it resets the hammer. The recoil spring, which is compressed on the backstroke of the bolt carrier, strips a fresh round from the magazine and chambers it. When the bolt comes to rest, the bolt carrier continues forward a little more than 0.5 centimeters while the bolt\u2019s two locking lugs engage the recesses in the barrel extension. The trigger mechanism in the M76 Sporter finds its inspiration in the M1 Garand<\/a>. Close inspection reveals that the trigger uses a twisted, multi-strand mainspring.\n

AK-Type Controls<\/h3>\nThe AK-type safety selector is on the right side of the receiver. As with the AK-47, the fully up position is \u201csafe\u201d and fully down is \u201cfire.\u201d The magazine latch is a paddle, and magazines must be rotated into position like AK magazines. The rifle\u2019s 10-round, sheet-metal magazines use a staggered-column, dual-position feeding style that incorporates a stainless follower. My test rifle came with two magazines.\n\nThe AKM-style front sight is threaded and has a cylindrical post with protective lobes. The front sight is adjustable for windage and elevation, using specifically designed tools or a simple punch and hammer. Underneath the front sight assembly is a bayonet-mounting lug. I can\u2019t fathom why a sniper rifle needs a bayonet, but the M76 Sporter has one. I guess it makes as much sense as some of the Japanese crew-served machine guns that wore bayonets during World War II. If you\u2019re familiar with the flash suppressor on a U.S. M14 or some FN FAL variants, you\u2019ll recognize some similarities to the M76\u2019s muzzle device, which carries five equally spaced slots that do a fair job of cutting muzzle blast and flash signature.\n\nThe rear sight is a sliding tangent type with an open notch. Like all European rifles, the rear sight is user-adjustable for elevation out to 1,000 meters in 100-meter increments. Just behind the 100-meter mark is the battle-sight setting, which equals the 300-meter sighting position for 198-grain, 7.92x57mm Yugoslav M49 ball ammunition.\n\nAlong with the pair of magazines, my test rifle came with a Yugoslav wire-cutting AKM bayonet. In application, the bayonet is mounted on the rifle, and the hole in the blade is indexed with the lug on the scabbard. Hook the scissors-like apparatus over a wire, and then level the rifle down to shear it.\u00a0<\/strong>\n

On Target<\/h3>\nCentury offered the M76 Sporter with an original-issue 4X ZRAK ON-M76 scope with a range-finding reticle. The top center chevron in the scope\u2019s field of view is used as the main aiming mark. The horizontal hash marks are for windage and lead corrections and can be used as mil marks for ranging, too. In the bottom-left corner, a stadiametric rangefinder correlates to a 5\u20199\u201d tall man and can be used to determine distances from 200 to 800 meters.\n\nThose familiar with the PSO-1 scope fielded on the Russian SVD and Romanian PSL will recognize the ZRAK\u2019s reticle. The idea is to put the baseline at the target\u2019s feet, and the corresponding stadia will line up with his head. Then it\u2019s just a matter of reading the distance to the target, dialing in the scope\u2019s elevation and sending a 198-grain M49 FMJ on its way. This optic was developed with a tritium power module to light the reticle. Because the half-life of tritium is shorter than 13 years, it degraded below the point of illumination long ago. The lighted portion of the reticle no longer works.\n\nTo mount the ZRAK ON-M76 scope, a side rail that accepts an alloy dovetail mount with a clamping lever is permanently attached to the left wall of the rifle\u2019s receiver. This mounting bracket also allows you to use night-vision scopes and other optics. The mount can be detached from the receiver rail quickly by moving the locking lever from the front to the rear. The scope remains zeroed when removed and then reinstalled. During rifle cleaning chores, the scope can be removed so you can access to the receiver cover and bolt carrier. This rifle\u2019s AKM-type iron sights can be used with the scope in place.\n

Live Fire<\/h3>\nCurious about the M76 Sporter\u2019s capabilities, I set a target on my 100-yard backstop and rested the rifle on front and rear bags for support. A Shooting Chrony Beta Master chronograph set 15 feet from the muzzle measured velocities.\n\n[in_content post=\"203818\" alignment=\"align-right\" \/]\n\nAfter zeroing the rifle with 198-grain Yugoslav M49 sniper rounds, I fired 10 five-shot groups. The average group size was 3.25 inches. This ammunition comes Berdan primed, brass cased and corrosive. The headstamps on the rounds varied from 1947 to 1954. Note that any shooting session with corrosive ammunition should be followed with a thorough barrel cleaning. A 10-shot string fired across the chronograph averaged 2,392 fps.\n\nTo give the M76 a good comparative testing with factory-loaded American ammunition, I used Winchester\u2019s 170-grain spire-point (SP) hunting load. The average of four groups showed that this load was rather consistent at 3.39 inches. One of Hornady\u2019s 8mm bullets is a 196-grain BTHP that seems tailor-made for this rifle. So I cooked up a handload using resized Winchester brass, CCI 200 large rifle primers and 46 grains of Varget powder. The average group size here was just under 2.3 inches.\n\nWhen you\u2019re ready to own a piece of history that saw service on both sides during the Balkan civil wars, an M76 Sporter is the only way you can do it in America today. The M76 Sporter was a hot seller for Century Arms, owing to its desirability as a scaled-up AK designed for sniper. And, again, while the company no longer offers the rifle directly, check secondary sources online. You\u2019ll be glad you did.\n\nFor more information, visit centuryarms.com.\n

Century M76 Sporter Specifications<\/h3>\n

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Final Thoughts on the Chinese AK<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve gotten crappy products from China, it\u2019s because the company that had them made does not care about you or your customer satisfaction. It\u2019s not because the Chinese are incapable of producing high-quality products. The Polytech AKs are a testament to that. So, if you are smart, start searching those small-town gun shows and maybe you will find a gem of a Chinese AK hidden in the \u201cChinese Junk\/Commie Shit\u201d pile. Or maybe, like me, you are praying that our new President will open up the gates so that we can get more awesome guns from China again. One can only hope \u2014 BC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We love to talk guns on the air. Check out Skillset Live HERE<\/a> or wherever you download your favorite podcasts! Also, be sure to grab a copy of Skillset Magazine at OutdoorGroupStore.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","post_title":"Chinese AK: 7 Variants and What Makes Them All Different","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"chinese-ak-variants","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2023-10-31 23:13:26","post_modified_gmt":"2023-11-01 03:13:26","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.athlonoutdoors.com\/article\/chinese-ak-variants\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":127952,"post_author":"608","post_date":"2019-07-15 10:28:20","post_date_gmt":"2019-07-15 14:28:20","post_content":"Thanks to modern movies, TV shows, and, most notably, video games, the AK-47 is arguably one of the most famous firearms ever made. The now infamous AK-47 was probably best summed up in the 2005 Nicholas Cage film Lord of War.<\/em> In\u00a0the opening sequence, Cage\u2019s character, Yuri Orlov, offers the following monologue:\n\n[in_content post=\"205509\" alignment=\"align-left\" \/]\n\n\u201cOf all the weapons in the vast Soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova<\/em> model of 1947, more commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It\u2019s the world\u2019s most popular assault rifle, a weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9-pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood, it doesn\u2019t break, jam or overheat. It\u2019ll shoot whether it\u2019s covered in mud or filled with sand. It\u2019s so easy even a child can use it, and they do.\u201d\n\nAs the above monologue continues, Cage\u2019s character adds the facts that the Soviets put the AK-47 on a coin, and Mozambique had it on its flag. Today, it enjoys recognition as the digital gun of choice among video gamers around the world. Hip hop sons mention its name; countless movies show it.\n

AK Stand-Ins<\/strong><\/h3>\nYet, while the AK-47 is famous today, less than 40 years ago, it was largely unknown to most people outside of military circles. Even as American soldiers faced it in Vietnam, few back home knew much, if anything, about this firearm. It wasn\u2019t really until the late 1980s that the AK-47 got its close-up in movies.\n\nPrior to the 1990s, the AK-47 was a favorite among insurgents and revolutionaries, but even in movies depicting those soldiers, the AK-47 rarely appeared. Not a single AK-47 is even seen in the 1968 John Wayne film The Green Berets.<\/em> That would remain true for many of the early Vietnam War films to follow.\n\nThe U.S. government actually had a ban on all weapons imported from the Warsaw Pact nations during the Cold War (between 1947 and 1989), and as a result, actual AK-47s weren\u2019t available. The AK-47s used in Apocalypse Now <\/em>were in fact Chinese Norinco Type 56 copies of the AK-47, and until the late 1980s, this would be as close as most Western filmmakers could get.\n\nMeanwhile, even in the Soviet Union, the AK-47 was seldom the star. It\u2019s generally believed that the AK-47\u2019s first appearance in a movie actually came in 1956 in the Soviet-made romantic comedy Maksim Perepelitsa<\/em>. The weapon is seen in a few scenes when the title character serves in the Red Army. This movie wasn\u2019t even screened outside of Russia until the end of the Cold War, and even today, it\u2019s almost impossible to find on home video.\n\n\"Kalashnikov<\/a>\n

Covert Kalashnikov<\/h3>\nHowever, it is noteworthy that Soviet military censors even allowed AK-47s to be used at all, as Western military leaders only knew that the Red Army had issued a new select-fire rifle. Even in the intelligence community, little was known about it.\n\nThat film actually came out a year before the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, an event that has largely been credited as the first time Western military analysts were able to take note of what had been only a rumored Soviet automatic weapon at the time. What is also noteworthy is that it would be nearly two decades before the AK-47 appeared in any movie outside of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe United States\u2019 ban on Warsaw Pact weapons actually kept the AK-47 from getting its close-up even in films about Vietnam, but the Israel Defense Forces managed to capture thousands of the assault rifles in the Six-Day War of 1967 and the subsequent Yom Kippur War of 1973. As a result, many of these were lent or sold to the country\u2019s film industry.\n

Big-Screen Debut<\/h3>\nThe first \u201cWestern\u201d film to feature a true AK-47 was the 1977 Israeli-made feature Operation Thunderbolt; <\/em>it\u00a0chronicled the daring Israeli commando raid on the Entebbe Airport on July 4, 1976. That movie was actually one of three films made about the raid (there were two American movies made around the same time). But it was the only one that accurately depicted the Ugandan military equipped with AK-47s. Another film released in 2018, 7 Days in Entebbe<\/em>, features AK-47s in the hands of the Ugandans as well as the hijackers\/terrorists.\n\n\"Kirk<\/a>\n\nWhile not exactly an \u201caction star,\u201d Kirk Douglas, who famously played Spartacus, has the largely forgotten distinction of being the first American actor to use an AK-47 in a film. He briefly carried one in the 1978 Brian De Palma horror thriller The Fury<\/em>. Scenes were filmed in Israel, and again, captured firearms were provided by the film\u2019s armorers, hence the AK-47 made its American big-screen debut to little, if any, fanfare.\n\nHowever, a wave of Vietnam War films made in the 1980s brought attention to the AK-47. But again, due to the ban, American filmmakers typically made do with the Chinese Norinco Type 56. Today it\u2019s often easy to spot these, as many featured a folding bayonet\u2014something true AK-47s never had. The overall shape of the gun was close enough for many filmmakers. After all, few Americans had even heard of the firearm.\n\nIt wasn\u2019t until the 1986 Chuck Norris film Delta Force<\/em>, utilizing Israeli armorers, that American producers finally included real AK-47s. The producers of Rambo III<\/em>, released in 1988, also turned to Israeli armorers, and that film also featured real AK-47s. However, both Delta Force <\/em>and Rambo III<\/em> still relied on Type 56 stand-ins as well. A limited number of AK-47s were available at the time.\n

The Empire Crumbles<\/h3>\nWith the fall of the Soviet Union, vast quantities of AK-47s were suddenly available. And the embargo on the importation of the firearm ended. Throughout the 1990s, real Soviet-vintage AK-47s were finally available for use in movies.\n\nBut even so, in the firearm\u2019s most famous shootout in the movie Lord of War<\/em>, the pivotal scene still lacked sufficient actual AK-47s. When Nicholas Cage\u2019s character is in a weapons arsenal in Ukraine inspecting the firearms, those are actually SA Vz. 58 automatic rifles produced in the Czech Republic. While the Vz. 58 is similar to the AK-47 externally, the two weapons feature no common parts, including the magazine.\n\nThe reason for these stand-ins is that, while the scene was set in Ukraine in 1991, it was actually filmed outside of Prague in 2004. According to the director, Andrew Niccol, in the DVD commentary, those were real guns rented from a real arms dealer, as it was cheaper for the production to rent 3,000 real guns than to rent 3,000 blank-converted props!\n

Hollywood Goes AK<\/h3>\nIn the 1990s the firearm also began catching the eye of movie and TV producers, video game makers and rappers. The gun<\/a> became so iconic that you\u2019ve already seen it in various TV shows. In the pilot episode of The Sopranos<\/em>, Carmela actually wielded one.\u00a0The AK-47 has made appearances in Breaking Bad<\/em>, Tyrant<\/em> and The Night Manager<\/em>, among countless other TV shows.\n\nRapper King Lil G may have one of the most famous songs about the firearm, aptly named \u201cAK47.\u201d Meanwhile, Lil Wayne\u2019s track \u201cKill\u201d calls out the firearm repeatedly. But it was actually the ska band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones who first mentioned the AK-47; it happened in the song \u201cGuns and the Young\u201d way back in 1992. Such diverse musical artists as British glam rockers Manic Street Preachers, industrial band KMFDM and heavy metal\u2019s Megadeth have all written songs that include the AK-47. It\u2019s a firearm that has managed to transcend music genres as easily as an electric guitar.\n\n[in_content post=\"198193\" alignment=\"align-right\" \/]\n

Toasting The AK-47<\/h3>\nAs the inventor of the AK-47, Mikhail Kalashnikov never made any direct profits from the production of the AK-47. But the weapons designer said he was always more motivated by the calling to serve to his country than money. Despite that fact, he owned 33 percent of the German company Marken Marketing International. The company revamped the trademarks and produces merchandise with the Kalashnikov name, including vodka, umbrellas, and knives.\n\n\"Kalashnikov<\/a>\n\nA total of 13,000 special AK-47-shaped bottles of Kalashnikov vodka were produced and shipped in wooden boxes designed to look like Cold War rifle crates. These were only exported from Russia to Australia, so they have become extremely popular among collectors.\n\nOther companies have cashed in on the AK-47, producing their own rifle-shaped bottles. It was part of a wave of spirit imports, including a Red Army Vodka bottle shaped like an artillery shell. Another similar brand offered its vodka in a bottle shaped like a Soviet Red Army canteen. Clearly, the spirit of Kalashnikov lives on in spirits as well as firearms.\n\nThis article is from the March 2019 issue of Tactical Life magazine. Grab your copy at <\/em>OutdoorGroupStore.com<\/em><\/a>. For digital editions, visit\u00a0<\/em>Amazon<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong>","post_title":"How the AK-47 Became a Pop Culture Firearms Icon","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"kalashnikov-pop-culture-firearms-icon","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2023-05-31 16:16:57","post_modified_gmt":"2023-05-31 16:16:57","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.athlonoutdoors.com\/2019\/07\/15\/kalashnikov-pop-culture-firearms-icon\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":128194,"post_author":"180","post_date":"2019-06-14 08:08:51","post_date_gmt":"2019-06-14 12:08:51","post_content":"\n\nWhat does a government do when it has hundreds of millions of rounds of surplus ammunition? A logical choice is to build a weapon to shoot that ammo. After Yugoslavia had built 1.2 million Zastava M48 bolt-action rifles<\/a> from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, the Yugoslav army needed a modern rifle to put its hoard of 8x57mm Mauser ammo to use. Specifically, the Yugoslavs wanted a semi-automatic squad DMR, and the M76 was born.\n\n[in_content post=\"203893\" alignment=\"align-left\" \/]\n\nWhen the Soviets designed the SVD, or Dragunov, they chambered it for the powerful 7.62x54mm rimmed cartridge. That helped the Soviets use their stores of ammunition and manufacturing capabilities to create more rounds originally designed for the 1891 Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle. Faced with similar circumstances, the independent-minded Yugoslavs went another route.\n\nSeveral years ago, Zastava Arms began exporting M76s, which the company had been building for years. Based on the AK-47, the M76 looks like a longer, stretched-out version. One American importer brought several M76 systems into the U.S. and then sold them to the public. Afterward, the BATFE\u2019s technical branch found a way to label the M76 as a prohibited weapon. The agency discovered that those first imported M76 rifles retained the auto sear feature, qualifying the rifle as a machine gun in its eyes, even though the M76 was never intended to be fired in full-auto. (That qualification is applied to any semi-auto with an auto sear or with a cutout in the receiver to accept one.) Ultimately, the BATFE tracked down every one of the M76 rifles that had been sold and then confiscated and destroyed them.\n

M76: The AK Blueprint<\/h3>\nIt appears the engineers at Zastava had taken the Communist-supplied technical data package for the AK-47 and scaled it up for the 8x57mm cartridge. They ignored the auto sear feature and left it as part of the M76\u2019s design.\n\nFast-forward several years. Century Arms of Delray Beach, Florida, figured out how to offer the M76 legally to the public. Steven Kehaya, Century\u2019s engineering and product development manager, had the company mill new, legal-for-sale semi-auto receivers and make new 4140 ordnance steel barrels. Using the new barrels and receivers, along with TAPCO trigger assemblies and refurbished M76 parts kits, Century Arms built the M76 Sporter rifle\u2014a gun any serious ComBloc-firearms aficionado would want to own. And while this was a few years ago, and Century no longer offers the gun in its current catalog, you can still find the model on the secondary market.\n

Sporter Specs<\/h3>\nCentury\u2019s M76 Sporter precisely matches the specifications of the original M76. Without a magazine or optic, the M76 weighs 10.25 pounds. Its overall length is 44.5 inches, and the 21.5-inch, button-rifled barrel is cut with four grooves and has a 1-in-9.5-inch right-hand twist rate. The buttstock, pistol grip and upper and lower handguards are made of native teak. The stock on my test sample looked like it lacked a sealing finish; either it was removed in the refurbishing process or had never been applied.\n\nThe M76 Sporter can fire 8x57mm Mauser ammunition with a variation in muzzle pressure by virtue of a three-position gas regulator. That also lets the rifle keep running when dirty. The regulator is adjusted by rotating a ring held in place with a spring clip. The test rifle arrived with the regulator in the first position, and testing was conducted without adjusting the gas setting. A sling attachment point is attached to the front of the gas block assembly. A corresponding rear sling attachment with two wooden screws is located on the bottom of the buttstock.\n

M76 Gas Piston System<\/h3>\nWhen the rifle is fired, powder gases are diverted into the gas cylinder on top of the barrel. The elongated AK-style piston drives to the rear, and the bolt carrier, which is attached to the piston extension, travels back until gas pressure drops. When the bolt carrier is on its way back, it resets the hammer. The recoil spring, which is compressed on the backstroke of the bolt carrier, strips a fresh round from the magazine and chambers it. When the bolt comes to rest, the bolt carrier continues forward a little more than 0.5 centimeters while the bolt\u2019s two locking lugs engage the recesses in the barrel extension. The trigger mechanism in the M76 Sporter finds its inspiration in the M1 Garand<\/a>. Close inspection reveals that the trigger uses a twisted, multi-strand mainspring.\n

AK-Type Controls<\/h3>\nThe AK-type safety selector is on the right side of the receiver. As with the AK-47, the fully up position is \u201csafe\u201d and fully down is \u201cfire.\u201d The magazine latch is a paddle, and magazines must be rotated into position like AK magazines. The rifle\u2019s 10-round, sheet-metal magazines use a staggered-column, dual-position feeding style that incorporates a stainless follower. My test rifle came with two magazines.\n\nThe AKM-style front sight is threaded and has a cylindrical post with protective lobes. The front sight is adjustable for windage and elevation, using specifically designed tools or a simple punch and hammer. Underneath the front sight assembly is a bayonet-mounting lug. I can\u2019t fathom why a sniper rifle needs a bayonet, but the M76 Sporter has one. I guess it makes as much sense as some of the Japanese crew-served machine guns that wore bayonets during World War II. If you\u2019re familiar with the flash suppressor on a U.S. M14 or some FN FAL variants, you\u2019ll recognize some similarities to the M76\u2019s muzzle device, which carries five equally spaced slots that do a fair job of cutting muzzle blast and flash signature.\n\nThe rear sight is a sliding tangent type with an open notch. Like all European rifles, the rear sight is user-adjustable for elevation out to 1,000 meters in 100-meter increments. Just behind the 100-meter mark is the battle-sight setting, which equals the 300-meter sighting position for 198-grain, 7.92x57mm Yugoslav M49 ball ammunition.\n\nAlong with the pair of magazines, my test rifle came with a Yugoslav wire-cutting AKM bayonet. In application, the bayonet is mounted on the rifle, and the hole in the blade is indexed with the lug on the scabbard. Hook the scissors-like apparatus over a wire, and then level the rifle down to shear it.\u00a0<\/strong>\n

On Target<\/h3>\nCentury offered the M76 Sporter with an original-issue 4X ZRAK ON-M76 scope with a range-finding reticle. The top center chevron in the scope\u2019s field of view is used as the main aiming mark. The horizontal hash marks are for windage and lead corrections and can be used as mil marks for ranging, too. In the bottom-left corner, a stadiametric rangefinder correlates to a 5\u20199\u201d tall man and can be used to determine distances from 200 to 800 meters.\n\nThose familiar with the PSO-1 scope fielded on the Russian SVD and Romanian PSL will recognize the ZRAK\u2019s reticle. The idea is to put the baseline at the target\u2019s feet, and the corresponding stadia will line up with his head. Then it\u2019s just a matter of reading the distance to the target, dialing in the scope\u2019s elevation and sending a 198-grain M49 FMJ on its way. This optic was developed with a tritium power module to light the reticle. Because the half-life of tritium is shorter than 13 years, it degraded below the point of illumination long ago. The lighted portion of the reticle no longer works.\n\nTo mount the ZRAK ON-M76 scope, a side rail that accepts an alloy dovetail mount with a clamping lever is permanently attached to the left wall of the rifle\u2019s receiver. This mounting bracket also allows you to use night-vision scopes and other optics. The mount can be detached from the receiver rail quickly by moving the locking lever from the front to the rear. The scope remains zeroed when removed and then reinstalled. During rifle cleaning chores, the scope can be removed so you can access to the receiver cover and bolt carrier. This rifle\u2019s AKM-type iron sights can be used with the scope in place.\n

Live Fire<\/h3>\nCurious about the M76 Sporter\u2019s capabilities, I set a target on my 100-yard backstop and rested the rifle on front and rear bags for support. A Shooting Chrony Beta Master chronograph set 15 feet from the muzzle measured velocities.\n\n[in_content post=\"203818\" alignment=\"align-right\" \/]\n\nAfter zeroing the rifle with 198-grain Yugoslav M49 sniper rounds, I fired 10 five-shot groups. The average group size was 3.25 inches. This ammunition comes Berdan primed, brass cased and corrosive. The headstamps on the rounds varied from 1947 to 1954. Note that any shooting session with corrosive ammunition should be followed with a thorough barrel cleaning. A 10-shot string fired across the chronograph averaged 2,392 fps.\n\nTo give the M76 a good comparative testing with factory-loaded American ammunition, I used Winchester\u2019s 170-grain spire-point (SP) hunting load. The average of four groups showed that this load was rather consistent at 3.39 inches. One of Hornady\u2019s 8mm bullets is a 196-grain BTHP that seems tailor-made for this rifle. So I cooked up a handload using resized Winchester brass, CCI 200 large rifle primers and 46 grains of Varget powder. The average group size here was just under 2.3 inches.\n\nWhen you\u2019re ready to own a piece of history that saw service on both sides during the Balkan civil wars, an M76 Sporter is the only way you can do it in America today. The M76 Sporter was a hot seller for Century Arms, owing to its desirability as a scaled-up AK designed for sniper. And, again, while the company no longer offers the rifle directly, check secondary sources online. You\u2019ll be glad you did.\n\nFor more information, visit centuryarms.com.\n

Century M76 Sporter Specifications<\/h3>\n