Posted on 04/27/2015 1:14:39 PM PDT by DJ Taylor
Amazingly simple = approaching what people using FALs, AKs and other piston guns have had for decades. :P
The AK74 is not my favorite rifle ... well, except for my target .22 magnum bolt gun from Marlin.
Perhaps, but it is stupidly easy to clean and ridiculously reliable - two things the AR just isn’t.
It’s also gas piston drive, just like the FAL, Garand and pretty much every other great battle rifle since the first World War.
I used to have a Swedish Ljungman semi-auto in 6.5X55.
It was a real oddball and I am not sure I ever really figured out how it worked. It used a direct impingement gas system well before the AR-15.
It’s magazine was intended to stay with the rifle and was very heavy duty, but looking at it you could see how easy it would have been to change to 20 or 30 round magazines. The magazines were already easy to remove tho I have no idea why.
It frankly looked a little clunky but you forgot that when you shot it. It was as sweet shooting as any rifle I have ever fired and also unusually accurate. At 50 yards with the open sights, I could put them all in one large hole.
The gas system could be regulated and not just two or three notches. It had a lot of adjustment. When I got mine it was throwing Norma brass around 20 feet so I closed it one notice and that made it throw them only around 10 feet. Probably could have closed it another notch and still been reliable.
To repeat the most important thing. “It was a sweet shooter”.
You had an Egyptian copy then, right? The dialable gas system was an Egyptian addition according to the youtube history of the rifle. But it is a cool design!
I had an Egyptian one too but it was in 8mm Mauser. I still remember adjusting the 6.5X55 model made in Sweden. It even came with a tool similar to the tool I had used in College to remove spikes from my track shoes.
Both models were sweet shooting.
The more I think about it, I am beginning to doubt my memory. Maybe it was the Egyptian one and in my memory I changed them.
I do remember the tool quite well and it seems it does go with the Egyptian one.
But what an innovative design it was! No doubt Stoner took the lessons.
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