Posted on 12/23/2013 8:41:52 AM PST by kronos77
he inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has died aged 94, Russian TV reports.
The automatic rifle he designed became one of the world's most familiar and widely used weapons.
Its comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable and easy to maintain.
Although honoured by the state, Kalashnikov made little money from his gun. He once said he would have been better off designing a lawn mower.
Mikhail Kalashnikov was admitted to hospital with internal bleeding in November.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
knockdown power is a myth.
You can penetrate a human, but nothing remotely the size of a bullet can knock a man down.
You can penetrate certain parts. If you get his spine or brain stem he will fall, but will not be knocked down.
If you penetrate the heart or large blood vessels, comeing from it, the target will bleed out, but will not be knocked down.
Lavoisier the French Scientist who discovered oxygen was sentenced to death. His last experiment was to blink his eyes as long as possible after the knife cut his neck. It took 16 seconds for that head to die....
They used to say that Sergents teach marksmanship, lieutenants study tactics, and generals study logistics.
TR was looking around an 11 inch thick tree in Cuba, and the tree was drilled by a 7mm Mauser, filling his ear with sawdust.
He said that if he had not been looking around the tree he would have been killed.
He also said that men who were shot by the 7mm Mauser if shot in the head, heart or spine were killed quickly, if they were hit elsewhere, they lived and recovered suprisingly quickly.
Rest in peace, Mikhail. I know a few guys who love the AK.
That being said, I’ll take my HK91 over an AK any day.
When I lived in the midwest I bought a WW1 “Spanish” 7mm Mauser carbine AND 500rds of WW1 era fmj ammo for about $70.
I took most of the forestock wood off, shaved down the rest, stained it black and had a gunsmith replace the clunky block & toggle sights with peep sights for about $30. Result was the Ugly Stick. Ugliest rifle you ever saw, but a tack driver and a critter gitter, and just about indestructible...plus with most of the wood removed a light carry on long forays. Had it for a decade and then gave it to a friend’s kid as his first deer rifle when I moved offshore.
BTW out of that 500rds? Only two misfires in the lot, but I also discarded about eight or ten that had visible cracking around the neck. Good deal.
I've seen the video of just that. However, it was still firing!
Except it isn’t actually a Kalashnikov pattern weapon. While the system was clearly inspired by the AK mechanism, there are major differences that take it out of the AK family. The recoil spring isn’t in the receiver, it’s in the gas tube wrapped around the piston. The trigger and safety mechanisms are also completely different and resemble the HK G3’s. No parts interchange, either. And the 540 is less reliable than the AK. Did I mention that it was made in France by Manheurin?
To say the 540 is an AK is like saying the Chevrolet small block V8 is a Ford flathead V8.
I think it gets a lot less accurate once the forend is on fire.
Yes and no. The best auto comparison to the AK as far as simplicity, reliability, style, serviceability and longevity would be a slant six Valiant!
You can call it knock down power, you can call it stopping power, you can call it lethality, or whatever semantics you want.
At the end of the day, from my personal experience, and others that I know, 7.62x39 and 7.62x54 is more effective at incapacitating/killing than 5.56x54 rounds.
I have also seen from personal experience U.S. troops, engaged with the enemy, pick up enemy weapons for use against the enemy.
How long some french bastard blinked his eyes after he was decapitated has nothing to do with it.
RIP
Generally, soldiers are very impressed with the effectiveness of enemy weapons, as they see the effects on themselves and their buddies.
They are less impressed with the effect of their own weapons, as they often don’t see the effects on the enemy.
Thanks for your service.
5.56x45, I presume you mean. There are two major varieties, the M855 (aka S109) with 62 grain round and the M193 with 55 grain round. Both work about the same, penetrating and rotating, and often fragmenting as they turn sideways. The rounds nutate (point moves like a figure from a spirograph) and may not have much pitch or yaw when they strike meat, in which case they may penetrate (through and through) without doing much damage. If they do have a bit of pitch or yaw, that permits them to turn sideways. Nearly all bullets will turn sideways (and eventually travel back end first) if the path in flesh is long enough.
7.62x54R is quite close ballisticly to 7.62x63 aka .30/06, and it reacts much the same.
7.62x39 (123 gr @ 2250 fps) is actually close to both the .30/40 (220gr@ 2000fps) with which TR’s Rough Riders went up Kettle Hill. and the 7mm Mauser (173 gr @ 2198 fps) which opposed the US. The Mauser was probably superior due to its faster clip loading, but both rounds penetrated, rather than causing much tissue damage.
In any case, my limited understanding is that a hit with one round should never be expected to take a man down, this side of a 120mm. Audi Murphy got hit once by an 81mm mortar, and survived with minor injuries. Best practice is to use the many bullets technique of engagement.
I can attest to that ... in a fashion. I met Eugene Stoner ... as a Canadian serving in the US Marine Corps in 1964. The Marine Corps was testing the '63 Stoner System and my platoon at PI was involved. Eugene Stoner visited PI while our platoon qualified at the rifle range testing his weapon system. Didn't speak to him as a recruit, of course, but I spoke with his widow some 45 years later at a PI Stoner Plt. re-union.
The AK-47 is not an “assault” weapon. It’s the most durable rifle ever invented. Nothing to field strip, not high maintenance, and can be buried for 18 years and still fire as as good as the day it was buried.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgrJElGOMMg
What would you do if your bacon is at 101 yards?
I'm pretty sure to hit something pig sized out to 200 yards without a problem with it.
/johnny
I would say I could rely on mine to 250 max. Further than that, I’m gonna have to get closer to bring home the bacon.
/johnny
It was so easy to work on the old Slant-Six in my 73 Dodge Dart.
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