Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919-2013)

[Brahmanyan]

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Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, the designer of famous AK-47 Automatic Rifle died on Monday (Dec,23,2014). Kalashnikov died at age 94 in a hospital in Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurtia republic where he lived, Kalashnikov had been hospitalized for the past month with unspecified health problems.

Born on November 10, 1919, in a Siberian Village Kurya Mikhail Kalashnikov was 17th child of a peasant family. He was attracted towards machines from his younger days. After completing seventh standard, he started his life as a mechanic in a tractor station. He joined the Red Army, where because of his engineering skills he was assigned as a tank mechanic. While training, he made his first inventions, which concerned not only tanks, but also small weapons. During this period Kalashnikov had designed many small arms and weapons.

He wanted to make farm equipment but ended in making the famous combat rifle AK-47. "Blame the Nazi Germans for making me become a gun designer," said Kalashnikov. "I always wanted to construct agricultural machinery.

"The AK-47 — "Avtomat Kalashnikov" (Kalashnikov's Automatic )and the year it went into production — is the world's most popular firearm, favoured by guerrillas, terrorists and the soldiers of many armies. An estimated 100 million guns are spread worldwide." During his career, he was promoted as a General. He was decorated with numerous honours, including the Hero of Socialist Labour and Order of Lenin and Stalin Prize. But because his invention was never patented, he didn't make money out of royalties.

He said he was proud of his bronze bust installed in his native village of Kurya in the Siberian region of Altai, where newlyweds bring flowers to the bust. "They whisper `Uncle Misha, wish us happiness and healthy kids,"' he said. "What other gun designer can boast of that?"

Brahmanyan,
Bangalore.

 

[renuka]

When I saw the news today morning and upon hearing that MR AK 47 had passed on..I was wondering which Forum member is going to start a thread on it..and its no surprise Brahmanyan Ji started it as Brahmanyan Ji always has bullets for each situation.

 

[Brahmanyan]

When I saw the news today morning and upon hearing that MR AK 47 had passed on..I was wondering which Forum member is going to start a thread on it..and its no surprise Brahmanyan Ji started it as Brahmanyan Ji always has bullets for each situation.

Dear Doctor,

That's a good one. When it is from you, I take it as a compliment. Yes, you are correct, as a knowledge seeker I collect information about those people who have changed the course of history. Mikhail Kalashnikov was one among them.

Warm Regards,
Brahmanyan,
Bangalore.

 

[renuka]

I am surprised that this thread did not take off that actively..is everyone so peace loving that no one wants to talk about an AK 47?LOL

Guns and Roses are the two things that fascinate the human mind(at least mine)...both if correctly aimed goes straight to your heart!

Lesson for today is about ANATOMY(hold on hold on..not Human Anatomy)..The AK 47.




Anatomy of an AK-47

How the AK-47 became the go-to Rifle for insurgents, rebels and warlords the world over.




BY ERIN MCCARTHY




December 16, 2010 6:30 AM
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.

Avtomat Kalashnikova Modernized / 1959 / Length: 35 inches / Weight: 8 pounds

1 Stock

Designers replaced the AK-47's solid-wood stock and handgrip with less expensive and sturdier plywood in the AKM. (This model, however, has solid wood.) Guns with folding metal stocks, better for tight spaces, were made for airborne and armored-vehicle troops.

2 Trigger

The AK-47's trigger group borrows from the designs of American infantry rifle maker John C. Garand, who created the M1, and German gun maker Hugo Schmeisser, a Soviet prisoner at the time the original AK-47 was devised.

3 Receiver

The rifle's receiver anchors the integrated gas piston and the trigger group. In the 1940s, workers created the receiver by machining a 4-pound block of steel into the 1.5-pound component. "It took 150 different machine motions to make it, so there was a huge manpower loss there," Chivers says. The AKM's stamped sheet-metal receiver simplified production and reduced the rifle's weight to about 8 pounds. The integrated gas piston and bolt carrier's parts were designed to fit loosely in the receiver, making the mechanism less susceptible to the effects of carbon buildup, rust and dirt—and thus less prone to jamming. Kalashnikov claimed credit for these ideas, but they were actually adopted from other Soviet designs of the time, including Alexey Sudayev's AS-44. After Sudayev died in 1946, his "loose fit" concept was used by other designers.

4 Selector Switch

The AKM has three modes of firing regulated by the selector switch: safe, when it cannot fire; semiautomatic, for the squeezing off of single shots; and automatic, to spit lead at a rate of 700 rounds per minute.

5 Gas Piston

The AK-47's combined bolt carrier and gas piston design—taken from a competitor—gives the gun's operating system more energy. As each round is fired, gas rushes into a chamber via a port in the top of the barrel, driving back a piston that withdraws the bolt from the chamber and ejects the spent cartridge. The spring-loaded magazine forces the next cartridge into place; a return spring thrusts the piston and bolt assembly forward, chambering the cartridge and preparing the rifle to fire again. The system's stroke is 50 percent longer than necessary, so the weapon often functions even when impeded by fouling, foreign substances or lack of lubrication.

6 Magazine

The banana-shaped cartridge holder is a borrowed design, in keeping with the AK-47's cobbled-together makeup. "The curved, detachable magazine had been used on weapons of Soviet provenance, including the AS-44, an early Red Army attempt to knock off the [German] Sturmgewehr," Chivers says. But the Soviet Union found that this design was less likely to jam, in part because its shape fit the 7.62 x 39–mm round, which was tapered and stubby—unlike many types of earlier ammo, which were longer and less tapered.

7 Protective Coating

Like its intentionally loose design, the rifle's rust-resistant phosphate coating increased its reliability. In addition, the barrel and chamber were chromed on the inside, another rust retardant. Anti-corrosive features are literally life-saving; in Vietnam, the U.S. military's inadequately protected M16s often jammed because of pitting and corrosion, leaving the soldiers vulnerable to their Kalashnikov-equipped adversaries. "The U.S. Army thought they had a kind of steel that wasn't susceptible to corrosion," Chivers says. "They were wrong. After the U.S. coated the rifle and chromed the inside, the M16 did pretty well."

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[renuka]

[h=1]The Rise of the AK-47: Timeline[/h][h=2]How the AK-47 became the go-to Rifle for insurgents, rebels and warlords the world over.[/h]


BY ERIN MCCARTHY










December 16, 2010 6:30 AM

[h=3]1943[/h]
First, the cartridge: After its troops face German assault rifles in WWII, the USSR makes the M43 (7.62 x 39 mm) as a basis for a new gun.



[h=3]1945[/h]
The USSR launches a secret contest to design an automatic assault rifle—using the M43 round—at a facility near Moscow.



[h=3]1947[/h]
Designers led by Mikhail Kalashnikov create the AK-47, which is accepted as the Soviet soldier's standard weapon in 1949.

[h=3]1956[/h]
Revolutionaries in Hungary defeat Soviet troops and grab AK-47s, presaging the gun's use by rebels.



[h=3]1956[/h]
Production of China's first version of the AK-47 assault rifle, known as the Type 56, begins.

[h=3]1970[/h]
Chile's Salvador Allende becomes the West's first elected Socialist head of state; Fidel Castro gives him an AK.

[h=3]1983[/h]
Mozambique places an AK-47 on its national flag.



[h=3]1989[/h]
A movement to ban assault rifles in the U.S. begins after a man kills five schoolchildren in Stockton, Calif., with an AK copy.



[h=3]2001[/h]
Notebooks from terrorist camps across Afghanistan reveal that all trainees learn the history of AKs.



[h=3]2003[/h]
Saddam Hussein is captured in Iraq with two AK-47s, a 9-mm Glock and $750,000 in U.S. currency.

[h=3]2011[/h]
The Iraqi Army will have an arsenal consisting of Kalashnikovs and 180,000 U.S. Army–issued M16s.

 

[V.Balasubramani]

Doctor Mam,

Here, AK 47 becomes obsolete, bcos, at times, I can find some offend others thro' their postings which really have l...o.o.o.o..o..o..o...ng range and tend to cause mooooooore damage.


With regards

 

[Raji Ram]

Dear Renu,

When verbal AK 47s are in plenty, who will write about real AK 47??

ray2: May the inventor's soul :rip:.

 

[Raji Ram]

One of our members is nicknamed AK 47!

I wonder whether Renu remembers it!

 

[renuka]

One of our members is nicknamed AK 47!

I wonder whether Renu remembers it!

Dear RR ji,

Yes I know..TVK sir..but after seeing his pic..he looks too innocent..so AK47 does not match...I cant picture him holding an AK 47..he looks too innocent.

 

[renuka]

Doctor Mam,

Here, AK 47 becomes obsolete, bcos, at times, I can find some offend others thro' their postings which really have l...o.o.o.o..o..o..o...ng range and tend to cause mooooooore damage.


With regards

Dear Sir,

If you cant fight 'em..join 'em!LOL

 

[Vaagmi]

I am surprised that this thread did not take off ..............

Avtomat Kalashnikova Modernized / 1959 / Length: 35 inches / Weight: 8 pounds
1 Stock ..................

................ Chivers says. "They were wrong. After the U.S. coated the rifle and chromed the inside, the M16 did pretty well."

Renuka,

You missed two important points. Without them the write up will not be complete.

1. The name rifle is derived from the groove that is cut in the shape of a spiral inside the barrel of the gun which is otherwise very smooth. This distinguishes the rifle from an ordinary gun. This groove gives a continuous twist/spin to the fired bullet as it gains momentum untill it leaves the muzzle. This twist or spin gives the bullet extra power to cause immense damage to the target. A rifle shot wound is characteristically a small hole at the entry point and a large wound where it has exited. Thus a man getting shot on his chest will have just a hole on his chest while his entire back will be a mess where the bullet exited. Kalashnikov rifle jams very rarely and the reliability is very high because of its design.

2. The AK-47 or for that any rifle has the recoil to reckon with. As the bullet leaves the muzzle, there is a characteristic kick experienced by the handler at his shoulder if he is holding the gun but to his shoulder. This kick back usually results in the weapon jumping up at its tip thus the aim going awry for rest of the shots. This problem is come over by a design feature in which the gas released from the catridge which causes this kick is allowed to pass though holes on the side of the barrel thus reducing the retroactive force on the gun. In larger guns the streaming gas can be visually seen every time a shot is fired.

3. I have fired a AK 47 and I know what it is like.

 

[V.Balasubramani]

Dear Sir,

If you cant fight 'em..join 'em!LOL

Doctor Mam,

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[TD="align: left"]Joining ‘em :nono:

On the eve of Christmas I only remember the following:

“The Bible states that when someone hurts us, we are under an obligation to God to forgive that person. Jesus is very clear on this point"
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Regards

 

[Raji Ram]

.......... 3. I have fired a AK 47 and I know what it is like.

We can believe, Sir!

 

[V.Balasubramani]

Sir, Target...............................?

 

[Vaagmi]

Sir, Target...............................?

The brick and mortar wall in the firing range. During the period of military training.

 

[Raji Ram]

The brick and mortar wall in the firing range. During the period of military training.

The training is helpful, for sure, Sir!