The AK47, or Avtomat Kalashnikova Model 1947, is one of the most widely used, produced, and brandished weapons of modern history and certainly has proved its usefulness and reliability since its design by Mikhail Kalashnikov. Kalashnikov, now 87, designed the AK47 towards the end of World War Two; his designs were originally in fact submachine guns and evolved over time into various prototype automatic rifles until the final design bore the rifle that has become so famous today.
The AK47s origins lie within the former Soviet Union; Mikhail Kalashnikov was a tank crew member for the Red Army in World War Two and when he was designing what was to be the AK47 his goal was to arm the Red Army with a weapon that was devastatingly effective and reliable. His inspiration to arm the Red Army with a better gun came to him while he was being hospitalized for wounds he sustained in battle; the pain he felt after he witnessed many traumatizing and effective blows on Soviet infantry during the war from well armed Nazi infantry was his main motivation.
When Kalashnikov finalized his design, he submitted it to Red Army small arms trials for testing and approval to which it was accepted in 1947. There were however several modifications before it was completely adopted and produced for Soviet infantry however, mainly simplifying the design a bit to make it easier to manufacture, but the initial design was essentially kept.
The Design
The AK47 assault rifle is a gas blow back operated assault rifle, meaning for every shot fired, the same hot gas that propels the bullet down the barrel travels down into a gas tube that runs above the barrel, that gas pushes the bolt back expelling the spent cartridge and a spring on the bolt pushes it back forward loading a fresh round from the magazine to repeat the process.
The AK47 is about ten pounds, cheap to produce, and is incredibly reliable. The rifle is reliable because it is hardly effected by dust, dirt, sand, mud, and other things that cause fouling and jamming due to the copious amounts of space between the AK47s moving parts, this space allows for foreign materials in good amounts to enter the rifle and yet still maintain enough room for function; this space between moving parts is something not found too often in other firearms making the AK47 very unique in design.
The AK47 fires at a cyclic rate of 600 rounds per minute in fully automatic fire and utilizes a 7.62 millimeter diameter bullet that fires from a bottle-necked casing with a length of 39 millimeters, the advantage of this bullet is that it's relatively light weight to carry in large amounts compared to the previous Soviet full sized rifle round used in the bolt action Mosin Nagant rifles that were issued prior to the adoption of the AK47; while there are in more recent times much lighter caliber bullets than the round used in the AK47, back when the AK47 was new the bullet it fired was a very advanced design and concept.
A Misconception of the Design
It is a common misconception that Mikhail Kalashnikov's AK47 was inspired and designed after the German MP44 assault rifle, while there is much reason to believe this is true due to similarities of external appearance, as well as the fact both designs are assault rifles that utilize compact versions of previous full sized bullets, these reasons are not valid. While the MP44 did arrive on battlefields before the AK47 (the MP44 in 1944, the AK47 in 1947,) the AK47 internally is very different than that of the German MP44 and that is where true comparison of the two weapons counts.
The MP44 employs a tilting bolt roller delayed gas blow back firing mechanism, whereas the AK47 utilizes a rotating bolt gas blow back operating system. The two mechanisms are very different and if Mikhail Kalashnikov had meant to copy the design of the MP44, he would have most likely included the tilted bolt roller delayed gas blow back operation in his design. The MP44's design is also not as reliable as Kalashnikov's and is more so prone to malfunction due to jamming and parts breaking than the AK47 is, as the MP44 does not have the same wide space between moving parts that the AK47 does, as well as other reasons and factors.
It is also a misconception that the Czechoslovakian VZ58 rifle is a derivative of the AK47, this is not true as the only similarities between the AK47 and the VZ58 come from appearance and the bullets the two rifles fire, both are very different designs internally and most of the VZ58 assault rifles design can be traced back to the Soviet Union's SKS carbine, and are not nearly as unique as the AK47s.
