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Yelena, Kalashnikov's daughter, unveiled on Tuesday a 7 meters high statue of her father holding his creation & bearing his famous phrase "I created weapons for the protection of my homeland".





I cant imagine such tribute ever happening in the western for similar engineers. Different countries, different mentalities.


https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/wha ... atue-58988

I would have preferred to see the sculptor use the original Type 1 model rather than the milled receiver type 2 or 3 they used. That is very much "in between" the original and what is the most common variant, the AKM.

I guess the T2 was more representative of what was originally issued to the Red army in large scale ?

froggy wrote:I guess the T2 was more representative of what was originally issued to the Red army in large scale ?

Yes. And the only rifle ever generally issued to a major army with a canvas cover - for the first few months they were under orders to never carry them in public unless covered !

thanks for the info Panda I did not know.
T1 or T2 , I like that statue. I like the St Michel in the background as well - Nowdays he would have unsed an AK instead of that spear ...

I could be wrong but I believe the one he is holding is a Type 1......also nice to see the AK-42 mounted on the plaque

breacher wrote:

froggy wrote:I guess the T2 was more representative of what was originally issued to the Red army in large scale ?

Yes. And the only rifle ever generally issued to a major army with a canvas cover - for the first few months they were under orders to never carry them in public unless covered !

The West was largely unaware of the AK-47 prior to the 1956 invasion of Hungary......only three years before the AKM entered service!.

The Type 1 wasn't widely issued due to production problems with the stamped receiver, which extended the service life of the SKS by a couple of years until the milled Type 2 entered service in '49.

A better more detailed shot

snayperskaya wrote:I could be wrong but I believe the one he is holding is a Type 1......also nice to see the AK-42 mounted on the plaque

Fairly sure its not a type 1. I cannot see the trunnion which should be easy to spot usually.

It is a Type 3.

With a type 2 magazine.

And a type 2 gas tube too.

The Type 1 pistol grip is very distinctive - no metal mounting "cup" and more raked. You would notice it !!

Foresight looks type 3 though. Cannot see position of front sling loop so cannot confirm that one.

A few years back I went through 2000 AKs - my job was to use a reference book to sort them into country of origin and variant.

I found two type ones amongst them and was given a Saiga as a "thank you" for spotting them !

During that contract, I set myself the goal of test firing one AK from every country who ever made one ( including a Khyber Pass ) and managed it. The East German milled receiver variant was the most accurate closely followed by Chinese Type 56-2.

Its amazing how many "differences" there are between type 1, 2, 3 and AKM !!