Say what you will about many other pieces of Russian weaponry: their tanks, their helicopters, their APCs, their Makarovs, their passion for stealing and copying American Technology:

Soviet B-29 copy, the Tupolev Tu-4

Soviet Sukhoi T-4, an overt XB-70 Valkyrie ripoff.

 Soviet Buran, an overt ripoff of the US space shuttle.

And then this:

The Автомат Калашникова -47.

Probably one of the finest, least expensive, most long-lasting, most revered, most durable, most ubiquitous selective-fire military rifles on the planet — and whose beginning sources from the 1940s.  It is easy to clean and easy to maintain.  It was designed to be manipulated by persons wearing gloves in colder conditions.  More AK-type rifles have been produced than all other military rifles combined.

The AK-47 and its numerous variants (to include the AK-74) were the result of a masterpiece of design by Mikhail Kalashnikov who said, literally, that he didn’t wish to “re-invent the wheel.”

The standard AK-47 or AKM fires the 7.62×39mm cartridge with a muzzle velocity of 715 m/s (2,350 ft/s).^[7] The cartridge weight is 16.3 g (0.6 oz), the projectile weight is 7.9 g (122 gr).^[8] The cartridge produces significant wounding effects if the projectile tumbles in tissue;^[53] but it produces relatively minor wounds when the projectile exits the body before beginning to yaw.^[54][55]

You can’t expect perfection from AK-47s for obvious reasons, but you can expect roughly 3″ – to- 6″ groups at 100 yards.

That said, Lt General Mikhail Kalashnikov passed away on Monday in Izhevsk, the capital of the Russian republic of Udmurtia. He was 94 years old.

From the NYTimes.com:

Born a peasant on the southern Siberian steppe, General Kalashnikov had little formal education and claimed to be a self-taught tinkerer who combined innate mechanical skills with the study of weapons to conceive of a rifle that achieved battlefield ubiquity.

His role in the rifle’s creation, and the attention showered on him by the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, carried him from conscription in the Red Army to senior positions in the Soviet arms-manufacturing bureaucracy and ultimately to six terms on the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet Union’s legislative body.

Giving credit where credit is due.

Because, as Rangemaster for a major Fornicalia sheriff’s department, I’ve fired Mr Kalashnikov’s baby and found it immensely enjoyable.  I completely understand its popularity and its longevity.  It’s just a wonderfully simple and brilliant design.

BZ

P.S.

Mikhail Kalashnikov and Eugene Stoner, foundational designer of the M-16.