Meet The Man Who Created The Famous AK-47 Rifle.

Mikhail Kalashnikov was born on the 10th November 1919 and he sadly passed away on the 23rd of December 2013.

Mikhail Kalashnikov was a Russian lieutenant general, inventor, military engineer, writer, and small arms designer. He is most famous for developing the AK-47 assault rifle and its improvements, the AKM and AK-74 , as well as the PK machine gun and RPK light machine gun.

Reason for creating the famous Rifle

Mikhail Avtomat Kalashnikov was in battle field of 2nd World War and observed that the gun used by his opponent was shooting faster and more rounds than his own.

He managed to escape and promised to invent a faster one. He invented the gun in 1945 and was given an official trial in 1946 but was later confirm officially in 1947 and it was named after him and the year he invented it Avtomat Kalashnikov AK-47.

The AK stands for Avtomat Kalashnikov and the 47 stands the year the rifle was officially completed and confirmed.

Before Mikhail Kalashnikov passed away in 2013, he wrote a letter in 2012 to the Russian Orthodox Church stating he regretted creating the famous rifle.

According to the letter asked if he is responsible for the death of millions of people that were killed using the rifle he created, he was greatly disturbed by this.

The Russian lieutenant created the weapon for the Military in time of defense so as to aid the military to use a better weapon during war.

The AK-47 is built 7.62-mm round with a muzzle velocity of some 700 metres per second, it had a cyclic firing rate of 600 rounds per minute and was capable of both semiautomatic and automatic fire.

It came with a long curved box magazine which held 30 rounds, and a separate gas-return tube above the barrel held a piston that was forced back upon firing to activate the mechanisms that ejected the spent cartridge and cocked the hammer for the next round.

The AK-47 was manufactured in two basic designs, one with a wooden stock and the other, designated the AKS, with a folding metal stock. Beginning in 1959, the AK-47 was replaced in first-line Soviet service by the AKM, a modernized version fitted with longer-range sights and cheaper mass-produced parts, including a stamped sheet-metal receiver and a plywood buttstock and forward grip.

Even after more than seven decades, the model and its variants remain the most popular and widely used rifles in the world because of: their reliability under harsh conditions, low production cost compared to contemporary Western weapons, availability in virtually every geographic region, and ease of use.

The AK has been manufactured in many countries and has seen service with armed forces as well as irregular forces and insurgencies worldwide. The model was the basis for developing many other types of individual, crew-served and specialised firearms. As of 2004, “of the estimated 500 million firearms worldwide, approximately 100 million belong to the Kalashnikov family, three-quarters of which are AK-47s”.