Mikhail Kalashnikov achievement ; AK-47’s timeline, churned weaponary.

Mikhail Kalashnikov was born on November 10, 1919 in a village in Altai territory. His family were land-owners. That was good for the family until Stalin’s purge in 1932, when they were exiled to Nizhnaja Mokhovaya village, Tomsk Region. When he was 17 years old, he went to work at the Turkistan-Siberian Railroad. That was in 1936 but in just two years which he was 19, he was called up for the Soviet Army and assigned to a tank-driving school.

                Always a tinkerer and inventor, Mikhail Kalashnikov came up with gadgets to count gunshots, make pistols fire through tank slits and from time to time he also manage to do modifications on tank service intervals. He liked mechanical things, and he liked weaponary. Until then the World War II caught up with him, and in 1941 the tank he was commanding at the battle of Bryansk was hit by German fire eventually. He was badly injured, then later when he is still recovering in hospital, he talked with other soldiers who complained long and loud about the inferiority of their rifles compared to the German’s submachine weaponaries. After being discharged, he was sent to Matai in Kazakhstan.

                In Matai, Mikhail Kalashnikov started to put some ideas together for a gun that would offer what the troops wanted. His first model were produced after only three months, came to the attention of Professor Anatoliy Arkadievich Blagonravov, Head of the Dzerzhinsky Ordnance Academy. Blagonravov saw the gun’s potential despite a few design flaws, and recommended Kalashnikov attend the Central Scientific Research Firing Ground for Testing Small Arms at Moscow in 1942.

                Due to production issues and shortages, nothing more happened until 1945, when Kalashnikov submitted his schematics for a machinegun design competition to suit the 7.62mm M43 round. Eventually Kalashnikov won the competition, the AK-47 was officially named and recommended for the Soviet Army. Pre-production started in 1948 in Izhevskiy Motozavod where the weapons are still made today. A legendary weapon was carved on history.

                Apparently death no longer terrifies man as man have managed to create such terrifying weapon. The smell of blood is as calm as the smell of white plums, therefore the smell creates slavery and savagery which surpass the horror of dying. This act of slavery and savagery can only be fought with more bloodshed, hence, the cycle never ends. The AK-47 is a weapon of destruction but not salvation. All this while the soldiers who use all of the mass destruction weaponary will be stained with the worst of darkest memories. The visions of killing others will haunt them for the rest of their days.

One of the most potent symbols of the post World War II era is the “Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947” or in short Ak-47. The weapon became the chosen rifle for a revolutionary age. Who exactly that created and invented such wonderful weapon technology yet can kill other’s life? His name is Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov ; the man who came up with the idea for the world’s most recognisable firearm. He once said that things that are complex are not useful but things that are useful are simple. Generally speaking, there is no doubt that he did implemented this quotation of simplicity and usefulness in his invention of the Automatic Kalashnikov-1947 or well known as AK-47.

             The key to the AK-47’s ubiquity remain in two basic areas. As well as his inventor noted, the weapon is pretty much easy to navigate or handled. That means it can be disassembled, cleaned, mended, upgraded and modified without putting a lot of effort to do it. Another added advantage to it is it was designed to use some of the readily available ammunition around 7.62 by 39-milimetre cartridge. Churned out in the enormous amount by the Russians, Chinese and Amaricans, those bullets are pretty easy to find, cheap in it prices,  simple to pack onto the AK-47’s magazine and quite devastating if it is being used in approximately close range battle.

                The next advantages of the usage of AK-47 is it does not use springs and complex mechanics to put the cartridge in the right place for firing like other machineguns, but the AK-47 uses gas pressure instead. Next the gun’s curved megazine and rotating block ensure that the cartridge does not slip into the firearm’s breech straight but it has to rotate slightly which means if there is grit, water, mud or a sliver of brass from the last round inside the breech, the gun will still work. Much of the soldiers that uses this weapon satisfied with it’s design, unlike many other sophisticated weapons which require hygienic cleanliness to guarantee reliable operation.

                Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov’s ideas of using a gas piston instead of springs or a manual lever to eject the spent cartridge and reload was an incredible spark of brilliance and intelligence. As each of the bullet is blown down the barrel, a tiny hole allows some of the explosive gases to enter the tube above the barrel where they push back on the piston. The piston is then shifts back under pressure, pushing the bolt carrier backwards ejecting the spent round and making space for a new one from the magazine. If the gas piston is dirty or worn out, quickly disassembled it and give a coat of oil or grease then it is good to go.

                The other achievement that Kalashnikov brought to the AK-47 and changed the weapon design was the use of a pressed steel chassis. This did not only kept costs down but it also enabled the precision machined parts such as the barrel, gas piston and other mechanism to be fitted into the whole easily and yet the weapon still able to work as usual. The barrel and chamber were plated with chrome on the inside to ensure long reliable life than a plain high-carbon steel alternative. In a nutshell, Kalashnikov had seen many of the light and devastating guns used by the Germans during the Nazi invasion, hence he knew where to spend his money for.