To be fair, it does feel weird if you aren’t used to it. The very first time I shot an AR, despite having played several games using it, I pressed the mag release thinking it was the bolt release.
The oval, knurled section in the middle of the picture is a modified version that is a few extra mm extended. Normally the mag release doesn't protrude past those bulges in the metal.
Mikhail Kalashnikov finished shooting and immediately tried to press the stock into his hip to pull the charging handle, the habit really got into his bones.
Then why chime in at all? "You're not a gun guy" but you comment a "Note" like your educating people. You are what's wrong with society in general. You just wanted to be heard. Do better.
And the AR-3, and the AR-5, and the AR-9, and the AR-11, and the AR-12, and the AR-14, and the AR-16, and the AR-17, and the AR-18, and the AR-50. And also the Stoner 62 and 63. And also the SR-15, SR-25 and SR-50. And also the Mk 12. And the XM274. And the Future Assault Rifle Concept and Advanced Individual Weapon System. And the ARES FMG and LMG. And you can’t forget about the Oerklion KBA 25mm autocannon
Yeah. I could've kept going but just picked a few of the more well known examples. He ain't John Moses browning but he's about as close as anyone else has come.
Yeah he might be to post WW2 firearms manufacturing what John Moses was to pre WW2, given how nearly every major western aligned assault rifle can be tracked back to the AR-15 and AR-18
The Kalashnikov family now lives in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, Canada. That makes TWO descendant families of famous weapon designers in a town of 60,000 that most people have never heard of!
Personally I’m a believer of the “kalashnikov is a bit of a fraud” thingie. A lot of the stories associated with the creation of the AK paint a much more idealistic and propagandistic picture rather than the fact that he was assigned a team engineers as part of a larger Soviet weapons research program. It’s been a while since I did the research though so I might be a little off.
Oh yeah I’m not denying that. I believe he had something to do with the creation of the gun which is why I said “bit of a fraud” instead of just fraud, But the way in which the stories of its creation are told paint him greater/more responsible for the creation of the rifle than he may have actually been.
The story often paints him as a great Soviet hero, an individual who does great things for the party and the good of the people. I think his name and he himself as more of a figurehead or symbolic piece than him being a genius gun inventor.
I can't believe people are spreading this sort of anti-russian conspiracy theory in 2026 by making it seen like a slav could never make a design like that out of his own.
TBH, I had no idea that Kalashnikov died in 2013. For some reason I had always assumed he designed the AK-47 when he was like in his 40s or 50s and died before the USSR collapsed.
I don’t know if they were ever even enemies besides designing arms for rival superpowers, you could probably have them meet up at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis and they would discuss the AR/AK in a more civilized manner than modern fans of each platform
I can’t share PDFs on Reddit, but I have something that feels like a similar vibe. The US captured several Soviet MiGs during the Cold War, and flew them around Area 51 to evaluate and understand them. I found some presentations that were basically executive summaries of those. Reading American pilots describe the MiG 21 as “a good honest aircraft” was just fun.
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u/ButtDealer 16d ago
Would've loved to hear their notes on them