I was looking at this photo essay at Time re: the AK and pic 3 is of a Native American at Wounded Knee, 1973 holding a milled AK. I was wondering when and what makes of AKs were first domestically available? I was born in the early 70s and the first AKs I can remember were the Maadis from the early 80s, didn’t think anything was available prior to that.
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1964810,00.html
Neat pic. As far as I know the AK-47 was first designed in… 1947. Would be interesting to know when they first made it to these shores. This link has some good info, though it is also a webstore which I have no experience with and cannot vouche for. Lots of links along the left margin to the different countries variants. Check out the Russian link for early AK info. Hope this is helpful.
http://world.guns.ru/assault/as00-e.htm
Looking at the front sight and stocks I’m gonna say Chinese.
So we are talking about an early Clayco or Golden State Arms import.
Or, perhaps it is an AK-47, not one of the semi-auto clones???
I don’t call my ARs M16s, and I don’t call my semi-auto AKs AK-47s.
A few observations. It has a milled receiver and the old style flash hider. I have never seen Chinese guns with flash hiders except for U.S imports. Also, looking at the pins on the receiver my guess is that it is a real deal AK47 and not a copy.
I am guessing a possible Vietnam bring back (probably not legal) and I would say it is either Russian or Bulgarian.
What 7.62x39mm ammunition was commercially available on the US market in 1973?
Here is a color image of the same guy. The AK is full-auto and appears to be Chinese, Im pretty sure its a Vietnam bring-back.
WOW!!! That guy sure is happy about his AK.
That’s exactly what I looked like yesterday opening my package from K-VAR! 
That’s a bring back from Vietnam, there weren’t any semi auto AK’s brought in until Valmet brought some of their M62/S variants in the late 70’s.
It’s the real deal. Without detailed pics, I couldn’t tell you whether it’s Chinese, Russian, Hungarian, Polish, etc.
My knee jerk reaction is that it’s a Chinese Type 56 or M22 provided to the NVA or VC and brought back by a returning GI.
I know that all of the Chicom Type 56 and 56-1’s that I saw in Iraq had underfolder bayonets. This one doesn’t appear to have that. Also the flash hider is reminiscent of the early Russian and Bulgarian AK’s.
The Chinese have made many different variations of the Kalashnikov. It depends which factory produced it during which time period. The early ones were pretty much copies of the Russian Type 3, main difference being the wood and markings. Below is a pic that represents the type of AK I believe the Native American is holding. Could also be the Chinese M22, same ak as in the pic but with no Chinese Markings. They were meant as export model, selector markings were L and D.
(Photo credits go to Rob Stottman)
How the hell did that guy get ammo for it back then??
What flash hider? That’s a muzzle nut to protect the threads.
none.
it was actually designed during WWII. It was considered so secret that Russian troops had to pick up the spent casings. At least that’s the general fact i hear most about.
The SKS used 7.62x39 cartridges too. Small arms are such a low ticket item that I doubt the Soviets were using any additional precautions. It went through testing, fielding, and wide scale production, just like any weapons system. The Soviets were lumbering, so the roll out took a while and improvements were made during production. IE they didn’t make a type 1 AK for every soviet soldier, then make a type 2 for everyone, etc, etc. It almost seems like the first AK’s shipped outside Russia were Type 1/2/3’s. You see a lot of AKM’s in Russia, but not many milled AK’s, even in Eastern Europe, they’re all in Africa, South Asia, or the Pacific.
We knew about the AK’s existence since Schmiesser went back to East Germany in 1952 because of poor health, but we could have known about it before even then. Our intelligence on the Soviets was usually accurate, and they usually knew what we knew. The vast majority of their resources went to offensively oriented propaganda. Cultivating local leftists to destabilize countries, IE journalists, politicians, teachers.
Work was started on actual rifles in the very last days of WWII, but the AK-47 was type classified in 1947, first production was 1949 with the Type I, the Type 2 came online with the first milled receivers around 1952, and the Type 3, what most people think of when they think “AK-47”, around 1954 or so. The stamped receiver, modernized AKM came online in 1959.
No commercial ammo was available in the US in the early 70’s, and even into the early 80’s about the only place you could get ammo was Finnish Lapua, Brazilian CBC, and Egyptian. Chinese ammo started coming in a bit later.
The rifle that the AIM member is brandishing looks to be an early Chinese Type 56, which didn’t have the folding spike bayonets that later models had, and was made as the Chinese M22, which was mainly an export model.
https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=29341&highlight=chinese+export
You’re right, wrong terminology.
Were AK’s used on the 1950 - 1953 Korean conflict? I’ve done some checking and can’t find a definitive answer.