I have got to stop swinging by the local shops.
I had absolutely no intention of buying another AK, but this one was sitting behind the counter, about to be put out on display when I asked to see it. The clerk asked what I wanted with that cheap Chinese piece of crap…I just smiled and handed the debit card over.
Turned out to be a Chinese Polytech Legend, which was the premier Chinese pre 1989 Import Ban that was available in the US. This carbine has been sitting somewhere for the past 21+ years just waiting for someone to appreciate it.
The Polytech Legend is a very, very close clone of the original Soviet AK-47, using a milled steel receiver rather than the later stamped steel receiver of the AKM. All of the features are basically the same as what you’d encounter on a Soviet AK-47 that was built in 1950. The major difference is that the barrel on the Polytechs is pressed into the receiver and then pinned, rather than threaded like the Soviets did. After the mid 1960’s or so, the other European countries that were still building milled receiver AK-47’s, like Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, and East Germany, also started pressing and pinning the barrels, so it’s still an “authentic” build.
The underfolding stock has quite a bit of drop to it, which is correct for the AKS-47. This gives you a “chin” weld of sorts, but it was supposed to follow the same drop that the milled AK-47 fixed stock has…it doesn’t do that so well. What it did do well, and what it was designed to do, was to let you get in and out of your T-54/55, BRDM or BMP easily. It also worked fine for unassing your Fiat in downtown Beirut in 1982 or your SUV in Baghdad today.
Most later Chinese military AK’s have an integral bayonet that folds under the barrel. The earliest AK’s that the Chinese got from the Soviets, and the technical package that they received in 1956 did not have the folding spike bayonet. While the Chinese produced the Type 56’s with spike bayonets for the People’s Liberation Army, they also kept making the standard AK-47 and AKS-47 models without the integral bayonet for export, and called it the Model 22.
The Polytech Legends were basically semi auto Model 22 Export pattern AK’s that were brought in to the US from 1988-1989. There aren’t all that many out there.
Here are some pictures I took when I got it home.
