To those of you out there that want to either build one from scratch or managed to SOMEHOW shoot out the barrel of your Saiga 7.62×39, Kalashnikov USA has released an AK-103 Barrel Kit to suit your needs. KUSA is seemingly going all-in on their 7.62x39mm firearms offering multiple variations on their popular and high-quality KR-103 rifles.

TFB’s  Photo Of The Day and you’re looking at the Palmetto State Armory AK-V, which is a US-made clone of the Russian Vityaz, chambered in 9mm. I would like to shoot a competition in Pistol Caliber Carbine with it, to see how it goes – just let me mount a red dot on it first.

Most of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s probably have the name Skynet and the associated legion of 40-watt Phased Plasma Rifle toting robots burned into our memories as something to be feared in our near future. TFB recently came across a YouTube video from user Alexander Atamanov titled “Patrol dog robot” featuring a 9mm AK equipped robot running around and lighting up targets with both full auto and semi-auto fire.

The mainstream media has often been at odds with the firearms community, especially in recent years. Conversations and articles can often be found riddled with highly politicized terms like “assault rifle” and “assault weapon” which often makes anti-gun proponents feel vindicated, but often leaves pro-second amendment people feeling irked by the blanket terminology that often is used to cast a negative light on all firearms, regardless of function. The Associated Press recently released a new AP Style Top to their stylebook which now aims to drop “highly politicized terms” such as the two mentioned above in an effort to help restore the level of trust the public has for the media.

Polish Kalashnikov variants, AK-47s (or, more properly, AK-Ms), and AK-74-type rifles have been coming into the country for decades, but Polish AKs have been imported and distributed in greater volume recently, with the Beryl AKs from FB Radom and the WBP Fox and WBP Jack seeing positive reviews and greater sales volumes in recent years. These AKs cost over $1,000, though – are they worth it? Watch today’s video to make that decision for yourself.

Kalashnikov USA has just announced and made available their new Kommander rifle, a sporterized version of their already popular KR-103 rifle. Evoking the formerly cheap and easy-to-find unconverted Saiga rifle, it’s obviously targeted at states like California where pistol grips and standard capacity magazines are a no-no.

Ever since I bought a Chronos 1.4 high-speed camera, I have used it to document a lot of things. Most of them are firearm related. One benefit to having a high-speed camera is the ability to slow down fast events that are often too fast for our eyes to see let alone understand. One example is a firearm malfunction. We may know how to clear a malfunction but do we understand why it is happening so we can address the problem rather than perform remedial actions? Here we take a closer look at what causes a slow-motion malfunction.

Welcome everyone to the 150th edition of ‘Hot Gat or Fudd Crap?’, one of our many series here on TFB. If you’re new to the series, this is where we look at the most obscure firearms that are actually for sale and ask the question – is this Gat a sweet deal or only has a Fudd appeal?  Each week the TFB staff weighs in with their thoughts, but readers get the final say in the poll at the bottom of each article.

DRD Tactical and Zanders Sporting Goods have teamed up to release the new Zanders Exclusive DRD Tactical Sub-6 Rifle. The Sub-6 is a lightweight AK/AR mashup that combines the reliability of an AK with the manual of arms and modularity of an AR in a lightweight package. The new rifle will be available in 4 different color configurations and will initially be offered in 5.56/.223.

The hungriest beast of them all on this blog is our Photo Of The Day. It consumes hundreds of images every month, and it has been doing so for over 8 years. In a series of articles, we’ll be going through some of the firearms used by the Finnish Army. We’re going to begin with their Assault Rifle RK 62M.

Palmetto State Armory unveiled their new STANAG magazine compatible AK-556 at NRAAM 2022.  The new model comes ready to accept your favorite AR-pattern magazines and is loaded with new features.  I had a chance to sit down with Palmetto State Armory to go over the new AK-556 at this year’s NRA Annual Meeting.

In this episode of TFB Showtime, Hop visits the Palmetto State Armory booth to check out the new AK-556. This AKM pattern rifle is chambered in 5.56 and feeds from regular STANAG magazines. It also has a true last round bolt hold open feature, and an AR-style magazine release.

No matter where you go or what you do, there’s always someone out there trying to swipe your hard-earned money. We, firearms enthusiasts, are no different from anyone else in this regard. In fact, it seems lately criminals are trying even harder, using the current situation to trick us into thinking we’re getting a deal on a much-wanted firearm. Recently, I found a Kalashnikov USA fraud alert waiting for me and since I know not all of you sign up for their mailing list, I’m going to share it with everyone to get the word out.

Dear reader, your rifle is one of the millions. It is designed to be easy to manufacture, operate, and maintain. And it is battle proven through decades of conflicts in all types of terrain and climates. Your AK47 has everything you need to be victorious! Everything except for a way to attach that new capitalist M-LOK weaponlight and VFG. Not to worry, the new Clawgear AK47 Slick handguards have you covered.

I know what you’re thinking, “Didn’t TFB already cover the WBP Jack back in December?” Yes, we did. But this is a new version of that rifle. The WBP Jack SR deletes the side rail mount for optics bringing it in line with how the AKM was originally issued. So I see this more for those who want a more early AKM clone correct rifle or plan on running a dust cover rail, or UltiMAK setup for an optic.

Hey guys and thanks for tuning in to check out another episode of the TFB B-Side Podcast. In the last episode of TFB B-Side Podcast, we had on special guest Vladimir Onokoy and as always he is a treat to have on the show for his vast wealth of knowledge and experience in regards to foreign-made guns and I have to say I really enjoyed our chat about the various firearms manufacturing sectors of Pakistan. If you haven’t listened to that one yet, you can check it out using the links below. This week we have another TFB writer, this time our newest writer Tim C. Tim C came to us from the TFB Discord channel and is an aficionado of everything AK-related. Tim is a generally jovial and upbeat guy and his passion for firearms really shows through (especially in the Discord). I’m pleased to have him on to talk about his favorite guns which include some really weird ones that most people would probably never even think of when it comes to popular firearms. Please give a warm welcome to Tim as we learn more about him in this episode of the TFB B-Side Podcast!

Century Arms have announced a partial recall of BFT47 rifles after the discovery of some ‘durability issues’ which might ‘affect proper feeding and or chambering of ammunition’. Check out Century Arms’ notice below for further details and a full list of the rifles potentially impacted.

Mass production of the famous AK-47 started in 1949, and by 1959 the design was completely finalized. Many countries tried to modernize it, some were successful, like Poland with its “Beryl” program, and some unsuccessful, like Hungary, which ended up ditching all changes in the late 70s to just make a standard AKM rifle they called “AK-63”. But there were modernization efforts that went beyond simple upgrades, and Zastava M21 is probably one of the best examples of that.

Welcome everyone to the 142nd edition of ‘Hot Gat or Fudd Crap?’, one of our many series here on TFB. If you’re new to the series, this is where we look at the most obscure firearms that are actually for sale and ask the question – is this Gat a sweet deal or only has a Fudd appeal?  Each week the TFB staff weighs in with their thoughts, but readers get the final say in the poll at the bottom of each article.

Last month I helped Eric of Rifle Dynamics film some slow-motion AK rifles using my Chronos 1.4 high-speed camera. They wanted some slow-motion footage for research purposes but also for promotional and marketing use. Plus, who doesn’t want to see guns in slow motion?

After 2 years of testing and over 10,000 rounds on a single buffer, Rifle Dynamics has released their KP9 Short Stroke Recoil Buffer. It’s designed to reduce split times in competition without the benefit of having a tuned gas system.

AK-specific maintenance tools aren’t all that common. Usually to prop your Kalashnikov upright in a vice one has to sacrifice a magazine or put the receiver itself inside the jaws. With the rising popularity of the AK, Midwest Industries has released their AK Receiver Maintenance Block to provide some much-needed help to this growing community. This maintenance block can not only hold your AK upright while you do things like installing fire control groups, replacing furniture, cleaning the rifle/pistol, field stripping and reassembling, but also has a spot that acts as a bench block and secures your bolt at the same time. This of course beats holding the bolt still with the side of your hand while you hold a punch and try to keep everything steady on a universal bench block.

TFB has a wide variety of writers on hand that span the entire globe. One writer I’ve followed closely even before I joined the TFB team has been fellow writer Vladimir Onokoy. Vladimir has a wealth of knowledge and experience when it comes to the guns of Europe and specifically the guns of the Middle East and Pakistan. While Vladimir was in Pakistan, he had a chance to tour their extremely varied firearms manufacturing facilities and as a result, he has a strong grasp of the current situation of the Pakistani firearms industry. Today he’s going to share his insight, experience, and thoughts on Pakistani firearms, the places they come from, and what he thinks the Pakistani firearms industry is going to be getting into in the coming years.

Atlantic Firearms has introduced the DIY Zastava M70 that you can add whatever M70 stock, pistol grip, and handguard set to, which allows the user to customize their rifle right off the bat. AKM rifles have become much more modular in recent years, including lots of options when it comes to furniture. The ability to start off with the shooter’s desired stock set may save some money if they can pick out which stock set they’d like, as well as not having to add to the unused gun accessory pile from the stock set they didn’t want.

I’m a meat and potatoes kind of guy, and honestly, I’ve never been one for flashy firearms. My go-to colors are black and tan. But when my inbox had the announcement from Atlantic Firearms about this 24K Gold AK, I couldn’t help but drool a tiny bit. Is it gaudy? Yes. Tacky even? Oh my, absolutely! But something about how well the finish job on this gun came out makes me just want to hold it for a little while and pretend I didn’t just have to decide between beef or chicken ramen this week.

TFB’s Photo Of The Day tries to push the excellent work done by so many photographers around the world and in the firearms industry. It’s a celebration to those who go in harm’s way trying to catch those special moments for us, but also those who stay in the studio working out the perfect lighting and setting hour after hour. Armed with skills, cameras and sometimes a fair bit of editing here is where their hard work ends up. Most Hera Arms stocks have been mounted on AR15s, but today we have an Avtomat Kalashnikova with the HERA Arms CQR Ak Stock. What do you think about it?

At the end of the past year, we reported about the release of Ukrainian KPYK CRC 5002 adjustable AK stock. This stock was first teased a couple of years ago and it has been in continuous development and field testing processes ever since. Shortly after the release of the stock, KPYK sent us a T&E sample and in this article, we’ll present to you our review of KPYK CRC 5002 adjustable AK stock.

Generally, there isn’t much information about Sudan’s military industry in general and their small arms in particular. The country has been sanctioned and isolated from the international community for a long time as a result of bloody civil war, genocide, and war crimes committed during the War in Darfur. While very little information is available, some Middle East defense exhibitions, such as IDEX in UAE and World Defense Show (WDS) in Saudi Arabia give us a unique chance to take a glimpse of what is going on in the Sudan arms industry.

It’s now three weeks since Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine. We have seen the Ukrainian Armed Forces put up an impressive fight while Russia’s forces have stalled since their initial attempts at a lightning advance failed. While images of burnt-out or abandoned Russian armoured vehicles have dominated the news and social media there have been some interesting small arms seen. Everything from the newest Ukrainian AR-15s to Russia-backed separatists with Mosin-Nagants.

Outside of a handful of popular options, finding affordable, reliable, and durable AK47 magazines can be a difficult task. That is why XTech Tactical is excited to announce the release of its Generation 2 MAG47 line of AK47 composite magazines. The MAG47 Gen 2 will be available in three different varieties including a California-compliant one and all three new variants will include improvements to both their construction and reliability factors.