The Cutts compensator worked the same way most modern muzzle compensators do. The slots milled in it exhausted gas vertically with the goal of reducing muzzle climb. Some muzzle brakes are angled, like that seen on the AKM, but that wasn’t the case with the Thompson models that sported a Cutts.
There’s arguably more variants of the Kalashnikov rifle than you can shake a bayonet at- besides the AK-47 and AK-74, you’ve got the AKM, the new AK-101, the Type 56, the Tabuk, and the gazillion other knock-offs from various Soviet Bloc, Asian, and Middle Eastern countires; and that’s without getting into the Khyber Pass jobs, or even things like the Dragunov, the Valmet, and the Galil, all of which use a form of the Kalashnikov action but aren’t actually AK rifles- and, of course, the RPK, which is basically an AK-47/74 with a 50 or 75-round drum magazine, a long barrel, and a bipod.
Mikhail Kalashnikov is arguably responsible for as many guns as John Browning or RSAF Enfield, when you start to look at it…
Beg to disagree on one point - yes there are tons of variants of the AK47 and 74, but they’re basically just modifications or upgrades of the core design (i.e. changing the stock, adding components like grenade launchers, etc…) and the Galil and Dragunov are actually radically different weapons, even if they share the initial origins of design. I would consider the AKs a ‘class’ of weapons if you will, just like I consider the M-16 another class which includes the M-16 A1-A4 as well as the M4 and other variants but the same basic design.
I would argue that it was actually the Nazis with the Sturmgewehr 44 that started it all; the AK is almost a direct rip-off, and if you take off all the cosmetic bits like the front stock, the M-16 doesn’t look all that different either and they have the same basic operational design.
I did say similar, not the same. 
My point was only that the Warsaw Pact round was more powerful than the NATO 5.56mm round. Of course the full-sized rifle round in the M14 is bigger yet.
(all from wikipedia)
(AK47) 7.62x39 -> 123 gr -> 710 m/s -> 2,010 J
(M14) 7.62x51 -> 146 gr -> 838 m/s -> 3,275 J
(M16) 5.56x45 -> 62 gr -> 930 m/s -> 1,830 J
Again, beg to differ. Yes, the Cutts compensator functioned the same as any other muzzle break (and was removed in the M1A1 in Spring 1942 to save costs), but it was simply a matter of turning the compensator 90 degrees and it made for a more effective trench broom.
No. The Cutts compensator didn’t attach by threads that would have allowed such diddling. It slipped over the muzzle, was indexed by a slot that fit around the front sight, and held in place with a pin. Whoever told you this was just plain wrong.
I guess I will have to agree with you; I can’t find anything to confirm my thought.
Stg 44 used a tilting locking block; the same type of mechanism seen in the Sa 58. The AK-47 and derivatives use a rotating bolt; the AK does not copy the Stg’s action. Kalashnikov’s design team took elements of existing firearms and blended them to develop the Ak, but the Stg-44 wasn’t one of them.
The Russians began development of an intermediate cartridge as early as 1916.
Intermediate cartridges and weapons that take advantage of their attributes are more of a case of parallel development than anybody “ripping-off” anybody else.
Oh, and the Stg-44 and AK designs both use pistons. The M-16 series uses direct gas impingement. None of these three operate like each other. What they look like with the “cosmetic bits” off has little to do with anything except that they were all designed to do the same task, so there is parallel development of ergonomics as well.
Much of the M-16’s ergonomic design is a result of the influence of George Sullivan and Melvin Johnson. Johnson had already had some minor success in designing a rifle and a light machine gun that saw limited use during WWII. The Johnson LMG used a straight stock to channel recoil directly back as seen in the M-16. Like the M-16 it also required high sights as a result.
GomiBoy - Is this all off the top of your head?! It’s amazing the kind of specialized knowledge we have here. Anyway, since we’re pretty much off the topic already, I have a question: where does the “bullpup” type of rifle fit in on the spectrum between M4/AK/MP5 etc? In a popular shoot em up game here there are two guns (one’s called just bullpup and the other TAVOR) that are meant to be the most accurate/all round best assault rifles in the game. Quick googlage shows the Tavor is Israel’s brand new weapon for the future or something. Can it (or any gun) objectively be called the best of its class? I don’t understand why gunmakers don’t take the best parts of each design is it just because the best features are mutually exclusive?
A bullpup is a design where the trigger is ahead of the action and magazine. Its advantage is that you can have a longer barrel than a conventional rifle of the same overall length. They’ve been around a long while. There are a number of disadvantages you can see listed at wikipedia’s entry on bullpups.
Virtually any cartridge could have a bullpup built around it. Barrett has even made a bullpup variant of their .50 BMG rifle. Keltec is in the process of introducing a 7.62 x 51 mm bullpup. France and UK issue 5.56 mm bullpups.
Basically, bullpup refers to a design, not a specific rifle or cartridge.
Bullpups are usually aftermarked reconfigurations of existing guns, as explained further here. It basically means that the action and the magazine are now located behind the trigger. It lets you have a longer barrel in a shorter overall package.
ETA- beaten to it by Scumpup.
That’s not right. Kalashnikov, like many good engineers, ripped off lots of design ideas from different sources and integrated them into the AK47. (Bolding is mine)
Kalashnikov himself alluded to this at the 60th anniversary of the AK47.
Same here, albeit with less paintball and more FPS—I find myself using full auto mostly in situations where I would otherwise (preferably) used a shotgun, or a maxim gun. Y’know, like if careful aiming is difficult, impossible, or too time-consuming, or I need a extra lot of smite in a general area in a particular moment; or the target(s) is, for all intents and purposes, just a wall of meat that I need to keep scraping back.
Or when someone—or something—bursts out of a dark corner FAR too close for comfort (sudden abject terror makes a wonderful argument in favor of attempted overkill, when the situation comes up).
Please point out some of the non-cosmetic similarities between the 2 rifles that you believe the Soviet design team “ripped off.”
The gas system is a tube with a piston in it. This had been in use since at least the WWI-era as seen in the BAR and the Huot.
Gas system and layout. From your own source, I might add.
So in other words, Kalashnikov didn’t invent it either. But the position of the gas tube as well as the use of the piston, while not unique to the Kalashnikov or the StG44, is certainly very very close.
You keep putting “ripped off” in quotes like it’s something bad. Kalashnikov integrated various design ideas from a variety of sources into one hugely successful design. I’m not taking away any of his accomplishment by giving some credit to one field-proven design, which Kalashnikov witnessed at close hand and had full access to (the StG44), which clearly influenced the design of the AK47.
Mojo Pin - not all just in my head, sorry to say - Scumpup has been testing my google foo pretty strongly - but I’ve read the history of the AK47 (fascinating, BTW) called The People’s Gun and was in the service for a while and have always had a liking for gun history and design. I’ve always found that weapons design can be some of the most sophisticated design around; if it doesn’t work, you know about it right quick, and the use of the design means that the designers don’t have room or space for anything other than the bare essentials. Sad but true - guns are amazing things and can reflect the very highest art of design and engineering.
As for your specific question, Scumpup and Cluricaun both got it right as to what a bullpup is. Two weapons in service with the bullpup configuration are the Steyr AUG (Austrian army) and the SA80 (standard British rifle). Generally speaking, longer barrel = more accurate, but if you’re an infantryman you definitely don’t want to have a very long barrel, especially if you have to dive through windows and such, so the SA80 and Steyr are a compromise giving the same length barrel as an M-16A2 but with a much shorter overall weapon.
The AK series is a short piston stroke design. The Stg44 is a long piston stroke design.
The AK series uses a rotating bolt. The Stg44 used a tilting block.
The AK series has its charging handle on the right. The Stg44 has its charging handle on the left.
The AK series has its selector/safety lever on the right with the topmost position being safe, the middle full-auto, and the bottom semi-auto. The Stg44 has a safety catch on the left side of the receiver and a separate selector button above the safety catch to select full or semi-auto fire.
The lay out of these two arms isn’t particularly similar. Certainly, the AK design team doesn’t seem to have copied anything from the Stg44.
When you’re down to nitpicking stuff like this you’re going awfully far to prove a point that probably isn’t valid.
I could cite a hundred differences between the F-15 and the MiG-29, but it is a known fact that the MiG-29 was a response to the F-15 and took many ideas rom American jet design.
The AK-47 obviously took many design concepts from other weapons. That’s true of every personal infantry weapon made in the last two centuries, ya know.
It’s true of every weapon period, planes, ships, tanks, etc.
If you fixate only on the location of the charging handle, it’s nitpicking. When the way the action functions, the lay out of the controls, the history of intermediate cartridge design, etc. are taken into account, the “AK is a rip-off of the Stg44” cliche is revealed to be nothing but so much cold war hooey. It has its roots in an unwillingness to admit that the commies could possibly develop anything good on their own.
The only real similarities between the two rifles are cosmetic. They both have pistol grips and protruding box magazines. Neither was the first weapon to incorporate either feature. Both Germany and the Soviet Union had been working with intermediate cartridges and self-loading weapons for years before the outbreak of WWII.
Gomiboy has nothing substantive to back up his assertion:
I particularly call your attention to the patently false assertion that they have the same basic operating design. Tilting block isn’t at all the same thing as rotating bolt.
I’d like to clear up several points from this thread. There is a distinct difference between a “clip” and a “magazine”. The word “clip” is frequently misused, but anyone truly familiar w/ firearms should know the difference. This page explains it very succinctly: Clip (firearms) - Wikipedia
The only weapon I’ve seen mention that utilizes a clip it the M-1 Garand, which BTW is a semi automatic rifle, not capable of automatic fire.
As to attacks made in the dark, I’d be very surprised to see a pre-prepared defensive defensive line, w/ berms and slit trenches, that wasn’t supported by crew served weapons to provide illumination and other fire support.
Although the MiG-29 was developed in response to American 4th Generation air superiority fighters including the ‘Eagle’, in appearance, design, and function it more closely resembles the original F/A-18 (A/B/C/D) ‘Hornet’. The larger Sukhoi-designed Su-27 ‘Flanker’ is a closer match to the F-15 ‘Eagle’, or the larger F/A-18 (E/F) ‘Super Hornet’, and the Su-33 is comparable (or superior in some regards) to the F-14 ‘Tomcat’. In any case, you are correct that Soviet aircraft designers were influenced by American designs but that their design bureaus produced aircraft that are significantly different in layout and operation.
Nobody outside of Hollywood ‘dives’ through windows. The benefits of the shorter overall length and mechanism packaging of a bullpup layout are many; aside from reducing the hazard of catching or snagging in confined spaces, it gives better balance and lower turning inertia, and the placement of the action puts the barrel lower down and closer to the shooter’s bracing point, reducing muzzle rise. It also makes the weapon much easier and faster to reload, which seems counterintuitive at first, because with a normal rifle you just turn and the magazine is in front of your firing hand, but with a bullpup like the SA-80 or the Steyr AUG, when you rotate the rifle over the magazine ends up at chest level, right in front of your armpit, which means that you don’t need to shift position to reach it comfortably or hold the gun up diagonally in front of your chest. With a little practice, you can reload it in a fully pronated position just by rolling it over, which is actually pretty tricky with an AK-47 or AR-15 pattern gun.
With regard to the AK-47 versus the Stg44, Scumpup has it right; both rifles use design elements common to virtually all modern automatic rifles (except for roller locking mechanisms like that used in the G-3), but the action and operator features are just about as dissimilar as possible while still being gas piston-operated assault rifles with detachable magazines. Saying that the AK-47 is “ripped off” from the Stg44 is like saying that the CZ-75 is a Browning Hi-Power knockoff.
Stranger