Differences Between the VZ-58 and the AK

First, I'd like to wish all the readers of this blog a very happy 2015.

Quick, identify the firearm in the image below:

Click on the image to enlarge. Public domain image.

If you said something along the lines of "AK-47" or "AKM", then you're wrong. What you're looking at is the Czechoslovakian vz. 58 rifle. The vz. 58 does resemble an AK-47 or an AKM externally, but there are a lot of differences underneath the hood. We will study more about this rifle in this post.

The name "vz. 58" is actually a contraction of "vzor 58' (i,e. "model 58"). The official full name of this weapon is "7,62 mm samopal vzor 58" (i.e. 7.62 mm. automatic firearm model 58"). The number 58 is because this weapon entered service in the year 1958 (the AK-47 is named similarly -- it first entered service in 1947).

After World War II, the Soviet Union started using the 7.62x39 mm. cartridge for its AK-47 and AKM rifles and insisted that all the Warsaw Pact countries use the same cartridge for standardization. Many of the Warsaw pact countries (Poland, Hungary, Romania etc.) adopted the cartridge as well as the AK rifle for their military forces, but the Czechoslovakians decided to only adopt the cartridge, but use their own rifle technologies. They already had a history of developing firearms for 300 years or so, and the city of Brno was most recently known for developing the precursor to the famous Bren gun of World War II. A designer named Jiri Cermak was assigned to develop the new rifle in Brno in 1956 and the new rifle entered service in 1958.

The new rifle was chambered to use the 7.62x39 mm. cartridge, the same as the AK-47. This is about where the similarity between the two ends. What are some of the major differences?

• Action: The AK-47 (and AKM and the rest of the AK family) uses the long stroke piston system, whereas the vz. 58 uses the short stroke piston system. In the short-stroke system, the piston moves for a very short distance (in the case of a vz. 58, it moves 19 mm. (or about 0.74 inches)), whereupon it is stopped by a projection. The short backward movement of the piston imparts a sharp blow to the bolt-carrier, which separates from the piston and then continues backwards due to momentum. In a long stroke system, the piston and the bolt carrier move backward together. This means that the short stroke piston system has a smaller mass of moving parts, since the bolt-carrier weighs less than the combined bolt-carrier and piston together. Therefore, there is less vibration and balance shift due to the moving parts and the vz. 58 is easier to keep pointed to the target.
• Firing mechanism: The AK-47 uses a traditional rotating hammer mechanism, whereas the vz. 58 is striker fired.
• Safety/Fire selector lever: The easiest way to tell if a rifle is a vz.58 or an AK is by looking at the fire-selector lever. The AK-47 family is famous for its clunky large fire selector lever, which is located on the right side of the weapon above the trigger and is cumbersome to operate. The user needs to take the firing hand off the pistol grip to manipulate an AK fire selector lever. The vz. 58 has a smaller, much more ergonomic selector mechanism and the lever can be manipulated without taking the hand off the pistol grip. The following two pictures show the differences (click on the images to enlarge -- the fire selector levers are enclosed in red ovals in the images below):

AKM fire selector lever. Note the length of the fire selector lever and its position relative to the pistol grip.
Click on the image to enlarge.

vz.58 fire selector lever. Notice how it is positioned close to the pistol grip and can be easily manipulated.
Click on the image to enlarge

• Magazine: The AK-47, AKM and vz. 58 all come with 30 round box magazines, however, the vz. 58 magazine is shaped a bit  differently, so it cannot be inserted into an AK and vice-versa. The vz. 58 magazine is also made of a lightweight aluminum alloy and therefore, it is lighter than the steel magazines of the AK family. The vz. 58 magazine can also be loaded via stripper clips, without removing the magazine from the rifle.
• Receiver: The early AK-47 receivers were made of milled steel, until the Soviets mastered the art of producing stamped steel parts from the Germans and the AKM (and all subsequent AK models) all have stamped steel parts. This was done to improve the production rate. The vz. 58 still uses a milled steel receiver. While it takes longer to make a milled steel receiver, it is more rigid and therefore has a bit more accuracy.
• Lock action: The vz. 58 has a tilting lock action with a falling breechblock (similar to Beretta 92)
• Bolt hold-open feature: When the last round has been fired in a vz. 58, the bolt catch locks the bolt carrier to the rear of the gun and it stays open, which alerts the user that the firearm is empty. In an AK, the majority of the magazines allow the bolt to go forward on an empty magazine, therefore, the user cannot easily tell that the rifle is empty.
• Stock: The early vz. 58s were made using beech wood stocks, but they soon switched to using a wood-impregnated plastic stock. If you click on the image of the rifle above to enlarge it, you'll notice that the stock has a somewhat grainy look to it. These stocks are affectionately known as "beaver barf" to collectors and are light, durable and economical. AK rifles use laminated wood stocks (earlier models used normal wood and later models use plastic), which are also durable and cheap to produce, but they are a bit heavier. Later stocks on vz. 58 were made of steel and alloys and designed to be foldable or collapsible. One more difference is that the stock on a vz. 58 is designed to be modular and easily detachable/interchangeable.
• Dust Cover: The receiver on a vz. 58 has no ejection port dust cover, because the receiver is completely enclosed by the bolt carrier. Therefore, the ejection port is huge compared to an AK. This can be easily seen when the rifle is being operated. 
• Disassembly: The vz. 58 is held by two pins and is designed to be disassembled without using any tools.

Even though the AK family and the vz. 58 look very similar externally, the vz. 58 cannot exchange parts with the AK family because of the vast differences in the mechanisms.

The following video makes the differences between the two very clear.

The vz.58 was manufactured between 1958 and 1984 and around one million rifles were manufactured, which means they are not as widespread as the AK family. They still remain in use with Czech and Slovak military forces, and they were exported to some other countries as well (Cuba, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Uganda etc.)

Identifying a Type 56

In the AK family of firearms, there are a huge number of different models. The Chinese type 56 rifle is one of these common variants. So how does a person tell that this is a Chinese made AK variant or some other model. This post aims to explain that.

First, many Chinese made AKs have markings in Chinese, so if a person is close enough to examine the markings, then this might be a good indication of where it was made. One place to look is near the fire selector lever, which selects the rifle's firing mode.

Click on image to enlarge.

The two Chinese characters are 连 (pronounced as "Lian" and translates as "chain" or "join" or "link successively") and 单 (pronounced as "Dan" and translates as "single" or "only"). These are the equivalents of "automatic" and "single-shot" modes.

In some Chinese made AKs, the letters are transliterated into English as 'L' and 'D' instead (L for Lian and D for Dan)

In the above image, you can see the letters 'L' and 'D' stamped in into the metal.

In some Chinese made AKs, there may be other markings in Chinese, or even say "Made in China" in English letters, especially in some imported models.

Even without getting close to the firearm, there are other ways to distinguish Chinese made AKs from a distance.

One of the distinctive features of Chinese AKs is that the front sight is a fully hooded type:

The front sight is inside a complete circle. This feature is distinct for Chinese made AKs and no other AK models have this type of sight (assuming that the original front sight hasn't been replaced, of course. It is possible for a non-Chinese AK to have a hooded sight if the owner decided to replace it. Conversely, the owner of a Chinese AK might have replaced the hooded sight with another one.)

By the way, the rifle in the image above shows an earlier model type 56 and the receiver is milled, rather than being stamped. Note the deep horizontal groove in the receiver on top of the magazine. In later models of the type 56, the receiver was manufactured by using stampings and rivets, in order to speed up production. For example, we have:

 

As you can see, the hooded front sight is common to all these models. There is also one more common feature that is seen with later model type 56 variants. In all the above images, look at the three rivets in front of the magazine. For example:

As you can see in the image above, the three rivets form a triangular shape. You can see this triangular arrangement in most type-56 models, except some of the early models which had milled receivers. This is also something that is unique to Chinese made AKs only and rifles that are made elsewhere don't have this rivet pattern.

History and Development of the Assault Rifle - VIII

In the last few posts, we saw during the development of the M-16 rifle, that the US military had determined that "small is beautiful" and therefore used smaller-caliber, but higher velocity ammunition for their assault rifles. The chief motivation for smaller ammunition was because studies had shown that the side with the most firepower tended to win infantry engagements. However, this meant that each soldier would need to carry a larger amount of ammunition, so the US decided to research smaller calibers, which are lighter and therefore a soldier can carry more of them. Research showed that 5.56x45 mm. cartridges were lethal enough at ranges where most infantry combat took place and so they developed assault rifles around this concept: the M16 family.

The results of this research did not go unnoticed by the Soviets. At that time, the Soviets were using the AKM assault rifle as the standard rifle for their military. The AKM and its predecessor, the AK-47, fire 7.62x39 mm. cartridges. In line with western findings, the Soviets also decided to develop another assault rifle, one that uses smaller bullets than the AKM or AK-47. Of course, they did not want to copy the same 5.56x45 mm. cartridge as used by the West, because the Soviets went to great pains to ensure that their own weapons could not be used against them. Hence, they designed a new cartridge of size 5.45x39 mm. and designed a new assault rifle that used the same basic mechanism as the AKM, but scaled down to use the new cartridge. Since the new rifle and cartridge were developed in 1974, the new rifle was called the AK-74. This rifle is still in use in the Russian military.

AK-74 assault Rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The AK-74 is heavily based on the AKM design, so much so that about 50% of the parts (pins, screws, springs etc.) are interchangeable between the two, even though they are of different calibers. However, the AK-74 also has a bunch of other improvements over the AKM, in order to increase reliability, accuracy and durability. For one thing, the bolt extraction claw is larger on the AK-74 to better extract spent cartridges. The stock is lighter on the AK-74 and was originally made of laminated wood, with cuts on the side to save weight. The stock, pistol grip and hand guards were all later changed to a polymer. The magazine is made of a polymer plastic, unlike the metal magazines of the AKM or AK-47. The magazine also has two extra horizontal ribs in it, which make it impossible to insert it into an older AK family rifle.

Other variants of the AK-74 have folding metal stocks (AKS-74 and its carbine variant, AKS-74U)

A variant called the AK-74M does away with all the wood and the stock, pistol grip and hand guards are all black or plum colored plastic.

AK-74M assault rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

Note the lack of wood in the above rifle.

The AK-74M also has a mounting rail on the left to attach other hardware such as telescopes. Since the early 1990s, the AK-74M model is the current official rifle of the Russian military and is gradually replacing the older AK-74 and AKS-74 models in service.

The Russians have also designed the AK-101, AK-102, AK-103, AK-104 and AK-105 assault rifles, but these use the same AK-74 design, but are chambered for different calibers instead. For instance, AK-101 and its carbine form, the AK-102, are chambered for the NATO 5.56x45 mm. cartridges and are specially designed for the export market.

History and Development of the Assault Rifle - IV

In the last post, we studied the origins of the AK-47 and the beginning of the AKM. The AKM featured several improvements over the AK-47, mostly geared towards improving the production rate. In the initial AK-47 design, they had attempted to make the receiver out of stamped parts to speed up production, but the Soviets lacked the proper technology to do so and had issues with the resulting product. Hence, they resorted to machining the receiver from a block of metal, which was a slower process. However, in the 1950s, they used several captured German technicians to teach them metal stamping technology and hence the AKM featured a stamped receiver. Among the many improvements that the AKM had over the original AK-47:

• Replacement of the milled receiver with a receiver made out of stamped sheet steel. Machining is a lot slower process than using a press to stamp parts. Hence, use of stamped parts made it much faster to produce AKMs.
• Using rivets instead of welds on the receiver, in order to speed up production.
• Improvements to barrel, gas ports etc. to speed up manufacturing and enhance reliability
• Weight reduction of approximately 1 kg. (2.2. pounds)
• Retains the chrome lined barrel and chamber of the AK-47 Type-2 variant, but the barrel is pressed and pinned to the receiver, instead of the AK-47 which has a threaded barrel that is screwed into the receiver.
• The barrel is the first in the AK family to have a slant compensator to reduce rifle climb, when shooting in automatic mode.
• Gas relief ports are moved forward to the gas block, instead of the gas tube.
• Bolt carrier was lightened slightly. The wooden stocks were also hollowed out as well, in order to reduce more weight.
• Sights on an AKM are calibrated to go up to 1000 meters, whereas AK-47s are only calibrated to go up to 800 meters.
• Changes to the metal treatment applied. The AKM is parkerized instead of blued like the AK-47.
• Uses modified spring and trigger assembly for better safety. The AKM fires in automatic mode only when the bolt is fully locked. The new trigger assembly also reduces "trigger bounce" and has a hammer release delay device to delay the release of the hammer by a few microseconds in automatic firing mode. The hammer release delay mechanism is sometimes incorrectly called a "rate reducer" by some people, but it doesn't appreciably change the cyclic rate of fire. Instead it allows the bolt group to settle in the forwardmost position after returning into the battery.

The Soviets made millions of AKMs and they weren't shy about handing out the plans to other co-operating countries, so that they could make their own as well. This is why AKMs are so widespread around the world.

AKM assault rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The basic AKM design also has a number of variants. Some of these are:

• AKMS - This is one of the commoner variants of the base AKM. The AKMS features a metal stock, which is foldable.
• AKMP - This variation uses tritium front and rear sights for better visibility in low light conditions
• AKML - This variant has a side mounting rail to mount a night vision device.
• AKMLP - Same as AKML, but also has tritium sights as a backup.
• AKMSP - Same as AKMS, but fitted with tritium sights
• AKMSN and AKMSNP - Same as AKMS (i.e. foldable stock), but also has a side mounting rail to attach a night vision device. The AKMSNP version also has tritium sights.

What are the differences between AK-47, AKM, AK-56, AK-74 and AK-101?

The AK family of assault rifles are pretty widespread around the world, because of their lower cost of manufacturing, lower tooling costs, general reliability under rough conditions and the fact that the former Soviet Union were pretty much handing them out like candy for years. Clones of the original AK design have also been manufactured by other countries: China, Bulgaria, Romania, even companies in the good ol' USA. Unfortunately, the media keeps referring to just about any assault rifle in the AK family as the "AK-47". This post aims to point out some members of the AK family and some of their major differences.

The AK is a Russian abbreviation for Avtomat Kalashnikova. The name Kalashnikova comes from the fact that its inventor is Mikhail Kalashnikov. The original development for this rifle started in 1945 and a prototype (the AK-46) was submitted for evaluation in 1946, but it was only in 1947 that it was cleared for production for use by select Soviet forces. There have been several improvements to the original design over the years and there are now many models in the AK family. With that little bit of history said, let's now study some of the key features of some models.

AK-47: This is the original version that was approved for use by the Soviets. It fires a 7.62x39 mm. cartridge. It was originally approved for some Soviet forces in 1947, which is why the name has 47 after it. During 1948-1951, it went into general production to be used by other Soviet military units as well (the Type-1 model). In 1952, the Type-2 version was introduced, which had a chrome plated barrel and receiver to resist corrosion and wear. The Soviets had originally tried to make the receiver out of stamped sheet metal, but didn't have the technology then to produce the part reliably. After a large number of rejections of faulty receivers, the Soviets opted to use a receiver made of forged steel, which was milled into the final shape using various machining operations. This made the overall production rate slower.

AK-47 Type 2 variant. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

AKM: This is a popular variant of the AK family. This was created as an improvement of the original AK-47 design. The letter M in the name "AKM" stands for Modernizirovanniy, which is the Russian word for "modernized." The AKM design was developed in the 1950s and finally was approved for full production in 1959. It fires the same 7.62x39 mm as the AK-47 for backward compatibility. However, the design was much revised and enhanced from the original AK-47 to allow it to be mass-produced. The Soviets acquired modern mass production technologies from captured German engineers (including Hugo Schmeisser, the designer of the StG-44) and used those on the AKM. Among some of its improvements:

• Replacement of the milled receiver with a receiver made out of stamped sheet steel. Machining is a lot slower process than using a press to stamp parts. Hence, use of stamped parts made it much faster to produce AKMs.
• Using rivets instead of welds on the receiver, in order to speed up production.
• Improvements to barrel, gas ports etc. to speed up manufacturing and enhance reliability
• Weight reduction of approximately 1 kg. (2.2 pounds)
• Retains the chrome lined barrel and chamber of the AK-47 Type-2 variant, but the barrel is pressed and pinned to the receiver, instead of the AK-47 which has a threaded barrel that is screwed into the receiver.
• The barrel is the first in the AK family to have a slant compensator to reduce rifle climb, when shooting in automatic mode.
• Gas relief ports are moved forward to the gas block, instead of the gas tube.
• Bolt carrier was lightened slightly. The wooden stocks were also hollowed out as well, in order to reduce more weight.
• Sights on an AKM are calibrated to go up to 1000 meters, whereas AK-47s are only calibrated to go up to 800 meters.
• Changes to the metal treatment applied. The AKM is parkerized instead of blued like the AK-47.
• Uses modified spring and trigger assembly for better safety. The AKM fires in automatic mode only when the bolt is fully locked. The new trigger assembly also reduces "trigger bounce" and has a hammer release delay device to delay the release of the hammer by a few microseconds in automatic firing mode. The hammer release delay mechanism is sometimes incorrectly called a "rate reducer" by some people, but it doesn't appreciably change the cyclic rate of fire. Instead it allows the bolt group to settle in the forwardmost position after returning into the battery.

AKM assault rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

Note the slanted barrel tip: that is the slant compensator, which is one of the improvements over the original AK-47 design

The AKM was used by the Soviets, most Warsaw Pact countries, several African countries and many Asian countries as well. Manufacturing licenses, as well as necessary technical data, were sold for very nominal rates (or gifted for free!) to Warsaw Pact countries, as well as other "friendly" countries like Egypt and Iraq, so that they could make their own AKMs. Because of this, it became very widespread around the world. Many variants of this design still exist in use around the world today. One popular variant of the AKM is the AKMS, which features a folding metal stock instead of the fixed wooden stock of the AKM.

AK-56: This is a Chinese made variant of the AK family. While it is officially called the "Type-56", it is often referred to as the AK-56. Predictably, the number 56 indicates that the production of the Chinese models started in 1956.  In the initial stages, the type-56 was a direct copy of the AK-47 type-1 model. However, in the 1960s, the Chinese incorporated some of the AKM improvements (e.g. stamped sheet metal receiver and slant compensator) and made some of their own modifications into their type-56 model, but did not change their version number for some reason. One visual difference between the AKM and the AK-56 is that the front sight of an AK-47 or an AKM is a partially open type, whereas the type-56 model has a fully hooded front sight. 

Chinese sailor carrying a type-56 assault rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The type-56 is the most prolific version of the AK family, since it was exported by the Chinese to various communist movements, especially in third world countries of Asia, South America and Africa. Nearly one in five (i.e. 20%)  of  AK type rifles in the world today is a type-56. When US forces were in Vietnam, the type-56 was found in enemy hands far more often than AKM or AK-47s.

AK-74: This was the next rifle that was officially adopted by the Soviet military in 1974. It was based on the AKM design. However, this variant fires 5.45x39 mm. ammunition instead of 7.62x39 mm. ammunition that the older variants fire. Because of this new cartridge, the barrel, receiver, magazine, firing mechanism, gas cylinder, springs and sights are also altered to accommodate the new cartridge's dimensions and power. This rifle's magazine is made of a plastic, which makes it much more durable than the metal magazines of the AK-47 and AKM. The magazine shape is also subtly altered with two extra horizontal ribs, in order to make it impossible to insert it into an older AK model (since they don't use the same ammunition anyway). The pistol grip is made of a polymer plastic as well. Some early AK-74s have wooden hand guards and butt stock, but they use laminated wood instead of the plain wood that the earlier AK models use. Some later versions of the AK-74 use entirely polymer furniture (i.e. butt stock, pistol grip and hand guards) which is usually plum colored or black colored. The butt stock also has some cuts in it to reduce overall weight and also provide an easy way to distinguish it from an AKM.

AK-74 assault rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

Note the laminated wood stock with distinctive cuts on the side, laminated wood hand guards and the dark-brown plastic magazine.

There are also variants, such as the AKS-74, which feature folding metal stocks instead of wooden stocks, AKS-74U, which is a shorter carbine form of the AKS-74, AK-74M which features black plastic furniture completely (i.e. no wood parts) and has a mounting rail on the left to attach telescopic sight models etc. The firearm issued by the Russian military since the early 1990s is the AK-74M model, though earlier AK-74/AKS-74 still remain in service as well.

AK-74M assault rifle. Note the complete lack of wooden parts. Click on image to enlarge.

AK-101: This is a variant of the AK family that is meant for the export market outside Russia. That is why it is chambered to fire NATO standard 5.56x45 mm. ammunition, which is standard in many countries around the world. Naturally, many of the other parts (barrel, receiver, magazine etc.) are also modified to fit the cartridge. In short, the AK-101 is essentially an AK-74M design resized for the NATO cartridge.

AK-101 assault rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

Like the AK-74M, it also has a mounting rail on the side to allow attaching many optical devices that are common in Russia and Europe.

These are only a few of the models in the AK family of assault rifles. Unfortunately, many people in the media insist on calling all of them "AK-47s", in spite of the major differences between all the models. Surprisingly, true AK-47s are actually quite rare these days, especially the Type-1 variant. Most of what is referred to in the media as an "AK-47" is usually not the original AK-47 model, the weapon in question is usually a variant of AKM, a Type-56, an AK-74 etc. This became painfully apparent to the blog author when he attended a court case as a juror. The prosecutor kept referring to a firearm presented as evidence as "an AK-47 assault rifle". As the case progressed, it emerged that the firearm in question had a different firing mechanism as it was incapable of automatic fire (it could only fire in semi-automatic mode), had a laminated stock, used stamped parts and was made by an American manufacturer named Ewbank Manufacturing from Winslow, Arizona.