| With permission from:
Ekie and Tantal well known Russian AK history buffs.
The Russian AK-74 has been the subject of a continuous improvement
program beginning with the first prototypes assembled in the late
1960's and early 1970's. It appears that every few years, some major
design changes were made in the production lines, and although some
were more or less transitional and individual modifications, many
were adopted as part of specific improvement packages, and rifles
made in those particular years can be identified as specific subtypes.
Some of these subtypes are undocumented, and some are known, but
sadly, few details have been elaborated on in either Western or
Russian reference works on the subject.
This work is based on a draft originally developed and compiled
by Ekie, and without his initial work we wouldn't have got off the
ground with it. Much of the information was gathered by Ekie through
multiple conversations between him, Malysh and myself over the past
several years. It is generally based on research done through our
trilateral efforts. ("Well at least I wrote the stuff out rather
then being Cryptic about it..hehe" ---Ekie)
Normally, Russian nomenclature is based on designer, receiver material
and manufacture, barrel length, type of stock (folding or fixed),
and ability to mount night vision devices. Because even a major
upgrade is sometimes not considered valid enough to warrant a subtype
prefix (as in M16A2), extensive changes were often made without
Russian type class changes. In these cases, we have had to create
our own.
Each subtype has been judged through the observation of multiple
changes that seem to have been made at the same time. In some cases
individual changes were made at other time periods, and these have
been noted as such due to their significance to the collector. We
have tried to concentrate on groups of changes that are strong evidence
for an undocumented product improvement program (PIP). Dates of
introduction were determine by the actual dates of manufacture of
the
rifles themselves, and by cross-checking sources and reference materials,
both public and private.
Listed below each subtype is a short list of the most important,
defining
production changes, rather than a total description of the rifle,
since the
other features of the rifle are basically AK-74 standard and would
take more room to properly describe than we have space for here.
The following document is not in any way a comprehensive guide,
and much detail needs to be added. A few of the features listed
may be hard for the novice to decipher without hands on inspection,
while many are known to all who have looked at photos of the many
versions.
Although we feel very confident the version printed here has been
reviewed and revised adequately to ensure it's basic accuracy, there
is room to improve. Any question among ourselves as to the validity
of the information, or to the dates of introduction, is noted in
the text. Most or all features and modifications have been cross
referenced from several sources, including factory manuals, personal
inspection of rifles, military journals, interviews, print and video
media. We welcome any interested parties to add, correct, or modify
any items they feel could be improved on, in an effort to create
a database of serial numbers and date codes that will elaborate
on principal design refinements in the series. Please e-mail us
with any comments or suggestions. ---Tantal
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