AKM-SU clone.

[vzagumennyy 0]

any-body out there seen an AKMSU? no, not the aks-74u, i have one of those. i'm talking about the akm-su in 7.62 with those thumbhole front stock. fixing on building me a clone, should be fun, not cheap, i'm guessing....anyways, here's a pic.

[will36 0]

any-body out there seen an AKMSU? no, not the aks-74u, i have one of those. i'm talking about the akm-su in 7.62 with those thumbhole front stock. fixing on building me a clone, should be fun, not cheap, i'm guessing....anyways, here's a pic.

 

 

If you can find any of those lower handguards you could finance the whole project.

[sudaevpps43 31]

any-body out there seen an AKMSU? no, not the aks-74u, i have one of those. i'm talking about the akm-su in 7.62 with those thumbhole front stock. fixing on building me a clone, should be fun, not cheap, i'm guessing....anyways, here's a pic.

 

As far as I know only Yugoslavia and Bulgaria ever made underfolder 7.62 AKMSUs as a standard production item, and only the Bulgarian version had the 8 inch barrel (the Yugoslavian M92 had a 10 inch barrel). The Bulgarian variant is listed on the Arsenal Bulgaria website at:

http://www.arsenal-bg.com/defense_police/7,62ar-sf.htm

 

K-Var did import some 7.62 Bulgarian underfolder AKMSU kits a few years ago, but they sold out almost immediately (see http://www.k-var.com/shop/product.php?prod...254&page=1) and they won't be available again unless the ATF changes its nonsensical ruling on parts kits with barrels (in other words never, since I don't think the ATF has ever gone back and eliminated an import restriction once they put it in place). Finding one of these kits, or a rifle built on one, is almost impossible today.

 

If you are willing to be a bit flexible, and would accept a 10 inch barrel rather than an 8 inch, the Yugoslavian M92 kits or rifles built on them can at least still be found (though that will probably change within a year or two). Right now an 8 inch barreled 7.62 AKMSU underfolder would pretty much have to be made up from scratch. You could probably base it on a standard underfolder receiver (maybe the NDS-1P from NoDak Spud), or use a donor underfolder AK rifle. Most of the rest of the 7.62 AKMSU "Krinkov" specific parts (krinkov piston, rear hinge block, hinged receiver cover, etc.) can still be found on K-Var or on other sites (like gunbroker.com), except of course for the 8 inch 7.62 barrels, which are very hard to find. It should be possible to make one from a regular 7.62 AK barrel though, by cutting it down and then milling it to a krinkov profile on a lathe (this would definitely require serious lathing skills though).

 

Finally there is of course the thumbhole forward handguard, which as will36 aluded to are very expensive and exceedingly rare (for AK collectors it is a holy grail kind of part), and the odds of finding one are very long. The only reliable way to get one of these would be to make it completely from scratch. This would be difficult even with good carpentry skills, since as far as I know there are no dimensional drawings available anywhere, so making one would be total guess work.

 

One last thing, Arsenal Inc. (in Nevada not Bulgaria) claims they will be making a 7.62 AKMSU at some point (albeit a sidefolder not an underfolder, http://www.arsenalinc.com/sam7sfk.htm), but no one knows when it will actually be going into production.

[vzagumennyy 0]

thanks man, real helpful.....i wonder what the diff is between the yugo front end and a bulgy one....as in, milling a virgin yugo krink barrel to to bulgy specs. i'm almost positive that there was a russian one though, but this whole entire gun seems extremely elusive as a whole, so yah never know.

[sudaevpps43 31]

thanks man, real helpful.....i wonder what the diff is between the yugo front end and a bulgy one....as in, milling a virgin yugo krink barrel to to bulgy specs. i'm almost positive that there was a russian one though, but this whole entire gun seems extremely elusive as a whole, so yah never know.

 

Offhand, I don't know the exact differences between yugo and bulgy barrel trunnions, so I don't know if a yugo barrel could be milled to fit a bulgarian trunnion, but it definitely sounds possible. The main problem is, the only way to know for sure you are milling the barrel to the correct bulgarian profile, would be to already have an 8 inch krinkov barrel to compare against (or at least the machine drawing for one). Fortunately, you would only be concerned with the outside profile of the barrel, so if you could find a 5.45 or 5.56 bulgy krinkov barrel, you could use it as your comparison template while milling down a yugo M92 or normal length 7.62 AK barrel.

 

It is certainly possible Russia made some sort of underfolder AKMSU in limited quantities at some point. After all, most estimates of total historical worldwide AK production have margins of error in the millions, so there could easily have been limited productions runs of uncommon or experimental AK variants that were just never made in sufficient numbers to become well known. If you were really curious, you could try e-mailing Max Popenker through his website ( http://world.guns.ru/main-e.htm ). He is a small arms expert (published one book on pistols and one on assault rifles), and russian, so if anyone knows whether Russia ever made any 7.62 underfolder AKMSUs, he probably would.

Edited June 16, 2007 by Frogfoot

[KySoldier 2]

I don't operate a machine shop so if it were me, I'd just get BattlerifleG3 to make a lower handguard from scatch to fit a Bulgarian or Yugo M92 Krink. The kit guns can be found at Atlantic Firearms, Urban Armory, etc. If you wanted something more custom like an M92 with a shorter barrel I'd have Red Jacket make you up one or Tony Rumore if you can wait. But that's just me, I don't have the time and/or skill to make the beautiful guns I want. Anything beyond making wood stocks or converting Saigas I leave to the professionals

Edited June 15, 2007 by KySoldier

[sudaevpps43 31]

thanks man, real helpful.....i wonder what the diff is between the yugo front end and a bulgy one....as in, milling a virgin yugo krink barrel to to bulgy specs. i'm almost positive that there was a russian one though, but this whole entire gun seems extremely elusive as a whole, so yah never know.

 

 

vladimirzagumennyy, I see it looks like you also posted your AKMSU question over at AKforum.net, so you may have already found this information there, but it looks like the AKMSU, or at least the one in that picture that always seems to pop up, was a one of a kind AK made by some anonymous gunsmith in Pakistan. There are a couple of threads at AKforum.net, where they say it was made with russian parts on a stamped chinese receiver, and the thumbhole lower forend was made completely from scratch.

 

Apparently a lot of the the confusion about it having been produced as a standard production item at some point is Russia, comes from a mistake in a Japanese reference book on AKs, the Tokoi book. In this book the author has several pictures of the weapon, and lists it as the 'AKMS Carbine', and evidently states that it was one of the various AK models made by Russia.

 

Threads over on AKforum.net on the AKMSU:

 

http://www.akforum.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12629

http://www.akforum.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4987

 

Thread with post showing the 'AKMS Carbine' in the Japanese Tokoi reference book:

 

http://www.akforum.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=26818

 

 

So it looks like Russia never formally produced any Kalashnikov variants called AKMSU (or any variations of this designation like AKM-SU or AKMS-U). Of course even though there was never any official AKMSU model produced in Russia, it is still possible that individual armorers in Red Army units or state security organizations (like the MVD), might at some point have unofficially gunsmithed some AKMs to a AKMSU-type configuration as a field modification.

[vzagumennyy 0]

oh....thanks. make a lot more sense now. becuase i had always thought that krinks weren't around till the afgan war. but then there's all this here say....now it makes plenty more sense.