While at CANCON 2023 in Savannah, Georgia a few weeks ago, I stopped by the Kalashnikov USA booth and ran into John Cason, KUSA’s director of sales. He told me that the company wouldn’t be in Vegas for the SHOT Show later this month, but he did have several sweet new models they had queued up for 2024.
Among them is the long-promised American-made 7.62x39mm AK101 sporter (KR101), a 5.56 NATO AK102 sporter (KR102), side folding wood-stocked (not a misprint) KR103s, and a tiny Vityaz.
KUSA’s “Micro 9” Vityaz, made for an Indonesian military contract but soon to come to the U.S. consumer market
Developed for an overseas military contract, KUSA had what is tentatively just called the “Micro 9” at the show. Now don’t confuse that term with a micro compact 9mm pistol such as a P365 or Hellcat. This is a 5-inch barreled semi-auto KP-9 Vityaz clone rather than the standard 9.25-incher that the company intends to market as both a pistol (that can either use a triangle brace or be Form 1’d later should the user want) and as a factory SBR.
PSA Krinkov (no, really, they say)
Palmetto State Armory has been teasing the public for years that they have an American-made Krink headed to market while not delivering.
Well, Cameron surfaced over the weekend on social media and said the company is in their final testing phase for the gun, expecting to launch it in February (yes, of 2024).
They intend to have five variants at launch– all in 5.56 with included side rails.
These will include a plum gloss, a Vudu version, a JMac railed option, a redwood version, and an SBR-ready variant. PSA says that they will work on 5.45, .300 BLK, and 7.62×39 variants after the 5.56s have been released. No pricing is available.
Footage from “somewhere in Ukraine” shows an improvised drone-buster made from six Kalashnikovs.
The system, first seen in early July, is made from a half-dozen AK74s assembled in a rough circle along a hexagonal brace with the tops of the receivers facing inward. It includes a central charging handle and trigger solenoid as well as a simple circle-T anti-aircraft style iron reticle fitted to the top centerline.
The initial design included guns still with their canvas slings.
Another short clip, posted last week, shows the gun in action against two low-flying target drones alongside a WWII-vintage DP28.
The testing prototype was a little better arranged
The Armorer’s Bench, calling the device the “Ukrainian Minigun,” dives more into it in the below video, including some video of the mount being constructed in a shop.
The primary source of counter-drone, counter-missile, and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine since 2021 has been the U.S. In addition to undefined “Equipment to sustain Ukraine’s existing air defense capabilities” as well as “Anti-aircraft guns and ammunition,” the $41.3 billion in counter-air weapons transferred from Pentagon stockpiles to the country include:
One Patriot air defense battery and munitions
Eight National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and munitions
HAWK air defense systems and munitions
RIM-7 missiles for air defense
20 Avenger air defense systems
Nine c-UAS gun trucks and ammunition
10 mobile c-UAS laser-guided rocket systems
Over 2,000 Stinger anti-aircraft systems
Plus, NATO allies have given the Ukrainians Cold War-era RBS-70s, Mistrals, Gephards, Orelikons, et. al. by the trainloads.
However, it should be noted that in 2023 with Iranian-made Shahed 136 “kamikaze drones” only costing the Russians about $20K a pop, systems like the “Ukrainian Minigun” may be a low-cost solution.
This dovetails with reports that Ukraine is running short of AAA ammo and SAMs:
I’d recommend bringing back the old M45 Maxson “Meat Chopper,” which used a four-pack of M2 .50-cals on a battery-powered chassis.
We checked out one back in 2020 and such a concept, updated with better mechanics and the addition of an EW jammer for countering small drones (CUAS) should be something that could be CAD’ed up overnight and built from off-the-shelf components.
Meanwhile, in Britain, the Army just took possession of the first of a planned 225 Smartshooter SMASH fire control systems, an add-on see-through optics with a lock and track system that can recognize a target and maintain a lock even if it or the user moves. It has a dedicated “drone hard kill mode” and will be employed in such a role.
If spread across the 33 active duty combat battalions of the Regular army, this gives about six SMASH-equipped rifles per battalion, or two per company, which seems about right, and could point towards Designated C-sUAS Marksmen being a thing. (Photo: British Army)
It is no wonder that companies such as Rheinmetall are now marketing SPAAGs like the Oerlikon Skyranger 30, platforms that look very 1980s but with a new twist.
“This highly mobile air defence system with integrated active and passive search and tracking sensors is a powerful, autonomous shooter with both gun and missiles. It is capable of engaging modern battlefield threats with a special focus on small unmanned aerial targets. It combines superior firepower with the dynamics and elevation needed to successfully engage highly agile single or swarming targets performing loiter, pop up or dive attacks.”
A couple of URD SBR builds from Jim Fuller’s Rifle Dynamics in Las Vegas. The top rifle is a Pacnoir barrel, the bottom was done with a Vepr barrel and a refinished Romanian wood foregrip.
“The 74 URD, the fighting rifle perfected, no matter how you configure it the size weight and handling characteristics of this rifle performs beyond all others,” they say.
According to RD, the guns shoot just fine for the shorty barrels.
(“W)e have yet to get chronograph readings on these but they are hitting man-sized targets out to 500 yards, with the 11.5″ barrel the velocity loss is minimal. With 60 grn Wolf they hold about 2MOA, with Hornaday 1MOA @100yards.”
So SilencerCo dropped a new collaboration between Jim Fuller of Rifle Dynamics (perhaps the best AKs made in this Hemisphere) in which they take a RD501 5.45mm AK74 clone (semi, due to the Hughes Amendment, but with a 12.5-inch SBR barrel) and mate it to a Saker 556K suppressor. Of course, it’s $4K and there are tax stamps involved which are most likely not covered by that–but it’s sweet as a diabetic coma.
Specs:
• Saker 556K with Direct Thread Mount
• 12.5” Barrel Chambered in 5.45×39
• Unique Summit Serial Numbers on Rifle & Silencer
• Matte Black Finish on Rifle & Suppressor
• Ultimak Railed Gas Tube for Optic
• Made in USA Barrel with Black Nitride Finish
• Made in USA Receiver
• Classic Russian Red Handguard
• Triangle Skeleton Side-Folding Stock
• (1) 30-Round Magazine
• Handcrafted, Collector’s Edition Reclaimed Wood Crate
• Only (25) Limited-Edition Packages Available
When I was in jrot-c back in the days, we would do close order drill with dewatted 1903 Springfields, target practice with .22LRs (beat up old Mossberg bolt guns), PT, and two days of Naval Science a week. In the summer you could go to “Leadership Academy” at the nearby Naval base for a couple of weeks and shoot .38s and do more of the former. Of course that was in the 1990s and from what I understand, most of the use of firearms has been replaced with airguns and rubber ducks these days. Well in Russia the junior military training seems to be slightly more advanced. Here is a video of the AK-74 assembly and disassembly stage of the “Patriot” competition held at many schools as part of their voluntary training courses. These kids are pretty good when you consider they are 14-17 year olds. Your typical U.S. kid has trouble plugging in their iPhone.
Do bears go (well you know) in the woods? The inevitable answer is always yes. Moreover, sometimes, hikers cross paths with these animals, and that is when things can really go from bad to worse in no time at all. Just as one Alaskan hiker who carried just the right piece of insurance.
