While most guns floating around that came back in a GI’s duffle bag from some overseas conflict are Mausers, Arisakas, Nambus, and Lugers, the Vietnam-era Vets often had to make do with the humble SKS.
I recently got to hang out with one, an “11-million” series Chicom Type 56 with a DD-603 tying it to a MAC Team 87 Captain and it certainly was a neat gun.
More in my column at Guns.com.
You know the 100th anniversary this month of the “glorious Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army” would showcase a bunch of vintage Soviet hardware, still in remarkable condition. The Russian Ministry of Defense has been releasing a bunch of images a military parade in Severomorsk in honor of the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Red Army.
Severomorsk is a small town in the frozen Kola Peninsula near the main base of the Red Banner Northern Fleet, and, according to Izvestia, the state-run news organ, those participating were active soldiers and sailors from the local base’s units marching on the orders of one Admiral Nikolai Evmenov and not a group of reenactors. Makes you wonder what is in storage elsewhere in the Motherland!
More in my column at Guns.com.
AK-47 style rifles accounted for almost half of the global production of self-loading rifles over the past century according to the study. (Graphics: Small Arms Survey)
A new study released by the Small Arms Survey found that over half of all autoloading rifles ever made for military use are either AK-type or AR-10/15 type designs.
The 60-page study was authored for the Geneva, Switzerland-based SAS by N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, an international policy-neutral technical intelligence consulting group.
The effort concentrates primarily on military arms issued as a primary combat weapon and not those built or marketed to the civilian or law enforcement user. As such it includes select-fire and automatic magazine-fed rifles such as the AKM and semi-auto battle rifles such as the M1 Garand made after the advent of smokeless powder. Excluded were crew-served weapons.
Starting with the Danish Navy’s order of 60 Rekylkarabin carbines in 1896 and moving forward, the study concluded some 175 million self-loading rifles have been produced for military use since then, noting this figure was “conservative.”
So yeah, the Rock Island Auction house’s Regional Firearms Auction is this weekend and they have the normal collection of odds, ends, and in-betweens. One of which is a six-barreled, six-actioned, Gatling gun made from a half dozen Chinese Norinco SKS Type 53 rifles. The gun fires by a crank located on the right hand side of the device that turned the whole assembly as it rotates.
click to big up. You are gonna want to big this up…
They look to be fitted with 30-round aftermarket mags which would give it a ready capacity of some 180-ish rounds of 7.62x39mm (bring on the Wolf!). The guns look like they are in pretty poor condition with pitted metal showing on most and all have very different serials.
Ian over at Forgotten Weapons calls it the “Redneck Oblitorator”
Value is expected to start at $800, which may be a little high considering what we have here.
Whats the Goldblum line? Oh wait….
So I saw this instantly classic image from among hundreds circulating from the ‘I Will Not Comply‘ rally of gun-rights supporters in Olympia, Washington after the narrow passage of ballot initiative I-594 which expands background checks to include most firearms transfers.
While I have to admit I dig the swagger of the two gentlemen here, something else besides the PacNorthWest attitude caught my eye.
Look at the bolts of their rifles.
They are both SKS’s.
Heavily modified SKS’s including one with a bullpup stock (and EoTech!), but Simonovs none the less.
For reference…
When the US military kicked in the door on the small Caribbean island nation of Grenada in 1983, it was to rescue endangered American medical students. What they found was a stockpile of weapons large enough to outfit one a communist-trained military force that would be capable of taking control of the entire region if needed. Here is a historical look at what was found.
The former British colony of Grenada had a non-violent past. That was until 1979 when a local Marxist named Maurice Bishop overthrew the government in a paramilitary coup. Bishop then got friendly with Communist led Moscow and Havana, built a giant airport capable of refueling intercontinental flights from the Soviet Union, and got to work building an army.
Called the People’s Revolutionary Army (PRA), 1500 new members were required to swear an oath of loyalty to the party and swear that Marxist socialism was the ideal form of government– both of which are a great harbinger for bad things to come. The former Grenadian government had made due with a force of 100 part-time soldiers and 300 full-time police. This was deemed just right for a country with a population of just 100,000 inhabitants whose primary export was nutmeg (the stuff used in eggnog).
Long story short, Bishop was overthrown by an even worse set of guys and in the ensuing struggle was executed. This led to a military-led government, run by the PRA. Swelling in size by the day the force was intended to grow to more than 6800 members, trained by 722 Cuban and 24 North Korean military advisers. Nearly a quarter of the island was to receive mandatory military training and the government’s goal was to include one of every five inhabitants in the civilian militia, adding that “even 8-year old children” had been trained for this purpose.
With some 800 American medical students located on the island, uniformed Cuban military types whispering in every corner, and the PRA shooting down demonstrators in the streets, the US took action. In a lightning stroke, involving 7300 US troops and 350 sent by neighboring Caribbean countries, this small and unstable country was invaded in October 1983 in Operation Urgent Fury. The fighting was over fast, with some 125 US casualties and the PRA/Cuban forces suffering some over 470. What the US troops found after the smoke cleared was amazing.
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com
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