Though more commonly seen in the public eye as a weapon of insurgents, terrorists and “freedom fighters” the world over, AK (an abbreviation for avtomat Kalashnikova, the Russian name for the gun) rifles have found their way into many Americans’ gun cabinets, safes, closets, trunks and survival stashes. The AK design has earned its reputation [...]

Though AK rifles are renowned for their simplicity, it can be difficult for a beginner to figure out how to disassemble one. I’ve put together this quick video how-to for field stripping an AK for cleaning and examination.  

To fully clean and degrease a Mosin-Nagant rifle, you need to take apart the bolt. Though the bolt is slightly more complex than its contemporaries, with a little bit of practice it’s easy to get the process down. To see how to disassemble the Mosin proper, click here.  

An employee of Wayne County’s Department of Public Services received a nasty reward for turning in a stolen gun he found while working the morning of May 3 – he was fired. John Chevilott, a groundskeeper for the department for the past 23 years, was mowing a lawn near Detroit, Michigan’s Brightmoor area when he [...]

In some upsetting news for AK enthusiasts, Izhmash, the company that controls the “original” AK rifle factory in Izhevsk, Russia, has officially declared bankruptcy. Steve over on The Firearm Blog broke a story about it earlier today, linking to a Russian news website that covered the details. For those of us that follow the international [...]

One of the big things I missed at SHOT this year was the announcement that the Lucznik Arms Factory (also known colloquially as “Radom”), the Polish manufacturer of several different modern small arms, was going to give exporting “sporter” style AK rifles in 5.56x45mm NATO (.223 Remington) to the US market a try. This was very exciting [...]

I’ve always been a big fan of Russian guns. When I bought my first Soviet Mosin from a gun show in southeast Michigan several years ago, it was just the start of a deep fascination with the small arms of the east. So it seemed natural when I began to develop an interest in AK [...]

Coming back to the office after a busy week of guns and gear in Vegas is quite the come down. I wanted to put together a summary of some of the coolest things I saw at SHOT this year in one post. For those of who have been following our SHOT page, this may seem [...]

This was my last day to walk the floor, but I made sure it counted. Perhaps the most innovative product on display at SHOT this year is Thompson Center’s Dimension bolt-action rifle platform. The Dimension is a modular rifle that can quickly and easily switch between several different calibers by only replacing the bolt, magazine [...]

Another day, another bunch of guns. My second day walking the floor at SHOT yielded just as many cool results as the first official day and Media Day. Just like I wrote for day one, I’m going to try to fit as much unique stuff into a brief post as I can with as many [...]