The AK Pistol Manual of Arms

I got alot of positive response from the AK Pistol piece and I first want to thank all my loyal readers and future students out there for your kind words. I also got alot of questions and I wanted to address those in this article. As you know, I am building this company piece by piece every day..the same goes for my blog, so I have decided, for every hardware piece I do from now on, I will follow it up with a relevant manual of arms and tactics/training article to hopefully address all questions regarding that particular weapons platform. By doing it this way, you get the whole skinny on the weapon and not just some slick write up you could get from some gun rag like Guns & Ammo or SWAT. This is just another way of showing you guys my dedication to giving you the no bones skinny and real world training you guys deserve. OK, enough with the pleasantries, let’s get down to brass tacks.

The Manual of Arms for the AK Pistol differs somewhat from the MOA for the standard AK by the obvious difference of shooting it without a stock or cheek weld. The beauty of it though once we solve that problem, everything else stays the same…trigger reset, mag reloads, clearing jams, etc… So we will start with how to shoot this gun accurately and quickly and at the same time control recoil without a stock.

Whenever I am learning a weapons system, I spend a few minutes just handling the weapon..feeling out the ergonomics of its shape, weight and overall handling..this is much like test driving a car..you are getting to know the machine more intimately, feeling it out, if you will. Whenever you pick up an AK pistol you will find that when you place your support hand on the hand guard, and grab the pistol grip with your firing hand, something is just not right, the gun feels “twisted” in a way. This is mainly due to not having the stock support to the rear of the gun..it just feels awkward. Since every gun has an “axis” point or “center of balance” you have to find it on an AK to make the gun feel right..for me, when I shift my hand to the rear, just in front of the magazine, the gun feels totally different..more balance and quicker handling. I often do this on my full size AK’s when shooting in the field–I just favor this hand position, it feels natural to me. I also find it quicker to manipulate mag changes and the charging handle from this position also.

So once we shift our support and back and the gun is more balanced, now we need to bring the gun up so we can see the sights. I like a distance of around 10″ of eye relief..again this is what works for me, but this is a good starting point. I have also found in shooting these guns alot in the field in order to “carry over” your full size AK manual of arms in regards to using the sights, the enclosed circle HK type front sights that come standard on these AK Pistols may need to be modified into the standard AK open “wing” front sight..not a big deal to do, in fact I got a quote from a local gunsmith and he quoted me $40, so mine will be getting modified next week. This is important to think about since the sighting method of the “Poor Man’s EO Tech” (super imposing the front sight aperture on your target) is very quick and combat accurate to use with “wing” type AK sights. We will come back to sights in a little bit, but I wanted to mention this now so you can be thinking about modifications.

Once we have the correct grip, our eye relief at the correct distance and our front sight the way we want it, we need to start looking at body angles. By body angles, I mean the way our body is positioned when we are holding the gun up. Since we have no stock support, all of the weight of the gun (5.5-6 lbs with a 30rd mag) is resting in our arms and shoulders, we can distribute this weight more evenly (and the recoil consequently) with a few modifications. We also want to focus on eliminating unnecessary tension in our upper body. Often people think they can control recoil by tensing up the arm and shoulder muscles, but this will have the reverse effect, since the recoil of the gun is going straight back into a tense muscle, the muscle reacts by sending the energy up, causing the gun to “flip” up. When the recoil meets a semi-relaxed muscle, the energy is absorbed and the muzzle flip is greatly reduced. Being the 7.62×39 has little recoil anyways, this is not a difficult task to master. You also need to look at your grip on the weapon as a whole, which whether you are using a pistol or rifle, can have a big effect on accuracy. Try not to “strangle” the gun, but have enough pressure to control it. You will see in my pistol and rifle sections in the CO classes how this translates out to solid hits on target.

So, here is a quick rundown on what you should be looking for:

1. With the forward mag grip, make sure your thumbs are down and aligned down the receiver, not flared up. You will see the benefit when you start shooting ambidextrous. Can you say “AK Thumb?” Ouch…..
2. Elbows tucked..no “chicken wing’s”. This not only gives you better balance and control, it takes away a target for your enemy.
3. Lessen the tension in your upper body by easing off on the grip of the weapon in both hands..the gun does not have to be choked to death.
4. Feet spread shoulder width..power stance.
5. Gun held 10-11″ away for proper eye relief.

Once all these elements are in place, you now should be able to duplicate your presentation just like you do with your carry pistol. It should feel natural.  Remember how it feels when you find that “sweet” spot. There should be little or no tension in your body as you break the shot. You should be able to snap the gun up quickly, get a flash sight picture or super-imposed front sight post snapshot and break the shot quickly. Almost all of the drills from my standard AK course of fire can be duplicated with the AK Pistol, except the 300 and 400 yard drills. I emphasize heavy doses of mag changes and working the charging handle (which can be done dry also) during live fire drills. Your dry fire work should be about 60% of your overall time spent with the gun, while the remaining 40% should be live. Unless you are independently wealthy, this should sit well with most of us “working” stiffs since the price of ammo is on the incline again it seems.

If you want my specific AK (and Pistol) courses of Fire, you will have to come to a class. Hey..I can’t give everything away for free! I gotta eat too!! Stay Dangerous my Friends.

The Lil’ Terror: The AK Pistol

The AK Pistol. The chopped down version of Kalashnikov’s masterpiece. This particular weapon shown above is a slightly modified Romanian “Mini-Draco” AK-47 in 7.62×39. This model has a 7″ Barrel and is 19″ Overall and weighs in at around 5lbs. This model is not to be confused with the standard “Draco” which has a 11.5″ Barrel and is around 22″ Overall. These guns are unique in that they are imported “as-is” from the Cugir factory (from CAI) in Romania..they are not “frankenfish” AK’s built from 30 year old parts kits or monkey assembled POS’s that Century is known for. I must say I was pleasantly surprised when I received mine..the fit/finish was great, almost no tooling marks on the receiver or mag well. All my magazines fit great, which is a rare thing with most Century guns, typically, they accept steel mags but not Circle 10’s or Palm mags (without some file or dremmel work) this one accepted them all, no problem. The trigger is standard Romanian, typically on most imported AK Rifles, they install a Tapco G2 to make it BATF 922r compliant, not the case on pistols. The rear sight is marked out to 500m, which is a little more than a 7″ barrel is capable. In my field trials, I found 200 yards about the maximum effective range I could put solid combat effective hits on target. Lastly, the muzzle nut is spot welded on, which I found a bit puzzling, but not to worry, that is an easy fix.

The few Modifications I did when I got it were to replace the standard pistol grip with a more ergonomic one..I chose the ATI Israeli Grip, which next to the US Palm grip, I find the most comfortable. I also replaced the spot welded muzzle nut, which involved some dremmel work (NOTE: If you are going to work on your own guns, which I highly recommend, go out and buy yourself a decent dremmel tool, punch set and gunsmith hammer.. you can do a hundred jobs with these (especially on AK’s)  and they pay for themselves with one job). Once you cut through the spot weld, you will need a pair of channel locks to remove that muzzle nut, it takes some elbow grease, but it will come off.

I also installed an AK-74 “Bell” Brake to give the gun a Krinkov look, which I favor, but the muzzle brake or flashider options are endless, since it is a 14mm thread. I also installed a Krebs Trigger retainer plate which replaces the stock shepards hook. I do this on all my AK’s, it is like a $10 part that can save you a lot of trouble in the field..most AK problems are an easy fix, a trigger problem however, will put your gun down until you can get it in the shop, replacing the shepards hook (which is the part of the trigger that has the most tension on it and will break) drastically reduces your odds that this will happen. Lastly, I stained the bare wood hand guard a Russian Ironwood color, which same out nice red tone after a few coats of tung oil.

Future mods will include installing a sling swivel for a one point sling, opening up the rear sight for a better sight picture and doing a Parkerized/Norrels Moly-Resin Finish on the receiver. I intend to keep this gun minimalist, doing a cursory search on You Tube will show the opposite philosophy, installing Quad Rails and Red Dots,  doubling the weight of the gun and turning it into a brick…ughhh.

Since we must first look at weapons as tools, we must ask ourselves: Where does this weapon fit into the CO’s arsenal? What can I do with this weapon that I could not do with others? To answer these questions we need to look at the three perks that are most obvious on the AK Pistol:

1. Concealability
2. Magazine Capacity
3. Caliber

You could take this gun anywhere concealed and it would not be a problem. I can fit mine along with 3 mags in a standard field backpack.This would also make an excellent vehicle gun. It would be easy to maneuver in tight confines and still give you the range and firepower for 100 yd engagements. You would not have to sacrifice magazine capacity and you would not have to settle for a pistol caliber (typically a 9mm variant). Basically, you would have everything an AK rifle would offer you minus the 300-400 yd range. Looking back to history, the Russian design of the Krinkov and Suchka were purely CQ weapons, designed for 50-100yd engagements, although as stated before, 200yds shots are possible with these guns.

So where in the “5 Gun Theory” does this weapon fit? I think the AK pistol compliments the CO’s armory very well and fills a niche that the Standard size AK cannot in that it can go places concealed and is quick to deploy. Thusly, it is more of a “Niche” gun and not a “necessity” gun. To add to this, I would also have in my armory, short “full size” folding stock AK’s like an AMD-65 and an Arsenal 107-CR Krinkov.

The only other upgrade would be to turn the AK Pistol into a SBR, but after much thought and discussion with some folks who are smarter than me with AK’s, I have been advised not to do that, the simple reason is the quality of the receiver..if you want a true Suchka or Krinkov, pony up and have it built from a kit correctly by a quality smith like Jim Fuller. Yeah, it will cost you, but you will have a go-to dependable AK you can pass on to your kids or significant others.