We all know teh legendery AK47 is built to take whatever you can throw at it - and I have seen it buried in sand, mud and snow to prove this, but this is taking things to extremes...

Neatorama reports: "Yes, the shoulder stock of this AK-47 is from a shovel. That's not the impressive part. The receiver--the housing for the action--is also from a shovel. Yes, really! Boris melted, reforged, reshaped, cut and welded the blade of a shovel into a completely functional receiver. The result is a beautiful piece of post-apocalyptic engineering."

Still glowing from my post on the new CYMA AKM yesterday I thought I would take a quick look at the 'real steel' original's stats over at World.guns.ru. This was a fortuitous thing to do as there is a really interesting update on the AK47/AKM entry at this very authoritative website.

Something I didn't know was that the AK47 was NOT the first Soviet intermediate assault rifle design, and were it not for a querk of fate then perhaps the Kalashnikov design might not have been the iconic weapon of the 20th century that it was. Apparently an earlier Soviet design by Alexey Ivanovich Sudayev* actually predated Mikhail Kalashnikov's AK46 design (precursor to the AK47 production model) by nearly two years, but due to Sudayev's untimely death in 1946 his design floundered.

Above: The AS-44, which fired a 7.62x41 M43 round - it entered limited evaluation with Soviet troops in 1945, and by all accounts proved popular. Note the very modern AK74 style flash hider! Source: World.guns.ru

The full and rather more complex story is told at World.guns.ru and it is well worth a read if you are a AK47 'fan'. It certainly openned my eyes as I had never heard of the AS-44 before. Additionally, you might like to look at the very interesting early AK46/7 prototypes which are pictured here:

> Link: World.guns.ru - Kalashnikov AK (AK-47) AKS, AKM & AKMS assault rifles

*August 23, 1912 - August 17, 1946 - creator of the famous PPS Soviet SMG.