Many people who briefly looked into Kalashnikov’s biography ask the same question – how come the first gun he developed, the AK-47, became so incredibly popular? But when you dig deeper, it turns out the AK-47 was not his first design, and Kalashnikov’s early attempts to develop new guns often failed.
Perhaps the most spectacular failure was his first machine gun designed in 1943. This particular weapon doesn’t really have a name, and even many Kalashnikov experts never heard of it.
But I got lucky. In 2018, I was tasked with consulting a movie production, the biopic about Kalashnikov. One of the biggest challenges was building correct replicas of the guns he developed in the 1940s. While looking for the information, I came across some declassified documents about the history of this machine gun.
After the movie was released, turned out that the replicas were actually the most historically accurate part of the story. If you wanna know more about this movie, you can listen to the “ TFB Behind The Gun” podcast we did with Luke.
The first time Kalashnikov decided to make a machinegun was in 1942 when he was recovering from a wound and tried to manufacture a prototype of both the submachinegun and the machinegun. After the initial evaluation of his first design, he was sent to continue his to the city of Alma-Ata (modern-day Kazakstan).
Over there, he could work on his designs at the Moscow Aviation Institute which was evacuated from the Soviet capital in 1941, when everyone expected that Nazis would either take the city or destroy it.
Upon his arrival, he didn’t even have an assembled prototype, just some parts, but using the workshops of the institute, he managed to complete initial prototyping.
The initial prototype machine gun looked impressive enough to get some financing. In November of 1943, the military allocated 2000 roubles for the development of the new machinegun and started paying Kalashnikov a temporary salary. The final prototype was supposed to be ready by December 15, 1943.
At this stage, Kalashnikov finally had all the necessary resources and completed the build even earlier. One of the gunsmiths from his team even managed to make some engravings on the prototype.
The machine gun participated in trials against many other prototypes. There were plenty of unknown designers in that competition, but some of the most known Soviet designers also got involved.
The most famous one was weapon design engineer Degtyaryov, and the second was Simonov, who later developed SKS. The main goal of the trials was to create a replacement for DP-28, the only light machine gun available to the Soviet troops at the time.
This program was created in August of 1942 when the Red Army wanted a new machine gun that would incorporate combat experience gained during the first year of the war.
Kalashnikov’s machine gun was hardly what they wanted. For the prototype, he used a modified rifle magazine that had a 15-round capacity. The machinegun used a recoil operation mechanism and some features from the German MG13 Dreyse machinegun.
In his memoirs, Kalashnikov doesn’t talk about those trials. But thankfully I have the original declassified documents from 1944 which allows us to see what really happened there.
On August 30, 1944, the main small arms testing ground of the Red Army finished tests of Kalashnikov’s machinegun and filed a formal report, quote:
The entire testing of Kalashnikov’s machine gun was limited to 29 rounds only. After we fired 29 rounds, the ejector broke off and the empty case got stuck. Also, the charging handle that was previously cracked, broke off completely.
Even with such a limited amount of ammunition fired, we had 3 stoppages when the bolt did not fully cycle, and one stovepipe. We assume the recoil spring is too weak, which causes failures to cycle.
Generally, the design of this machine gun is not original and does not deserve any particular attention, but some parts have some innovation in them and can be recommended for use in new prototypes of automatic weapons. The idea of adjusting headspace in Kalashnikov’s machine gun is indeed new.
FINAL VERDICT
Kalashnikov’s machine gun in general is of no interest and cannot be recommended for further development.
Original 1944 schematic that explains how Kalashnikov’s machinegun was supposed to workThe document notes that Kalashnikov himself was present during the trials and witnessed this disaster. He spent more than a year developing this machine gun and this project ended in a complete and utter failure.
After that experience, according to Kalashnikov himself, many colleagues told him he should look for a different job and that “designing weapons just wasn’t a job for him”.
But he didn’t listen, he learned from his mistakes and eventually created one of the best machine guns in existence – PK/PKM. He even used his idea of an adjustable headspace in the PK design.