tal , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

Heh, good catch.

There actually was a Kalashnikov factory in the US producing Real Authentic Kalashnikov AK-47s. Was one of the very early victims of sanctions over Ukraine.

googles

kalashnikov-usa.com

Looks like they still exist. I think that it was partly owned by someone who was sanctioned, so maybe they divested.

looks further

Kalashnikov Firearms

Russian Heritage. American Innovation.

Man, this was not a good decade for that particular ad campaign.

I don’t see AK-47s on the site, so maybe they only do other firearms.

googles

Ah, apparently the synthetic-stock thing, the KR-103, counts and was probably what they were selling.

pewpewtactical.com/kalashnikov-usa-kr-103-review/

It looks like they got whacked back after the invasion of Crimea, so some time back.

home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jl2572

According to the above Pew Pew Tactical article, it looks like those Crimea-invasion sanctions were what started the US-based factory – they set up domestic production in the US to provide their US sales, since they couldn’t import from Russia any more.

The American company, Kalashnikov USA, was initially an importer of Russian-made firearms until the US government banned importation.

Using their familiarity and know-how, the importers became manufacturers, creating their own firearms based on Russian specifications.

I guess that strictly-speaking, the term should still be “AK-pattern”, Kalashnikov or not. Says that it’s based on the AK-103, which is really a descendant of the AK-47.