Sven emailed us this beautiful photo of the AO-46 Personal Defense Weapon. The Personal Defense Weapon was designed by Peter Andreevich Tkachev, the same engineer who developed the balanced recoil system used in the AK-107.

Its most striking feature is that the 5.45x39mm magazine double as the pistol grip. What I find most interesting about it is the gas system, as seen in the below photo. The barrel is ported for about half its length and the gas captured by a very large expansion chamber, before actuating the very short piston. The design is very nearly a gas trap system. Tkachev must have been compensating for the short barrel, in a slightly different way to the AK-74U and its muzzle booster.

Does anyone know in what year the AO-46 was designed?

[ Many thanks to Sven (Defence and Freedom) for emailing me the the info. ]