Russian photo blogger traveled to the city of Izhevsk and documented how these amazing rifles are made in the Izhevsk Machinebuilding Plant

This article originally appeared at Varlamov.livejournal. Translated at Slavorum

United States are number one arms exporter, while Russia is the second largest conventional arms exporter with their AK-47 as most known firearms in the world. Russian photo blogger Ilya Varlamov traveled to the city of Izhevsk and checked how these amazing rifles are made in the Izhevsk Machinebuilding Plant.

In Russia the plant was formerly known as IZHMASH, their famous weapon manufacturer but today it’s name is Kalashnikov Concern. Today we have fourth-generation of Kalashnikov assault files made here, and others such as the 100-series AKs: AK-101, AK-102, AK-103, AK-104, AK-105. Today large efforts are made to upgrade the most used assault rifle of the Russian Army: the Kalashnikov AK-74.

Interesting fact is also that this plant used to export 80% of its production to the U.S. Gun stores, just before the sanctions came and whole conflict raised.

So now, post-sanctions the main buyers of Kalashnikov’s weapons are Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, Latin American and African countries.

Also even tho there are sanctions they have increased production of firearms from 70,000 in 2013 to 120,000 now. So let’s see here how Kalashnikov rifles are made.

The production of AK comes in blocks and parts. First, they make certain parts, then put them together into blocks: