AK-12

History of the AK-12

Since the creation of the Avtomat Kalashnikov back in 1997, there have been dozens of variants produced in at least thirty-two different countries, with hundreds of engineers trying to improve them. But no variant has received as much media attention as the AK-12. It was not until the rise of social media that the attention towards Kalashnikovs had peeked in so many.

Over the last thirty years, advancements in firearm design have been quite slow, the real improvements have been in optics, reflex sights and variable power scopes, IR lasers, thermal and night vision. When the Russian army was looking to replace the old AK-47, making something compatible with modern optics was their top priority. The first rifle submitted had a mechanical system to reduce recoil as a means of improving accuracy, but when they tried firing an underbarrel grenade Laucher with it the mechanism seized so this one was scrapped.

After that design was scrapped, in 2011 the new chief weapon design engineer of the IZHMASH factory, Vladimir Zlobin had his chance. His design had a hinged receiver with a picatinny rail down the entire length, he also made the selector switch ambidextrous and even the charging handle could be swapped to either side among other changes. Due to the short development time before submitting it for the trial it had many problems and failures during the testing for its effectiveness when exposed to freezing cold, desert heat, humidity, dust, and impacts. The gun was significantly redesigned, by 2013 the new AK-12 prototype was ready with its new stock, receiver cover, bolt stop, and magazine release, finally going in for round two in 2014.

The second prototype had a lightened bolt carrier to reduce recoil but the made it too weak, and the receiver cover retaining mechanism would keep failing. It also had a two-shot burst mode in the selector switch that just overcomplicated things. Also, the ambidextrous charging handle when on the left would often hit the support hand of the operator while reciprocating, and the bolt release only worked with modified magazines that were not as reliable.

The third prototype was ready in spring 2015 with changes to the handguard muzzle and selector switch and the combining of the gas block and front sight, but the issue with the receiver was never addressed. The large receiver cover was expensive to produce, any deviation of the tolerances in the cover or retaining mechanism would cause the sights to lose zero, and the fact it is over the gas system causes the front to heat up and it to warp. By the end of 2015 most of the issues were resolved and the AK-12 passed all the technical trials.

Unfortunately, before the Russian government would buy it, they had to make some additional changes to the gun to adhere to all the MoD requirements and still have enough backwards compatibility with previous Kalashnikovs to make manufacturing Feasible. The updated version of the AK-12 using the AK-400 prototype with some of the AK-12 design aspects. This model was accepted into service in 2018.