Nikonov's AN-94 Abakan Rifle
Shooting Illustrated has published a detailed account of the fascinating AN-94 “Abakan” rifle.
In 1993, a mysterious rifle appeared at an arms display at the elite Taman Guards Division outside Moscow. The strange new rifle was labeled “ASN”—a Russian acronym for Avtomat Spetsialnyi Nikonov. The soldiers at the show could give no meaningful information about it beyond the basic information on the placard. Shortly thereafter, data began to emerge indicating it was an advanced combat rifle, but its status remained a mystery. The Russian Ministry of Defense cleared up the mystery in 1995 by announcing that the ASN had passed all its troop trials and that it had been type classified as the “Avtomat Nikonova-94” (AN-94). The number “94” is the year the rifle was officially type classified and adopted for military service to replace the Kalashnikov-designed AK-47/AKM/AK-74-series rifles.
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you're probably right. if the whole point was to increase hit probability, the 2-shot burst is a nice feature but doesn't contribute to that during the rest of its full auto fire. using 5.54x39 does, being a low impulse cartridge, but they already did that with the AK-74 series. the new muzzle brake/suppressor must not be what does it either, because they would have just put it on an AK74 and save themselves some headache. we must conclude that the "independent firing unit" (floating barrel) is what increases hit probability so much. whereupon they had the opportunity to add the 2-shot burst feature to the engineering.
@ buschmaster,
"we must conclude that the “independent firing unit” (floating barrel) is what increases hit probability so much. whereupon they had the opportunity to add the 2-shot burst feature to the engineering."
It's the other way round - the designers wanted to increase the hit probability in aimed fire (as opposed to full-auto, where even a 5.45mm auto sprays the bullets around in the hands of most users). They decided that the best way to achieve this was by a very fast two-round burst, and the complication of the floating barrel was introduced to minimise any disturbance in the aim between shots.