Rifle Paternity Test: Pinning Down The M1 Garand's Influence On The AK

Whenever the AK’s history is discussed, it seems to come up: “Isn’t the AK just a Russian Sturmgewehr?” I am going to break this question up into five separate questions, and then examine seven aspects of the AK’s design which should help answer all five. The questions are as follows:

Is the AK a clone of the MP 43?

Was the AK inspired by/a response to the MP 43?

What was the MP 43’s influence on the AK’s design?

What was the M1’s influence on the AK’s design?

What evidence is there within the AK’s design itself of a connection between captured German small arms engineers and Kalashnikov and his design team?

Having established these questions as those we aim to answer, let’s move on to examining seven areas of the AK’s design that can give us more information.

I. The Bolt

Kalashnikov was an admirer of John Garand’s work, and it is here in the bolt that this was most clearly expressed, but paradoxically it is also where hints of what may be the MP 43’s influence show through clearly. Unlike the MP 43, but like the M1, Kalashnikov’s carbine uses a two-lug rotating bolt with generous sculpting of the locking lugs to give the bolt precise characteristics during both locking and unlocking. It’s very easy to see when the two bolts are compared how Kalashnikov emulated the hard work Garand did getting the lockup just right:

As if that wasn’t hard enough to wrap our heads around, there are further considerations. First, while both the AK and MP 43 bolts bear an uncanny resemblance to one another, that does not rule out the possibility that their appearance might be coincidence. The AK’s bolt is mechanically much more M1 than it is MP 43, and if a designer did want to keep the basic M1 locking system while moving the operating rod to the top of the action, and raising the bolt to clear a fixed ejector (which was earlier present in the Soviet SVT rifle, and is therefore an ambiguous feature of the AK), then the result would necessarily resemble the MP 43’s bolt profile. It’s also important to not forget that the whole MP 43 bolt does not much resemble that of the AK, having an almost continuous cross-section until the end, and featuring an unlocking claw at the rear for the tilting bolt. In contrast, the AK bolt quickly reduces to a small diameter, to save weight and improve mass ratio.

There is another potential origin of the design, however. After he sustained injuries as a tank commander in the Second World War, Mikhail Kalashnikov retired to his hospital bed, and began to work on a submachine gun in 1942 that would give him his first foothold in Soviet small arms design. This submachine gun, which predated any Soviet encounter with the MP 43 or its predecessor the MKb.42(H), also featured a hinged receiver, albeit one that pivoted in front of the magazine, not behind it.

VII. Layout

This brings us to our final consideration, that of the rifle’s layout. It’s undeniable that the basic form, appearance, and function of the AK and MP 43 rifles is much more similar to each other than either are to the M1 Garand. It is also true that the Soviet 7.62x41mm intermediate rifle cartridge – around which the AK rifle was originally designed – was a direct response to the German 7.92x33mm (the latter cartridge being mentioned by name in the original requirement that produced the Soviet round). In this way, yes, the AK as a whole was directly inspired by the MP 43, and it owes much to that rifle. However, it’s important not to leave things there. Neither the AK nor the MP 43 were created in a vacuum; a great plethora of designs existed at the same time from which designers of both drew ideas and mechanisms to create weapons suitable for the mobile battlefield. Where one could draw parallels between the AK’s top mounted gas system, staggered column detachable magazine, sights, pistol grip, and overall rude appearance with the German design, so too could they draw those between it and other Russian designs, such as the PPS-43, SVT, or AS-44 assault rifle. Russian assault rifle developments before the MP 43 are obscure at best, but the concept would have been known at the time; the German effort to create a select-fire intermediate rifle did not arrive unheralded. Was the MP 43 a spur in the Russian small arms designers’ flanks? Undoubtedly, but it’s difficult to imagine that with the many precedents that had existed for years prior, the Russian engineers would have been totally unaware that such a thing as an assault rifle could exist.
So, we can finally answer our five questions:

Is the AK a clone of the MP 43?

Certainly not.

Was the AK inspired by/a response to the MP 43?

It certainly was a response to the German rifle, but Russian engineers would have been aware of the concept previously.

What was the MP 43’s influence on the AK’s design?

Here and there, there are details that may be indicative of some design DNA transfer, but mechanically speaking the MP 43 can claim only marginal influence.

What was the M1’s influence on the AK’s design?

Kalashnikov explicitly names Garand as an influence, in his correspondence with Edward Ezell*, and the design details of his rifle bear out this claim.

What evidence is there within the AK’s design itself of a connection between captured German small arms engineers and Kalashnikov and his design team?

Without direct evidence of major design features being carried over from the MP-43 or other German designs to the AK, and without any primary sources documenting German engineers working with or under Kalashnikov in his team, this connection remains decidedly speculative.

*Page 67, Kalashnikov, The Arms and The Man