#ChinaDidn'tCopySomething

Last year, I published a series of articles about the history of Chinese AK rifles, Part 1 was about the construction of the factories and the Russian assistance, Part 2 was about the proliferation of Type56, Part 3 was dedicated to post-Cold War changes in Chinese firearms manufacturing and in Part 4 I wrote абоут modern variants of Chinese AKs. However, I ignored one important part of China AK history – importation to the USA. And who knows it better than Jim Fuller, one of the most well-known veterans of the industry who contributed to the popularity of the AK platform in the US.

This article is the final chapter of a 4-part series. In Part 1 I talk about how the production of AK began in China, Part 2 was dedicated to the “golden age” of Chinese AKs, and Part 3 was about the gradual decline in quality and the underlying reasons for it. In Part 4, we will take a look at the latest descendants of the Type 56 rifle, including the Chinese AK 103.

In Part 1 of this article, I wrote about the early days of AK production in China, Part 2 was dedicated to the “golden years” of Type 56 history when it was exported to the US and produced in multiple countries.

In Part 1 of this article, I talked about early Chinese AKs and the humble beginnings of Kalashnikov rifle manufacturing in China. By 1956, China was building new factories and improving old ones with the help of Soviet engineers, and it seemed like nothing can break apart two great comrades – the Soviet Communist party and their Chinese counterparts.

It is hard to find a place on Earth where people wouldn’t know what Kalashnikov is. Some know it through movies, some through video games, but a good portion of the world’s population have some firsthand experience with this rifle, since a Soviet, East European, or Chinese AK can be found almost anywhere.

The Chinese Type 81 is a strange fusion of the AK, SKS, and Dragunov rifles and could be mistaken as an AK at a quick glance. The Type 81 is exceptionally rare in the USA, and today on TFBTV we look at perhaps the rarest variant of all: The 5.56 variant made exclusively for the US market called the EM356.