#Kludge

We’ve seen AKs fitted with all manner of 1913 pattern rail farms, but what about the other way around? AR-15s with Soviet-style side rails, would anyone really do that?

The firearms industry is at its best when creativity and hard work combine to create something that’s truly innovative and great… But that’s not always what happens. Sometimes, the quickest way to get a product on the market is to simply copy what’s already out there. It’s no secret that guns like the S&W M&P or FN FNS-9 are clones of the ubiquitous Glock, or that the subcompact market is dominated by guns that are all basically clones of each other, but the degree to which some of these models match up with one another can be surprising. For example, take the Ruger LCP and the Taurus TCP, which match each other so closely that, as one poster on Imgur found out, the Ruger’s slide will fit on the Taurus’s frame:

Some people want something different. Some people don’t worry about the should I? and only care about the can I?. One of those people – who blogs by the name “The Hebrew Hammer” – created the SIGalil, the product of two happy coincidences. The first? A SIG 556R lower fits with a SIG 556 upper, complete with proper magazine presentation and everything. The second? Galil 5.56mm magazines fit into AK-47 magwells. The result is a kludge that doesn’t look like a kludge – no, it looks like it came from the factory that way!

YouTube gun design entrepreneur and kluger Royal Nonesuch is at it again, this time with a bolt-action shotgun. Claimed to be 90% complete, it features parts from a variety of sources. Mr. Nonesuch uses an HK lower receiver and parts group, Saiga magazine, AK-47 under-folder, and an AR-15 stock riser used as a fore-end.