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Unusual AK47/AKM magazine

5K views 19 replies 10 participants last post by  rayman1 
#1 ·
Saw one of these on "The AK Forum" about 6 months ago. At the time I, and I think most others, discounted the mag as some soldier with a welder and too much time on his hand. Two of these mags seems to indicate a pattern of manufacture. Anyone else have one?????

Cant post pics here for some reason, but did on Gunboards. If someone wants to take them and re-post here - be my guest.

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread. ... M-magazine

Note the piece of metal welded to front that appears to form a circular fastening point (sorta like an HK G3 mag) just under the front lug. Note extra milled clearance on right side reinforcement plate. Wierd xtra welds on the back bottom rear of the reinforcement plates too.

Looks like it was done when mag was made at factory - as it has the original blued finish. Appears that it will work in a regular AK but have'nt tried it yet.

It is a late pattern mag with the early style follower (with hole in front left-side of bulge). All components, but spring, are blued. Only markings are a "3" on rib, and an "L" or "V " on side. Taken from a box of what were clearly Romanian mags - most with "O" or "O 22" on spine. My guess is its an early Romanian manufacture - but need to dig out my blued Romanian mags for comparison.

So - anyone know what they were made for???? My WAG is some kinda sub-caliber training simulator. But again just a guess.

If anyone else has one I would love to see them.
 
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#6 ·
I know I posted a pic of the mag I found maybe 6 months ago. I found it in a bin of Romanian mags at a local shop. The guy wanted about $30 for it (the same as all the others). I didn't think it was worth anywhere near that. I'll repost the picture. It was from my phone in the shop.

 
#8 ·
Thanks for photo.

Confuses the issue for me. Was expecting to see a washer shaped piece of steel insted of that odd shape. That one also appears to stick straight out to the side insted of wrapping around the body. Hole through the metal also appears to be about 1/2 inch lower on the body.

Now I cant even give a decent WAG as to the purpose.

Need more info for sure.
 
#9 ·
I've got one like that too, bigger plate and welded so the hole is on the right side of the mag (right if you are looking at the back). I'll see if I can't get some pics of it posted, not too sure on origin of that mag because it really doesn't have much in the way of markings on it, I'm not really a mag expert and was just going off of what had been posted here so maybe one of you guys will know once I link the pics. I was always interested as to what that loop was for, I thought it might have been for a lanyard though I thought an AK mag was a bit heavy for that, so if someone figures it out that would be pretty awesome.

EDIT here are the pics, sorry my camera sucks and the user is even worse at taking pictures than the camera is. The markings are unclear so I circled them just so you could get an idea of positioning. The two markings on the bottom are upside down "R"s, the other one circled above it kind of looks like a sideways "7" (bottom pointing towards front of mag) although it looks a lot like an arabic "6" or maybe even a poorly stamped "Z". On the other side of the mag in the same position as the "R"s there are two sideways "A"s, with the top of the "A" pointing forward. I don't see any other markings but this mag is fairly well worn and has a number of little dents/gouges so one could be a marking and it is marred or difficult to make out.






 
#10 ·
With the different position location of the loop, it pretty much rules out being tied to some experimental gun.

It is almost as if it is some type of lanyard loop. My speculation is that these mags may have been some type of training mags that were tied by lanyard to maybe a classroom type training aid rifle?

Nobody attaches a loop without having some need to attach something to it.
 
#12 ·
I own one as well, in mint condition. It was sold to me as Finnish, I had it listed on the forum for sale for a bit, no one was interested so I kept it for my collection. I am not 100% sure as to its origin, but I posted a close up and description of some of the markings in the for-sale ad.



I am not sure of the actual origin, as I don't have one of the steel Finnish mags to compare it to, however, there are pictures in the for sale forum of it. I don't have the time to go back and find my original links to them, but if interested, they are there.





If anyone has an idea as to what they are, I am interested.
 
#13 ·
Went back to the same shop today to see if they had any of these mags in stock. They have one. it appears to be the same one I saw months ago and took a picture of. No one seemes to have touched it since then. They want $20. Steep for a Romanian mag, but this one is uncommon. What do y'all think? Should I pick it up or not?
 
#14 ·
jonpo said:
Went back to the same shop today to see if they had any of these mags in stock. They have one. it appears to be the same one I saw months ago and took a picture of. No one seemes to have touched it since then. They want $20. Steep for a Romanian mag, but this one is uncommon. What do y'all think? Should I pick it up or not?
I would just save the money or buy two regular mags.
 
#16 ·
I think there's too many of those magazines floating around to have been used for something like that. I believe it was likely the magazines were used for training and the addition was simply to secure the magazine to something (locked cable, hanger for carrying en masse to a training area, etc.).
 
#18 ·
Still not sure of the purpose myself.

Mine looks like a factory job, but obvious there are several variants - some of which might be field expediants.

My questions - If you were going to secure any one thing in a training environment - I would bet it would be the rifle.

If you were going to secure both the rifle and mag - would'nt it be much more logical to place the fastening loop at the bottom of the mag?

No better explanation on my part for them however. Maybe we will get some members from Romania that can answer the question one day.
 
#20 ·
TomM said:
Still not sure of the purpose myself.

Mine looks like a factory job, but obvious there are several variants - some of which might be field expediants.

My questions - If you were going to secure any one thing in a training environment - I would bet it would be the rifle.

If you were going to secure both the rifle and mag - would'nt it be much more logical to place the fastening loop at the bottom of the mag?

No better explanation on my part for them however. Maybe we will get some members from Romania that can answer the question one day.
Actually, it doesn't quite work that way. Soldiers use their issue rifles for training and usually take them to the range. At a military range, often times they're given magazines that have been loaded beforehand by individuals working the range. A range might have had the pieces welded onto the magazines to run a lanyard or cable through the hole of the added piece to keep them together in storage at the range and possibly make them easier to transport around together. The magazines just have the piece added and refinished - I think some of the additions were simply done better than others.
 
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