Re: RGUNS 1988 AK-74 kit pictures.

:hail: I am having a hard time not pulling my credit card out right now. :hail:

 

Re: RGUNS 1988 AK-74 kit pictures.

If they find laminate or side folding kits, then I will be the 1st to buy. I already have a Bulgarian 74 in plum so I need something that looks different.

 

Re: RGUNS 1988 AK-74 kit pictures.

If they find laminate or side folding kits, then I will be the 1st to buy. I already have a Bulgarian 74 in plum so I need something that looks different.

I hope so too. :sad:

 

Yeah, we already know, guys, some of you have stated that more than once. But everyone wanted a laminated kit, and so far there are none and might not ever be. Please keep in mind that some of us are actually extremely happy to get these and some of us think they are very, very cool. The material of the stocks is really only a small part of what makes these unique and collectible, If your happy to have an older pattern Bulgarian with later style Russian plastic on it, that's cool, I've got a couple myself and don't plan to get rid of them. But I'm not gonna pass on these babies.

I must be honest, though, considering the way these were demilled I'm glad that this shipment was all 1988's. Not that I did not hope for others, or want an optional choice (I'm sure we all do), but having all 88's ensured guys who buy now are getting matching kits as far as style and year. With the exception of a very few cross-utilized parts (with the AKSU's) such as trigger sets and trigger guards, what else was compatible to mix up? Not much of anything thank God. And so far all the trigger sets I have seen were Izhevsk and were AK-74 that came with these.

On the other hand, if they had received a bunch of various AK-74's of various years at the same time, what would guarantee that there would not been a slew of mixmasters that people would have got, at least on the unmarked parts, and no doubt a lot of trade offer threads generated, hehe! For instance, I am almost sure that my FSB and GB were likely off of different rifles, just because the shine of the barrel is a hair different where they meet. I mean, if I'd ordered this 88 and it did not come with that cool slotted cleaning rod, or the two-piece FSB, then I'm be disappointed to say the least.

Anyway, to get back of the subject of this post, I'll post images of mine here, serial #5381345 for anyone who's keeping track. I figure Jerry, Malikovski, and CAB among others have already posted some damn good detailed images of various parts, and I'm look no different, really, so I will not try to repeat that here (unless I find something unique of interest. I did get a nice pistol grip with a wonderful silver proof on the side and the top cover has a great big proof on it, too). I did get a few full length images done today, in a different format that I've seen so far, all the parts temporarily spliced together more or less. Maybe it will help you guys on the fence get an idea of what they would possibly look like before they were cut, or as builds.

A few more added:

 

darn,
you had to post that pic didn"t you.now i am thinkink about getting 1.the problem is how to build it?i can rivit,but i am not a welder,or a dimpler.

 

Those are some awesome kits. The plum furniture is perfect, too bad the ink stamps rub off easily.

 

silver proof mark on top of the dust cover? i think i just came a little....

those are some nice pics....you got a very crisp complete proof mark on the lower hg, doug

 

darn,
you had to post that pic didn"t you.now i am thinkink about getting 1.the problem is how to build it?i can rivit,but i am not a welder,or a dimpler.

Sorry, man! And BTW, I don't work for RGuns, hehe. But as far as actually building it, just check the threads on that for more info.

Those are some awesome kits. The plum furniture is perfect, too bad the ink stamps rub off easily.

Yeah, they really are pretty nice. But hopefully, my inkstamps won't be rubbing off anytime soon, unless I croak and then I guess I won't care. I hope that is not your way of rationalizing so you won't see a need to buy the kit, hehe? They should last a good while, unless you use B12 Chemtool to clean your rifles. Maybe mine will last, as I probably won't go to the range very often, if at all after the test firing since it doesnt really have to. I've got at least a couple of other plum-stocked Bulgarian-made AK-74's (without the nice rare Russian military inspection inkstamps on them) that I can shoot while this one sits in the safe. I also have a 1989-dated all matching but well used Soviet issue AKS-74 rifle parts kit ready to be build, which has plum furniture albeit with rubbed off inkstamps (as well as a lot of rubbed off plastic, hehe). I guess I can shoot the heck out of it, and then who cares if I add a little honest wear or a ding here or there, right? In other words, the 20+ year old plastic you see here, that survived thus far with it's ink stamps still intact, should look just as you see it now for maybe another twenty years if I'm lucky, unless of course my son gets it when I die. Then I don't place any hopes on it, hehe!

silver proof mark on top of the dust cover? i think i just came a little....
those are some nice pics....you got a very crisp complete proof mark on the lower hg, doug

Thanks. Most of the close up images I took came out blurry or the lightling was dreadfull, this is all I could muster. No, the top cover proof is a standard metal stamping, in the standard Soviet place, sorry if i was confusing. I just mentioned it because a lot of guys have told me their top cover was apparently not proofed, and thankfully the one I got was. Without a proof it's hard to prove 100% it's not Bulgarian.

 

Oh yeah, I got an AKSU trigger guard, too, but thanks to the board a trade will be inbound Monday!

 

Images added to my first post above to help clean up the thread.

 

Crappy blurry image, sorry. But maybe you can tell what it looks like.

right click....save as.....thanks! hope i get a proof too!

 

Images moved to my first post above, to help clean up the thread.

 

Here is my top cover proof mark............Did not see it, till you mentioned it Doug. On mine the diamond is just partial. Also the paint is absolutely beautiful on the top cover. If you take it outside it has multiple colors in the paint.

CAB

 

Multiple colors? Must be oil, man, hehe! Your proof almost looks like a hex proof rather than a diamond. is it for sure a diamond? Yeah, these covers are sweet. I am thinking about buying one more kit to swipe the cover, selector lever, grip and and a few other minor parts to rebuild another rifle I cloned from a Bulgy parts kit years ago. Anyone need the barrel parts?

I found two more images on my camera that looked pretty good, in focus at least. So I posted them. Same old parts you alway see, though, i.e. nothing new here..

BTW, please click on any of these images if you want to see a full size version, for some weird reason on my computer this website resizes to fit some imaginary limit, and it has a terrible resizing algarithm, lots of stairstep artifacts. What's up with that? Can i turn it off? I hate it.

 

Got the correct trigger guard today, yeah!! Thanks, XTRM1NATR!

The finish also matches my kit exactly.

 

The plum on the handguards appears alot more "plumish" than on other kits I have seen.

 

Very nice looking kit, Doug. Love that pistol grip with the ink stamp. Your kit looks great, too, CAB.


Thanks to both of you for all the pics.

 

I hate you guys. I am going into debt for this thing!?!?! :flush:

 

i have a rare or scarce 1987 ak74 rguns kit.can i play?

 

i have a rare or scarce 1987 ak74 rguns kit.can i play?

Very nice kit, man! Looks like all well marked parts in there, good score. I think you can even see a part of the buttstock silver inkstamp on the mounting stub, even while the buttstock is in the rifle trunnion.

I looked up the serial number, which I always try to do, and this one is actually a 1988-built rifle that utilized a leftover 1987 marked trunnion. Still very rare to find.

 

i have a rare or scarce 1987 ak74 rguns kit.can i play?

Very nice kit, man! Looks like all well marked parts in there, good score. I think you can even see a part of the buttstock silver inkstamp on the mounting stub, even while the buttstock is in the rifle trunnion.

I looked up the serial number, which I always try to do, and this one is actually a 1988-built rifle that utilized a leftover 1987 marked trunnion. Still very rare to find.

so i got a "leftover" model.thats funny.like a leftover new car.i asked for that serial number because 53 is my birthday.i have a dave rigs custom receiver for it.waiting for crappy weather to work on it.it is hard to see but my grip is matte plum not shiney.

 

Yeah, I logged your serial number in my database quite some time ago. The 1988 serial range started right around rifle 536XXXX. They made right at 740,000 rifles in 1988, give or take a few thousand, which would indicate an average of about 61,500 units a month. Given the law of averages, this means yours was made in the middle of the month of January after they had cranked out about 32,000 examples. The very latest RGuns '88 I have in my records was made right at about 3.5 to 4 months later.

Lets take it one step further, and assume a few other things. That's 2,000 fully manufactured rifles a day if they worked every day, or 688 every 8 hour shift if they worked around the clock 24/7. I do not for one minute think they worked during the extra long May Day holiday celebration, or maybe others, so these numbers are gonna be a little higher. They likely also ran multiple assembly lines per shift, maybe three back then (judging by old AKM serial numbering), so each individual worker might have worked on a certain part of about 230 rifles per day, or 28 an hour. Obviously, this depends on what they were doing and if they were running eight hour shifts, or ten, or even slave driving numbers, hehe. Obviously, some of the more difficult or time consuming tasks likely had more than one guy doing the same exact task on more than one rifle at the very same time, on the same assembly line so to speak. It's all conjecture at this point, but it's fun to think about how much they outputted. No matter how it was accomplished, the simple fact still remains that Izhmash, as a whole, produced over 740,000 AK-74 (and AKS-74 rifles, combined) in 1988. They made even more per year before this period in time, i.e. almost 1 million a year back in the late 70's.

Well, anyway, I did not mean to digress so much but getting back to your kit, your gas tube latch lever is the early style, so that's a big plus because it's nearly impossible to find a punch pressed RSB with an early style lever unless it's in one of these kits, or you get it swapped out. In comparison, I bought a 1986 rifle from RGuns and it had the wrong lever on it. It was quite obvously from a 1988 barrel, due to the later '88 pattern lever and the extra meat on the barrel it could not have come on the '86 trunnion I got. So they definitely mixed up any parts not numbered on some if not most of these kits.

I also see what you mean on the matte grip. Yours is the earliest rifle I've seen with a matte grip, and the latest '88 I've seen with an '87 trunnion. I figure within two-three weeks all those "87" marked trunnions were out the door. It was likley the same time frame for all years when it came to these leftover trunnions.

 

doug
as always your are a wealth of info.

thanks phil

 

Yeah, I logged your serial number in my database quite some time ago. The 1988 serial range started right around rifle 536XXXX. They made right at 740,000 rifles in 1988, give or take a few thousand, which would indicate an average of about 61,500 units a month. Given the law of averages, this means yours was made in the middle of the month of January after they had cranked out about 32,000 examples. The very latest RGuns '88 I have in my records was made right at about 3.5 to 4 months later.

Lets take it one step further, and assume a few other things. That's 2,000 fully manufactured rifles a day if they worked every day, or 688 every 8 hour shift if they worked around the clock 24/7. I do not for one minute think they worked during the extra long May Day holiday celebration, or maybe others, so these numbers are gonna be a little higher. They likely also ran multiple assembly lines per shift, maybe three back then (judging by old AKM serial numbering), so each individual worker might have worked on a certain part of about 230 rifles per day, or 28 an hour. Obviously, this depends on what they were doing and if they were running eight hour shifts, or ten, or even slave driving numbers, hehe. Obviously, some of the more difficult or time consuming tasks likely had more than one guy doing the same exact task on more than one rifle at the very same time, on the same assembly line so to speak. It's all conjecture at this point, but it's fun to think about how much they outputted. No matter how it was accomplished, the simple fact still remains that Izhmash, as a whole, produced over 740,000 AK-74 (and AKS-74 rifles, combined) in 1988. They made even more per year before this period in time, i.e. almost 1 million a year back in the late 70's.

Well, anyway, I did not mean to digress so much but getting back to your kit, your gas tube latch lever is the early style, so that's a big plus because it's nearly impossible to find a punch pressed RSB with an early style lever unless it's in one of these kits, or you get it swapped out. In comparison, I bought a 1986 rifle from RGuns and it had the wrong lever on it. It was quite obvously from a 1988 barrel, due to the later '88 pattern lever and the extra meat on the barrel it could not have come on the '86 trunnion I got. So they definitely mixed up any parts not numbered on some if not most of these kits.

I also see what you mean on the matte grip. Yours is the earliest rifle I've seen with a matte grip, and the latest '88 I've seen with an '87 trunnion. I figure within two-three weeks all those "87" marked trunnions were out the door. It was likley the same time frame for all years when it came to these leftover trunnions.

I'd like to know when Izmash started rapidly ramping down production given the turbulent times between 1989 and 1991. You mentioned earlier in the thread that you've encountered some 1989 dated kits and on your website you describe the design changes between 1990 and current, but what of volume? Was Izmash producing anywhere close to 740,000 ak-74s annually in 1990, 91, or post-soviet union?

 

AK-74 Production in 1989 was about 420,000 units, while production is 1990 was not much higher than 200,000 although it's not easy for me to be certain of an exact number because they incorporated an obvious and substantial skip in the serial number range in that year with the introduction of the AK-74M prototypes. In any case, it is quite clear that production was way below what it was just a few short years ago, and would remain this way. For instance, in 1991 they produced right at another 200,000 rifles, almost all of them being newly ordered AK-74M's. Production leveled off at about this same rate per year for the next several years, and IMO this may have been a minimum threshold number set by government contracts to both try and supply the military with new AK-74M's and to keep the factory afloat.

Due to the Russian economic depression of '91-92 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, most military contracts were greatly curtailed, or in some cases frozen entirely across the board. It appears that Izhmash may have fared better than others, due in part to the fact the arsenal was awarded special recognition from the newly formed Russian Federation as a critical organization with strategic importance. This was a needed step to keep the lines running at a point in time when the future stability of Russia was uncertain at best.

But anyway, judging just by the military production numbers I have presented here, perhaps three out of four assembly line workers may have been laid off, relocated or put on part time hours in these rather hard times. That was quite a jolt to the economy in Izhevsk, I'm sure, but we must keep in mind they make a lot more things there than just assault rifles. Also in that same period, the factory was awarded "joint stock company" status as a commercial entity, as allowed for within the new federal government system. Just in time, too, and the immediate necessity prompted Izhmash to quickly switch gears and invest heavily into developing, producing, and marketing all sorts of sporting arms, to be sold both domestically and internationally. No doubt the shift to commercial ventures saved many jobs from being lost at the plant.

At the extreme, there could have been a six month period in '91 when they did shutter all production, I just don't know for sure. I tend to think it was a bit more orderly and shorter lived that this, but whatever the case although the economic depression was certainly a great strain on Izhmash, IMO the notion they all but had to close their doors for a long period of time does not seem to be entirely accurate if you study the production numbers.