Welcome to the (un)official guide to Romanian Kalashnikov variants and accessories!
In my past year of owning a Romanian G-code rifle, I have lurked on this board and many others gathering all of the information I could find about my gun. Anything technical about the gun was copied into a few text files for later personal use and reference, and I have decided to sort that information out into this guide you see here. Most of this information presented here has been confirmed by multiple sources but there are still some things that are questionable. When you read through here, do not take EVERYTHING as fact as there are still lots of unknowns in the Romy AK world!
I do apologize if you see a piece of text that bears a strong resemblance to a post you had made previously. When I was saving information, I never saved sources with it as I never thought I would take on a project like this. If you would like to be credited for your efforts, PLEASE get a hold of me! I would like to thank EVERYONE who helped make this guide possible and I apologize if I have left you out! I would like to specifically thank tapeo1, templar, dstorm1911, stottman, and Linx310, as I have found information from them more than anyone else. (Please see the special thank yous in the next post following this one for photo credits etc.)
The same goes for the pictures used in this guide. Only a few are my own photographs, so PLEASE let me know if you would like credit for a photograph you took! If you would like one taken down, I ask you first to reconsider, as this is a guide meant to HELP the readers of this forum and NOT to make any sort of profit!
Thanks and I hope you enjoy! Please note that the majority of this guide is intended to be for the 7.62 military variants of the Romanian AK, so some of the info might not apply to the AIMS-74 and other variants. Also, since this is for assault rifles, I will not be covering the machine gun or sniper rifle variants here.
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MILITARY VARIANTS:
Pistol Mitraliera model 1963
(abbreviated PM md. 63 or simply md. 63)
Exported as the AIM:
The MD-63 is the Romanian version of the Russian Kalashnikov 7.62x39 AKM. The original AK-47s created in Romania were exact copies of the Russian milled receiver Type 3 AK-47, even using various actual Russian parts. Rumor has it that the milled receiver Romanian rifles were designated the "AI". When Russia switched to the stamped receiver with their AKM, Romania followed, creating what they called the "model-1963" rifle due to its first year of production (allthough there are reports of de-milled Romanian kits being found from as early as 1961). These guns had the same furniture style as the Russian AKM rifles with a solid wood stock and wooden upper and lower handguards. The lowers were the palm-swell type with bulges on the sides for better grip:
Within a couple of years Romania added a new front lower handguard that incorporated a vertical pistol grip that angled slightly forward for better control of the gun (known jokingly in the AK community as the "donkey-dong/d**k" handguard).
The new version of the rifle switched from hardwood furniture to laminate, using many sheets of thin wood glued together and then cut. After the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, many of these rifles went on to become the rifle of the Romanian Civil Patriotic Guard, or "Garda" Which is Romanian for guard. The guard is basically the Romanian version of our Army National guard in the United States and was mandatory for young men and women. It was staffed by about 700,000 citizens. In order to issue the rifles to the guard troops, they were modified to make them semi automatic by cutting the tail off of the disconnector and removing the auto sear. The back end of the buttstock had a black stripe painted vertically along the edge and the rear sight block got a large orange letter "G" stamped on the left side to signify that it was a semi automatic guard rifle:
The armories kept the full auto parts in case the rifles ever needed to be converted back to select fire. The AIM rifles were produced up until around 1986 or 1987 when the Romanians (and Civil Guard) officially adopted the new 5.45x39 cartridge and started production on the AIMS-74. The AIM would still be produced for export to other countries however. The leftover guard guns had their receivers torched in half and the rifles were disassembled and sold by the thousands to firearms enthusiasts in the United States as parts kits minus a receiver (per BATF regulations). These are now known in the AK community as "Romy G" rifles.
During the span of the AIM's production, the military version (Full auto rifles that weren't converted to guard guns) were widely exported to many nations, including Iraq, Bosnia-Herzogovina, India, Liberia, Pakistan, Rwanda, the Sudan, the IRA, Sierra Leone, Morocco, Georgia, Jordan and Libya. In Iraq, U.S. forces have regularly recovered AIM rifles from insurgents, but they are also the favored rifle of the Iraqi Police Force. In addition to the forward wooden pistol grip handguard, export versions of this rifle also come with standard palmswell lower handguards:
Pistol Mitraliera model 1965
(abbreviated PM md. 65 or simply md. 65)
Exported as the AIMS:
When Russia created their underfolding AKMS, Romania followed them as well, creating their own version of the underfolder and calling it the model 65 due to its first year of introduction, 1965. The underfolding stock design would not work with the forward swept front lower handguard pistol grip of the solid stocked md. 63, so a new handguard was added that had a vertical grip that angled slightly towards the rear. This enabled the oval-shaped cut out portion of the buttplate to fold up over the forward grip. The folding stock differs from the underfolding stock found on most other AK variants in that it is simply just two tubes that come back to the buttplate instead of the squared off "c-channel" rails that are found elsewhere. When the stock is fully extended, these tubes angle downwards slightly like the Russian underfolders. There are two different versions of the rear underfolder. The earliest, used from the start of underfolder production, has milled arms that when viewed from the right side of the gun look like a straight tube going back to the buttplate.
There is a cutout on the inside of the arm to allow the safety selector lever to go down into its firing position:
The later type which started appearing on 72 and later dated underfolders, is stamped. This is identifiable if you look at the right side of the gun, you will see halfway down the tube it looks somewhat crimped and flattened:
This is a much simpler to produce method of allowing the safety selector to move downwards to its firing position. Exported versions of this gun lack the forward wooden vertical grip handguards and use standard palm swell lowers:
Pusca Automata model 1986
(abbreviated PA md. 86 or simply md. 86)
Exported as the AIMS-74:
The md. 86 is the 5.45x39 variant of the AIM rifle. It is the rifle currently in use by the Romanian Military and features a few big design upgrades versus the previous AIM rifles. Unlike other 5.45 AK variants, the gas block on this rifle retains the same angle as its earlier predecessors and does not have the 90 degree block. The first major addition to the rifle is a side folding stock operated by a push button which swings to the right side of the gun:
When fully extended, it is slightly offset to the left for a better cheek weld. In order to accommodate for the folding stock, the charging handle is now upswept slightly so there is room for the user to charge the rifle:
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The md 86 uses the wooden vertical forward grip handguard lower like the md 63, but the upper is now an orangish plastic bakelite one:
The muzzle break has also been changed to a new larger version:
Another big change is the addition of a side mounted plate that lets the user attach a rail mount for optics:
The last biggest change is the addition of a three round burst selector stop. Very early variants of the md 86 utilized a completely bakelite front handguard assembly with a built in pistol grip:
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These are very rare now. Export versions of this rifle do not feature any sort of vertical grip handguard but use laminate wood instead. A side folding stock variant is available as well as a solid stock:
Pistol Mitraliera model 1990
(abbreviated PM md. 90 or simply md. 90)
Exported as (?)
The md. 90 is the 7.62x39 version of the newer md. 86. It features the same wire side folding stock and wooden pistol grip lower handguard as the 86 as well as a slant break on the muzzle of the gun. All of the other features are identical to the original 7.62x39 md. 63. In addition to the pistol grip lower handguard, exported md. 90s going to other countries can also come with a palm-swell AKM style lower handguard:
Pistol Mitraliera model 1997
(abbreviated PM md. 97 or simply md. 97)
Exported as (?)
The md. 97 is a relatively new gun and not much is known about it. It is a 5.56 caliber variant of the series and features a new gas block similar to the Russian AK-74 block design in which the angle looks more like a 90 degree then the angled version of 7.62 rifles.
Short barrel variations:
(Unknown official Romanian designation)
Exported as the AIMR (Though the designations "AIR" and "AIM Carbine" have both sometimes been seen used):
Shorter barreled versions of all of the above guns were also designed for tank crews and special forces. The barrel is shortened to 12", the front sight is moved back on the gas block, and a new flash hider is installed. The gas piston is shorter then a standard one at 5 5/8". The gun also receives a new rear leaf sight with markings up to 500m on the 7.62 variant and up to 400m on the 5.45 variant. The 5.56 variant is still relatively new and it is unknown what the leaf sight reads. The first version of these was seen during the Romanian Revolution of 1989. It features a stock that has not been seen on any other AK since. It is a crutch style sidefolding stock that has a hinged buttplate at the end. The whole assembly folds to the left side of the gun instead of the right like on newer models. It has the forward wooden vertical grip handguard on it and is always seen using a 20 round magazine. These also were seen during the revolution with a bell shaped birdcage style flash hider on the barrel.
The 7.62 variant evolved over time and got the same pushbutton stock as the md. 86 rifle as well as palm swell standard AK handguards and a standard barrel nut on the end although they have been seen with the older bell style flash hider:
No version featuring this new stock has been seen with the wooden vertical front grip as of yet and it is believed that it is standard with the palm swell handguards. There is also a stockless pistol version of the 7.62 carbine, and this one does feature the wooden vertical grip forward handguard and a sling loop where the stock would be located:
The next version to come along was the 5.45 variant which also lacked the forward vertical grip handguards in favor of the palm swell type. These feature a larger variation of birdcage flash hider as well:
The newest version is the 5.56 caliber variant. Once again, no trace of the forward vertical grip handguard. They have either a barrel nut or birdcage style flash hider:
Civlian Variants:
This guide is about military variants but I should mention a little about the civilian sporter series here. In the late 90s, import company Century Arms International approached the Romanian arsenals with the idea of importing semi automatic AKs into the US. It was noticed that a lot of parts were being resmelted and redone because they were out of spec and did not pass inspection for use in military grade AKs. Some people like to call these parts "defective", but they are not. They just didn't meet the military standards. Barrels were rejected due to chrome flaws, hardness variation, or other machining flaws, same with the other parts. They were made on 3 lines in a building at the rear of the Sadu arsenal at a rate of about 50 per hour from all 3 lines. Rejected parts would go from the military lines on a conveyor to the back sporter lines and get inspected again. Anything that didn't pass here would be re-smelted, all other parts would be used in the export guns. The guns were assembled by the Sadu arsenal, but with no gas piston, no pistol grip, no muzzle device and no FCG. These would be later installed once the guns arrived at Century in the US to make them 922r compliant. They are also sent over as low-capacity guns that only accept single stack low-capacity magazines. Century is the ones who Dremel the mag well and make them wobble. The markings and stampings on the guns are done by Century as well. Importers have 15 days to apply a unique serial number and the required import marking showing country of origin, caliber and importer address. Just about every caliber and variation of the Romanian military AK is available as a semi-auto sporter model. Please see Linx310's page HERE for a full breakdown of all of the civilian guns.
It should also be mentioned here that within the last few years, various versions of the WASR rifle (Romania's most popular civilian sporter AK) have started to show up with military-grade parts and trunion stampings. Here is a brief breakdown of the WASR series so you can see how some of them ended up with military stampings and why some don't have them:
ORIGINAL WASR-10
The WASR is a post-ban (produced during the ban) version of the AKM assault rifle in 7.62x39mm caliber. These are produced separate from the military rifles in Romania and sent to the US. Factory-original rifles only support single-stack, low-capacity magazines (ten rounds hence the "10"), but are frequently modified to accept double-stack, regular-capacity magazines (thirty rounds or more). Pistol grip and thumbhole stocks are both commonly found.
GP WASR-10
After the sunset of the assault weapons ban in 2004, importers were able to legally equip WASR-10s with threaded barrels, compensators, bayonet lugs, and folding stocks, thus making the GP WASR-10 (with GP standing for general purpose). Versions in the old style without all of the "fun" features were still produced for states that had their own restrictions on such things.
GP WASR-10/63
The 10/63 designation was added by Century Arms International for marketing purposes only. Just as with all other WASR-10 rifles, these are newly manufactured with military rejected parts for the civilian market (with exceptions, see below).
A WASR-10/63 with an under-folding stock was introduced into the product line in 2007 and was still made using military rejected parts.
As of 2008 there are GP WASR-10/63 rifles in both solid and underfolding stocks that are being made from real de-milled military used rifles, including de-milled "G-code" Civil Guard guns (the "G" is ground off), but still using the dimple-less Century receivers. The military grade rifles are immediately identified by the triangle (empty or with an arrow) stamping in front of the serial number on the front trunion. (The underfolders should TECHNICALLY be GP WASR-10/65 because the 63 was the standard stock version and the 65 was the underfolder with the military rifles).
GP-1975
Romania stopped producing the WASR rifles and parts in 2008. Rumor has it that in order to get into NATO, Romania was told to stop producing AK-47 variants for the US market. The other rumor is that a major auto manufacturer set up a factory in Romania and decided to outsource some of their steel parts and Cugir was the factory that accepted. When Century ran out of parts, the new AK's that they made in the US were from surplus Romanian kits. These kits were the last of the 7.62x39 rifles made for regular army use in Romania and most never got used. Century built them on DCI (NoDakSpud) dimpled receivers with "Green Mountain" barrels and black plastic synthetic American made furniture, which is what the GP-1975 (GP-75) rifles are that you are now seeing. These bare no relation to WASRs except the shoddy Century "drunk monkey" manufacturing work that goes into building it remains the same from the WASR line. (It saddens me when people call a professionally assembled G-code rifle that isnt Century made, a "GP-75" ) These include Tapco fire control group parts as well.
Now back to the military stuff!
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RIFLE BREAKDOWN:
Grips:
The first pistol grips seen on the early rifles were copies of the laminate wood grips used on the early Soviet AKM rifles:
These were only used on the 1963-1965 rifles and were replaced by a grip made out of bakelite plastic when the AIM/md. 63 variant started to be produced full swing:
The bakelite grips are usually a reddish brown color and can range from a really dark brown to a really light almost red/tan color. With the switch to the 5.45 cartridge, the grips used on all the md. 86 rifles were all a really light bakelite color, almost orange:
You will often see lots of swirl pattern in the grips themselves too. The Romanian grips differ from other countries and are easily identifiable due to the inverted checker pattern on both sides of the grip. Other countries use a pattern that has lots of tiny little raised "pyramids" to create a rough feeling grip. The Romanians have a reverse of this and have a grid of little shallow squares/diamonds and feel smooth to the touch. There are no stampings or mould numbers on these grips.
Folding stocks
The Romanian folding stock seen on many rifle variants was created as a copy of the East German side folding stock. It is different however. The East German "crutch" part has more of a triangle shape to it, and the Romanian one has a slight droop in the upper bar section (German on top)
The Romanian stock comes in two types. The first is a pushbutton design and the second is a lever operated design:
The md 86 was the first Romanian rifle to feature the side folding design and it uses the pushbutton design. It is believed that the lever operated folder was designed for export rifles since no lever operated folders have been seen on rifles in the Romanians hands.
Selector markings:
S, FA, FF are the markings found on domestic Romanian guns:
"S" means safe, "FA" means "Foc Automat" (automatic fire), and "FF" means "Foc cu Foc" (translated word for word it means fire with fire. It means one round per trigger pull)
S, A, R is found on guns made for export:
S is for "Safe, A is for "Automatic" and R is for "Repetition".
On the Aims-74 things changed slightly and one more position was added:
There's no selector stop. when the selector is all the way up touching the receiver cover, it is at its "safe" position. One notch down brings it to full auto. Drop it down one more for semi auto, and down to the bottom notch for the three round burst.
Trunion stamps:
On the trunion of all military Romanian rifles there should be either an empty triangle or a triangle with a little arrow pointing upwards before the serial number.
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The triangle in general indicates that the gun was made at the Cugir arsenal. The triangle with the arrow inside was the original Cugir stamp. The stamp is applied only after the trunion is accepted for milspec production. In 1976, the 5.45x39 cartridge was adopted and it was decided that in order to identify 5.45 trunions from the 7.62, the arrow from inside the triangle would be dropped leaving just a blank triangle for the new caliber guns. In 1980 it was realized that the two trunions were identical in size (23mm) and the same trunion could be used for either caliber, so the arrow marked version was canceled, which is why most post-1980 demilled "Romy G" kits have only the blank triangle. It should be noted however, that there are for some still-unknown reason, some post 1980 dated guns that show up from time to time with the arrow in the triangle. This is usually with the 1986 guns and all of the trunions fall within a certain late serial number range. (I am still investigating this). The Sadu Arsenal used a 1/4" square with a diagonal bar as its arsenal mark but that is very rare as most of the contract military weapons made for export are intentionally not marked with any stamp that would identify a country of manufacture, just a serial number:
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Any guns made for the commercial /civilian sporter market got no trunion markings at all. Some early SAR commercial rifles did get built with some of the parts from the Cugir arsenal which were transferred to Sadu in 1996, and those rifles will have the CUGIR arsenal stamp on the left side of the trunion, but it will be the blank triangle as this happened after the cancelation of the arrow in 1980. There are other stamps that show up from time to time in the Romanian kit guns that came to the US. These are VERY rare however and most likely slipped out on accident. One that has been seen on more then one occasion is a triangle with a curved bottom line and the number 11 stamped inside:
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This is from the Carfil Arsenal in Romania who made weapons only for the Romanian military.
Serial numbers:
Romanian rifles all have a serial number of some sort on them right after the trunion markings described above. Starting from 1963, they read starting with a year of production, a space, a two letter prefix, space, and then a four digit number.
The 2 letter code after the year originally started off at AA and the numbers after would start at 0001. The next rifle would be AA 0002 and so on. When AA 9999 came up, the next rifle would be AB 0001. This continued until mid 1980 when the trunion stamp changed over to an empty triangle. The format changed to show the year, a space, a letter "S", a space, a hyphen, a space, and then the 2 letter code and 4 digit number immediately following it:
This continued up until the Romanians stopped producing the md. 63 for their own use and started only exporting them. The new export format has the year, a hyphen, a three letter code and then a 4 digit number immediately following it:
Civilian sporter guns weren't marked until they came overseas so your WASR and SAR may have a completely different format of serial number on it. I am unsure of how the other military variants such as the md 86 etc. are stamped, this is still under research. In order to further find out patterns with serial numbers, there is a trunion marking database on these boards HERE. Please submit yours!
Sights:
The sight leaf on the standard length Romanian guns has the numbers ranging from 1-10 (each standing for 100 meter increments) and also the letter "P" at the base. This is the battle mode. The "P" stands for "Priveliºte", which translates as "landscape", "outlook", "scene", "sight" or "view". Another alternative meaning of the "P" would be "Pogrom", which translates as "battle".
Other markings:
Along with many other manufacturers of AK variants, the Romanians used a number system to match up parts. They found that their manufacturing created parts that weren't precisely measured. To ensure that they matched up correctly sized parts they marked each of the barrel related parts with a 1, 2, 3, or 4 depending on their measurements. The barrel will usually have a sequence on it of 3 or 4 numbers, something like: 2 1 2 2 stamped on it on the part that is hidden when a handguard is installed:
That would be: FSB, Gas Block, RSB, Trunnion. 2 is nominal, 1 is under-size, 3 is oversize, 4 is way oversize. If you have a "1" trunnion you can lap the hole and install a "2" barrel. If you have a "2" trunnion a "1" barrel is generally ok but only a moderate-to-light press fit. If you have a "3" trunnion and a "1" barrel, it will be loose. If you have a "1" trunnion and you try to put a "2" or "3" barrel in it you may crack the trunnion etc.
Finish:
There has been no solid agreement as to what the exact finish is used on Romanian military grade guns. Some say it is blued over semi-rough metal, some say parkerized and others say it is some sort of black-oxide finish. The commercial sporter guns imported into the US are mainly black paint over parkerization.
Early vs. late guns:
The earliest cost reducing methods can be seen in the 1976 guns. This was the year that the chrome gas chambers stopped and cast parts made their debut to replace milled parts. The early guns had milled and forged components such as the the sight blocks, gas block and rear trunion, and by 1980, had completely switched to cast to cut production costs. There were lots of cost reducing methods implemented during a bigger effort in 1980 which is evident in the gun quality. The G engravings started to be electro-penciled in by hand instead of stamped nicely via machine. Little care was taken when painting in the numbers and the "G" on the rear sight base. In the early days the excess paint was wiped off leaving a nice stamped, orange or white filled "G":
After 1980 you can see the paint running all over the place in the poorly created "G":
The serial number stampings started to be stamped without regard as to if the numbers lined up or not. Another good indicator of the quality decrease is on the barrel. If you run your fingernail down the exterior of a late gun's barrel, little rings are evident all the way down, whereas the earlier guns were almost smooth. The acceptable specs for the barrels quality was lowered in order to have less waste, so a barrel that would have been rejected in the early days and re-smelted was ok to use again. In 1983, Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu had heard there was going to be a coup attempt under the guise of a labor strike so he ordered his brother to shut down both arsenals that were producing AK rifles and jail or execute anyone who might help with arming the coup. When the arsenals were re-staffed later, the workers hired were much lower skilled and less caring and motivated, which is why you see an even further decrease of quality after 1983.
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ACCESSORIES:
Magazines:
The Romanians produced their own magazines for each caliber of rifle they produced. In 7.62x39 there is 10 round:
20 round:
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40 round (for the RPK machine gun):
and also a 75 round drum also designed for the RPK machine gun:
In the relatively new 5.56 there is a 10 rounder:
and a 30 rounder:
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The 7.62 magazines are very similar in design to the Russian steel 30 round mags. They have a blued or phosphated finish on them. Most have rough finishing marks, and Russian style spot welds on the feed lips:
Romanian mags have a lot of identifying features and have a very wide variety of various stamps found on the body and spine. The easiest to identify is the usual triangle with the arrow point upwards located on the spine, but mags with these stampings are rarer then the others:
The next most common would be a "22" or "022" on the spine. A single "2" or "02" would indicate Hungarian so watch out. The Hungarians also sometimes have a half moon with a face in it. Bulgarians usually have a 10 with a circle around it. Other stampings seen on the spine on Romanian mags include "0", "Z", "3", "V" and "F":
The magazine bodies themselves sometimes have digits on them which can include "L" and "F" near the bottom ribs:
The overall physical appearance of the Romanian mag is very similar to a Russian mag as both have weld marks and circles around the top feed-lip area. The differences are if you look at the top front side of the magazines, the Russian spot welds look like really big sunken pools. The Romanian spot welds at this location are also big sunken pools, but usually are more uniformly round and farther apart:
Another identifying feature would be the last indented rib near the back of the mag towards the spine. Most eastern bloc mags have this line going straight to the top while the Bulgarian goes up and then terminates at an angle right before the side plates. The Romanian version leaves a little gap and cuts off at a right angle:
The last identifying feature is the beveled area on the top front catch that goes into the magazine well first. When looking at the magazine from the side, the top edge of the magazine on all other variants goes straight across this catch. On the Romanian mags, it angles down at 45 degrees once the edge comes to this catch:
These are all features for the 7.62 magazines. I am still researching the other calibers.
Magazine Pouches:
The first magazine pouch used for these guns was a leather 4 cell pouch, in either brownish red or black:
These were used extensively in the Romanian revolution of 1989. The texture on these is bumpy and rough. These are very hard to come by but have been showing up recently in new-in-the-box WASR rifles. The standard magazine pouch that was used for 30 round 7.62 magazines is a drab green canvas-like material, 2-cell pouch which holds the magazines vertically, side by side. There are two variants of this, one with a lighter leather color and one with darker. The darker leather seems to have a thicker/heavier cloth material:
The closures are metal buttons on the pouch with brown leather straps with holes that slip over the buttons. When viewed from the front, there is a small pocket for an oil bottle on the upper left side and a pocket for a tube style cleaning kit on the right. The back has two webbed straps to attach the pouch to a belt with. Upon transitioning to the 5.45 caliber md.86, a 3-cell variant of the above was designed that could accommodate either type of magazine:
Another pouch used with the md. 86 was a 4-cell design with nylon strap closures:
There are various other pouches out there that are often seen with these guns such as the 4-cell that is meant to hold 40 round magazines for the RPK/AESB machine gun:
It has a built in carrying strap and one pocket on the front for an oil bottle. There is also a pouch for the 75-drum magazine that is often seen with the RPK:
The Romak/PSL/SVD/FPK (?) uses a pouch that has 4 pockets for 5-round magazines. There are three known variants of this pouch:
There are also some that are unidentified but are reportedly Romanian and believed to be produced for export only. The are mainly 4 cell pouches:
If you have any other information on these pouches, please contact me!
Bayonets:
The first type of bayonet produced for the Romanian AK had a bakelite handle and metal sheath with a brown leather "frog", a grey rubber insulator and a leather strap:
The blade had a hole in it to slip over the little protruding anvil on the end of the sheath and form sort of a scissors like device. With the plastic handle and rubber insulator, the whole unit could be used to safely cut electric fence wire. These also have serial numbers engraved on the sheath as well as the bayonet itself. These numbers follow the same serial number system as the guns themselves so you can easily identify the bayonet year if needed. The next type of bayonet produced had green nylon in place of the leather:
The final variant was designed specifically for the 5.45 caliber md.86 being that clearance was needed near the barrel for the new flash hider:
This variant is instantly identifiable due to the metal area near the back end and its square-ish appearance. There are MANY variations of each of these three types of bayonets, mainly in color of either the leather, nylon or handle:
Please see MrKrink's "AK Bayonets of The World" Reference guide HERE for a WAY more detailed breakdown of variants! It should also be noted that some of the earlier type 1 bayonets do have the Romanian Cugir arsenal stamp imprinted on them, right underneath the ring that slips over the barrel front:
The type II bayonets for the md 86 have markings as well:
Slings:
The sling used with the original military guns was a dark brown leather sling with a buckle at one end and a metal clip at the other with a leather loop keeper:
These are always a brownish/red color but as with everything else Romanian, there are slight variations in the color:
There are usually stamping marks on the back side of these slings but it has not been determined what they mean as there are many different types and no pattern is really standing out yet:
With the addition of the AIMS-74 to the military line a new sling was introduced that was made out of a green nylon material with a black painted buckle and clip at opposite ends as well as a green loop keeper made out of the same material as the sling:
These are usually a nice flexible material and are quite comfortable. There have been three versions of this sling seen. The first is a darker green material usually a little stiffer then the lighter shade. The second is the most common and is the light green almost "reflective" green material. The third is almost a golden shade. Two of these can be seen here:
These green slings came as accessories with all of the imported commercial sporter guns like the SAR and WASR lines but are not the correct sling for a G-kit gun. They are the sling that gets shipped with military contract export guns to foreign countries however.
Oil bottles:
The oil bottles that were issued with AK rifles in the military were originally re-issued bottles made for the Mosin Nagant rifle. They are a dual spout design and have two letters on the front corresponding to what is inside each compartment. There are a few known variants of this. The first group have U/S or S/U on the front.
The "U" stands for "ulei" which means "oil" and the "S" stands for "solvent". There are three known variations of this bottle, with the rounded edged one being the most common, and the rectangular style second.
The other type has B/U on the front:
"B" stands for "basa" which translates as "base", and "U" stands for "ulei", or "oil" again. Two variations are known to exist of this one, one being the rounded rectangular design and the other actually being a round container.
With the introduction of the AIMS-74, a black plastic single compartment bottle was used:
Cleaning kits:
Romanian rifles come with a tube style cleaning kit in the buttstock.
I have yet to find a way to distinguish the Romanian kits from the other countries production. This kit is a black parkerized tube with a removable cap. The tools inside are a cleaning jag, flat screwdriver/multitool, pin punch, bore brush and sometimes a small pin. I've seen two variations of the cap, one with a hole and one without. The hole exists so you can place the cap over the end of your barrel and use the cleaning rod through it, as to not scratch the inside of your barrel. Please see the guide on Linx's page HERE for a detailed description of what all the tools can be used for.
Other accessories
When exporting rifles, the Romanians include a few other accessories with each rifle. This includes a gas port reamer, broken shell extractor and a blank firing attachment that threads onto the front of the barrel upon removal of the current muzzle brake:
The md 86 uses a different blank firing attachment:
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FACTORIES AND BUSINESSES:
Cugir factory (SC Fabrica de Arme Cugir SA):
Link 1 Link 2 Link 3
Cugir was the sole producer of the arms used by the Romanian military from the beginning, and were the sole arsenal manufacturing small arms up to 1990. Cugir never produced rifles for commercial export, although import companies D.I.G. and Intrac were able to import some. Small arms production at Cugir started to be phased out in 1996 as they began the process of transferring inventory and equipment to Sadu. They stopped building small arms after getting caught by the UN in 2000, supplying weapons to terrorists (A container full of 14,000 AKMs was intercepted by the British Navy). After the bust, they finnished the transfer of all of their small arms equipment to Sadu, and were retooled for medium to heavy weapons production with all brand new state of the art modern equipment purchased from Belgium and Croatia. They now build very large vulcan minicanon style weapons, only bigger. They are located in the Alps in the district of Alba in the city of Cugir.
Sadu / Sadar factory:
Link
Sadu currently produces the export weapons sold as contract arms to other countries. They are also the ones who built the guns for export to the Century Arms facility in the US. They are currently the only Romanian factory making AKs. They are located in the district of Gorj in the town of Bumbesti, in a very poor area. The commercial sporters were made in a separate warehouse at the rear of the Sadu facility on 3 parrelel assembly lines. All of the equipment Sadu has for creating AKs is from Cugir. It was moved to Sadu and the Arms facility (which is about 6 miles from the Cugir arsenal) when Cugir was completely retooled after the UN bust.
Romarm (Romarm, the National Company for Military Technique) / Romtechnica:
Link
Romtechnica is not a factory, it is a state owned export and marketing agency / defense plant union. It is a Bucharest-based arms group, different than Ratmil. It is Romania's main defense importer and exporter. About 35 factories make up the "Romarm" National Company.
Ratmil (Patromil / Regie Autonoma pentru productia de Tehnica Militara):
Link
Ratmil is also a Romanian export agency / defense plant union. The name of the overall factory is Uzinie Mecanice Cugir. After getting in trouble with the UN in 2000 for smuggling weapons to terrorists, the Sadu and Cugir arsenals were forced to merge (on paper) and this is what they became. They are located in the city of Cugir, in the Transylvanian Alps.
Transcarpat Sportours International:
This is the actual business branch that is responsible for all the sales of everything commercial out of Romania. They are Located in Bucharest in the second district. They are who you deal with if you want to sell anything to the Romanian military. These are the people who have the final say when it comes to all things being exported or imported into Romania. The address is used with all exported weapons and ammunition, and this is why most people think that Cugir, Sadu, Ratmil etc... are located in Bucharest.
Arms:
Located in the district of Alba in the town of Cugir, this is a relativly new Arsenal which picks up where Cugir left off. It is specialized in the new 5.56 weapons, as well as the 9mm subguns and sidearms. They produce the new weapons that are used strictly by the Internal Romanian Military.
In my past year of owning a Romanian G-code rifle, I have lurked on this board and many others gathering all of the information I could find about my gun. Anything technical about the gun was copied into a few text files for later personal use and reference, and I have decided to sort that information out into this guide you see here. Most of this information presented here has been confirmed by multiple sources but there are still some things that are questionable. When you read through here, do not take EVERYTHING as fact as there are still lots of unknowns in the Romy AK world!
I do apologize if you see a piece of text that bears a strong resemblance to a post you had made previously. When I was saving information, I never saved sources with it as I never thought I would take on a project like this. If you would like to be credited for your efforts, PLEASE get a hold of me! I would like to thank EVERYONE who helped make this guide possible and I apologize if I have left you out! I would like to specifically thank tapeo1, templar, dstorm1911, stottman, and Linx310, as I have found information from them more than anyone else. (Please see the special thank yous in the next post following this one for photo credits etc.)
The same goes for the pictures used in this guide. Only a few are my own photographs, so PLEASE let me know if you would like credit for a photograph you took! If you would like one taken down, I ask you first to reconsider, as this is a guide meant to HELP the readers of this forum and NOT to make any sort of profit!
Thanks and I hope you enjoy! Please note that the majority of this guide is intended to be for the 7.62 military variants of the Romanian AK, so some of the info might not apply to the AIMS-74 and other variants. Also, since this is for assault rifles, I will not be covering the machine gun or sniper rifle variants here.
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MILITARY VARIANTS:
Pistol Mitraliera model 1963
(abbreviated PM md. 63 or simply md. 63)
Exported as the AIM:
The MD-63 is the Romanian version of the Russian Kalashnikov 7.62x39 AKM. The original AK-47s created in Romania were exact copies of the Russian milled receiver Type 3 AK-47, even using various actual Russian parts. Rumor has it that the milled receiver Romanian rifles were designated the "AI". When Russia switched to the stamped receiver with their AKM, Romania followed, creating what they called the "model-1963" rifle due to its first year of production (allthough there are reports of de-milled Romanian kits being found from as early as 1961). These guns had the same furniture style as the Russian AKM rifles with a solid wood stock and wooden upper and lower handguards. The lowers were the palm-swell type with bulges on the sides for better grip:
Within a couple of years Romania added a new front lower handguard that incorporated a vertical pistol grip that angled slightly forward for better control of the gun (known jokingly in the AK community as the "donkey-dong/d**k" handguard).
The new version of the rifle switched from hardwood furniture to laminate, using many sheets of thin wood glued together and then cut. After the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, many of these rifles went on to become the rifle of the Romanian Civil Patriotic Guard, or "Garda" Which is Romanian for guard. The guard is basically the Romanian version of our Army National guard in the United States and was mandatory for young men and women. It was staffed by about 700,000 citizens. In order to issue the rifles to the guard troops, they were modified to make them semi automatic by cutting the tail off of the disconnector and removing the auto sear. The back end of the buttstock had a black stripe painted vertically along the edge and the rear sight block got a large orange letter "G" stamped on the left side to signify that it was a semi automatic guard rifle:
The armories kept the full auto parts in case the rifles ever needed to be converted back to select fire. The AIM rifles were produced up until around 1986 or 1987 when the Romanians (and Civil Guard) officially adopted the new 5.45x39 cartridge and started production on the AIMS-74. The AIM would still be produced for export to other countries however. The leftover guard guns had their receivers torched in half and the rifles were disassembled and sold by the thousands to firearms enthusiasts in the United States as parts kits minus a receiver (per BATF regulations). These are now known in the AK community as "Romy G" rifles.
During the span of the AIM's production, the military version (Full auto rifles that weren't converted to guard guns) were widely exported to many nations, including Iraq, Bosnia-Herzogovina, India, Liberia, Pakistan, Rwanda, the Sudan, the IRA, Sierra Leone, Morocco, Georgia, Jordan and Libya. In Iraq, U.S. forces have regularly recovered AIM rifles from insurgents, but they are also the favored rifle of the Iraqi Police Force. In addition to the forward wooden pistol grip handguard, export versions of this rifle also come with standard palmswell lower handguards:
Pistol Mitraliera model 1965
(abbreviated PM md. 65 or simply md. 65)
Exported as the AIMS:
When Russia created their underfolding AKMS, Romania followed them as well, creating their own version of the underfolder and calling it the model 65 due to its first year of introduction, 1965. The underfolding stock design would not work with the forward swept front lower handguard pistol grip of the solid stocked md. 63, so a new handguard was added that had a vertical grip that angled slightly towards the rear. This enabled the oval-shaped cut out portion of the buttplate to fold up over the forward grip. The folding stock differs from the underfolding stock found on most other AK variants in that it is simply just two tubes that come back to the buttplate instead of the squared off "c-channel" rails that are found elsewhere. When the stock is fully extended, these tubes angle downwards slightly like the Russian underfolders. There are two different versions of the rear underfolder. The earliest, used from the start of underfolder production, has milled arms that when viewed from the right side of the gun look like a straight tube going back to the buttplate.
There is a cutout on the inside of the arm to allow the safety selector lever to go down into its firing position:
The later type which started appearing on 72 and later dated underfolders, is stamped. This is identifiable if you look at the right side of the gun, you will see halfway down the tube it looks somewhat crimped and flattened:
This is a much simpler to produce method of allowing the safety selector to move downwards to its firing position. Exported versions of this gun lack the forward wooden vertical grip handguards and use standard palm swell lowers:
Pusca Automata model 1986
(abbreviated PA md. 86 or simply md. 86)
Exported as the AIMS-74:
The md. 86 is the 5.45x39 variant of the AIM rifle. It is the rifle currently in use by the Romanian Military and features a few big design upgrades versus the previous AIM rifles. Unlike other 5.45 AK variants, the gas block on this rifle retains the same angle as its earlier predecessors and does not have the 90 degree block. The first major addition to the rifle is a side folding stock operated by a push button which swings to the right side of the gun:
When fully extended, it is slightly offset to the left for a better cheek weld. In order to accommodate for the folding stock, the charging handle is now upswept slightly so there is room for the user to charge the rifle:
The md 86 uses the wooden vertical forward grip handguard lower like the md 63, but the upper is now an orangish plastic bakelite one:
The muzzle break has also been changed to a new larger version:
Another big change is the addition of a side mounted plate that lets the user attach a rail mount for optics:
The last biggest change is the addition of a three round burst selector stop. Very early variants of the md 86 utilized a completely bakelite front handguard assembly with a built in pistol grip:
These are very rare now. Export versions of this rifle do not feature any sort of vertical grip handguard but use laminate wood instead. A side folding stock variant is available as well as a solid stock:
Pistol Mitraliera model 1990
(abbreviated PM md. 90 or simply md. 90)
Exported as (?)
The md. 90 is the 7.62x39 version of the newer md. 86. It features the same wire side folding stock and wooden pistol grip lower handguard as the 86 as well as a slant break on the muzzle of the gun. All of the other features are identical to the original 7.62x39 md. 63. In addition to the pistol grip lower handguard, exported md. 90s going to other countries can also come with a palm-swell AKM style lower handguard:
Pistol Mitraliera model 1997
(abbreviated PM md. 97 or simply md. 97)
Exported as (?)
The md. 97 is a relatively new gun and not much is known about it. It is a 5.56 caliber variant of the series and features a new gas block similar to the Russian AK-74 block design in which the angle looks more like a 90 degree then the angled version of 7.62 rifles.
Short barrel variations:
(Unknown official Romanian designation)
Exported as the AIMR (Though the designations "AIR" and "AIM Carbine" have both sometimes been seen used):
Shorter barreled versions of all of the above guns were also designed for tank crews and special forces. The barrel is shortened to 12", the front sight is moved back on the gas block, and a new flash hider is installed. The gas piston is shorter then a standard one at 5 5/8". The gun also receives a new rear leaf sight with markings up to 500m on the 7.62 variant and up to 400m on the 5.45 variant. The 5.56 variant is still relatively new and it is unknown what the leaf sight reads. The first version of these was seen during the Romanian Revolution of 1989. It features a stock that has not been seen on any other AK since. It is a crutch style sidefolding stock that has a hinged buttplate at the end. The whole assembly folds to the left side of the gun instead of the right like on newer models. It has the forward wooden vertical grip handguard on it and is always seen using a 20 round magazine. These also were seen during the revolution with a bell shaped birdcage style flash hider on the barrel.
The 7.62 variant evolved over time and got the same pushbutton stock as the md. 86 rifle as well as palm swell standard AK handguards and a standard barrel nut on the end although they have been seen with the older bell style flash hider:
No version featuring this new stock has been seen with the wooden vertical front grip as of yet and it is believed that it is standard with the palm swell handguards. There is also a stockless pistol version of the 7.62 carbine, and this one does feature the wooden vertical grip forward handguard and a sling loop where the stock would be located:
The next version to come along was the 5.45 variant which also lacked the forward vertical grip handguards in favor of the palm swell type. These feature a larger variation of birdcage flash hider as well:
The newest version is the 5.56 caliber variant. Once again, no trace of the forward vertical grip handguard. They have either a barrel nut or birdcage style flash hider:
Civlian Variants:
This guide is about military variants but I should mention a little about the civilian sporter series here. In the late 90s, import company Century Arms International approached the Romanian arsenals with the idea of importing semi automatic AKs into the US. It was noticed that a lot of parts were being resmelted and redone because they were out of spec and did not pass inspection for use in military grade AKs. Some people like to call these parts "defective", but they are not. They just didn't meet the military standards. Barrels were rejected due to chrome flaws, hardness variation, or other machining flaws, same with the other parts. They were made on 3 lines in a building at the rear of the Sadu arsenal at a rate of about 50 per hour from all 3 lines. Rejected parts would go from the military lines on a conveyor to the back sporter lines and get inspected again. Anything that didn't pass here would be re-smelted, all other parts would be used in the export guns. The guns were assembled by the Sadu arsenal, but with no gas piston, no pistol grip, no muzzle device and no FCG. These would be later installed once the guns arrived at Century in the US to make them 922r compliant. They are also sent over as low-capacity guns that only accept single stack low-capacity magazines. Century is the ones who Dremel the mag well and make them wobble. The markings and stampings on the guns are done by Century as well. Importers have 15 days to apply a unique serial number and the required import marking showing country of origin, caliber and importer address. Just about every caliber and variation of the Romanian military AK is available as a semi-auto sporter model. Please see Linx310's page HERE for a full breakdown of all of the civilian guns.
It should also be mentioned here that within the last few years, various versions of the WASR rifle (Romania's most popular civilian sporter AK) have started to show up with military-grade parts and trunion stampings. Here is a brief breakdown of the WASR series so you can see how some of them ended up with military stampings and why some don't have them:
ORIGINAL WASR-10
The WASR is a post-ban (produced during the ban) version of the AKM assault rifle in 7.62x39mm caliber. These are produced separate from the military rifles in Romania and sent to the US. Factory-original rifles only support single-stack, low-capacity magazines (ten rounds hence the "10"), but are frequently modified to accept double-stack, regular-capacity magazines (thirty rounds or more). Pistol grip and thumbhole stocks are both commonly found.
GP WASR-10
After the sunset of the assault weapons ban in 2004, importers were able to legally equip WASR-10s with threaded barrels, compensators, bayonet lugs, and folding stocks, thus making the GP WASR-10 (with GP standing for general purpose). Versions in the old style without all of the "fun" features were still produced for states that had their own restrictions on such things.
GP WASR-10/63
The 10/63 designation was added by Century Arms International for marketing purposes only. Just as with all other WASR-10 rifles, these are newly manufactured with military rejected parts for the civilian market (with exceptions, see below).
A WASR-10/63 with an under-folding stock was introduced into the product line in 2007 and was still made using military rejected parts.
As of 2008 there are GP WASR-10/63 rifles in both solid and underfolding stocks that are being made from real de-milled military used rifles, including de-milled "G-code" Civil Guard guns (the "G" is ground off), but still using the dimple-less Century receivers. The military grade rifles are immediately identified by the triangle (empty or with an arrow) stamping in front of the serial number on the front trunion. (The underfolders should TECHNICALLY be GP WASR-10/65 because the 63 was the standard stock version and the 65 was the underfolder with the military rifles).
GP-1975
Romania stopped producing the WASR rifles and parts in 2008. Rumor has it that in order to get into NATO, Romania was told to stop producing AK-47 variants for the US market. The other rumor is that a major auto manufacturer set up a factory in Romania and decided to outsource some of their steel parts and Cugir was the factory that accepted. When Century ran out of parts, the new AK's that they made in the US were from surplus Romanian kits. These kits were the last of the 7.62x39 rifles made for regular army use in Romania and most never got used. Century built them on DCI (NoDakSpud) dimpled receivers with "Green Mountain" barrels and black plastic synthetic American made furniture, which is what the GP-1975 (GP-75) rifles are that you are now seeing. These bare no relation to WASRs except the shoddy Century "drunk monkey" manufacturing work that goes into building it remains the same from the WASR line. (It saddens me when people call a professionally assembled G-code rifle that isnt Century made, a "GP-75" ) These include Tapco fire control group parts as well.
Now back to the military stuff!
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RIFLE BREAKDOWN:
Grips:
The first pistol grips seen on the early rifles were copies of the laminate wood grips used on the early Soviet AKM rifles:
These were only used on the 1963-1965 rifles and were replaced by a grip made out of bakelite plastic when the AIM/md. 63 variant started to be produced full swing:
The bakelite grips are usually a reddish brown color and can range from a really dark brown to a really light almost red/tan color. With the switch to the 5.45 cartridge, the grips used on all the md. 86 rifles were all a really light bakelite color, almost orange:
You will often see lots of swirl pattern in the grips themselves too. The Romanian grips differ from other countries and are easily identifiable due to the inverted checker pattern on both sides of the grip. Other countries use a pattern that has lots of tiny little raised "pyramids" to create a rough feeling grip. The Romanians have a reverse of this and have a grid of little shallow squares/diamonds and feel smooth to the touch. There are no stampings or mould numbers on these grips.
Folding stocks
The Romanian folding stock seen on many rifle variants was created as a copy of the East German side folding stock. It is different however. The East German "crutch" part has more of a triangle shape to it, and the Romanian one has a slight droop in the upper bar section (German on top)
The Romanian stock comes in two types. The first is a pushbutton design and the second is a lever operated design:
The md 86 was the first Romanian rifle to feature the side folding design and it uses the pushbutton design. It is believed that the lever operated folder was designed for export rifles since no lever operated folders have been seen on rifles in the Romanians hands.
Selector markings:
S, FA, FF are the markings found on domestic Romanian guns:
"S" means safe, "FA" means "Foc Automat" (automatic fire), and "FF" means "Foc cu Foc" (translated word for word it means fire with fire. It means one round per trigger pull)
S, A, R is found on guns made for export:
S is for "Safe, A is for "Automatic" and R is for "Repetition".
On the Aims-74 things changed slightly and one more position was added:
There's no selector stop. when the selector is all the way up touching the receiver cover, it is at its "safe" position. One notch down brings it to full auto. Drop it down one more for semi auto, and down to the bottom notch for the three round burst.
Trunion stamps:
On the trunion of all military Romanian rifles there should be either an empty triangle or a triangle with a little arrow pointing upwards before the serial number.
The triangle in general indicates that the gun was made at the Cugir arsenal. The triangle with the arrow inside was the original Cugir stamp. The stamp is applied only after the trunion is accepted for milspec production. In 1976, the 5.45x39 cartridge was adopted and it was decided that in order to identify 5.45 trunions from the 7.62, the arrow from inside the triangle would be dropped leaving just a blank triangle for the new caliber guns. In 1980 it was realized that the two trunions were identical in size (23mm) and the same trunion could be used for either caliber, so the arrow marked version was canceled, which is why most post-1980 demilled "Romy G" kits have only the blank triangle. It should be noted however, that there are for some still-unknown reason, some post 1980 dated guns that show up from time to time with the arrow in the triangle. This is usually with the 1986 guns and all of the trunions fall within a certain late serial number range. (I am still investigating this). The Sadu Arsenal used a 1/4" square with a diagonal bar as its arsenal mark but that is very rare as most of the contract military weapons made for export are intentionally not marked with any stamp that would identify a country of manufacture, just a serial number:
Any guns made for the commercial /civilian sporter market got no trunion markings at all. Some early SAR commercial rifles did get built with some of the parts from the Cugir arsenal which were transferred to Sadu in 1996, and those rifles will have the CUGIR arsenal stamp on the left side of the trunion, but it will be the blank triangle as this happened after the cancelation of the arrow in 1980. There are other stamps that show up from time to time in the Romanian kit guns that came to the US. These are VERY rare however and most likely slipped out on accident. One that has been seen on more then one occasion is a triangle with a curved bottom line and the number 11 stamped inside:
This is from the Carfil Arsenal in Romania who made weapons only for the Romanian military.
Serial numbers:
Romanian rifles all have a serial number of some sort on them right after the trunion markings described above. Starting from 1963, they read starting with a year of production, a space, a two letter prefix, space, and then a four digit number.
The 2 letter code after the year originally started off at AA and the numbers after would start at 0001. The next rifle would be AA 0002 and so on. When AA 9999 came up, the next rifle would be AB 0001. This continued until mid 1980 when the trunion stamp changed over to an empty triangle. The format changed to show the year, a space, a letter "S", a space, a hyphen, a space, and then the 2 letter code and 4 digit number immediately following it:
This continued up until the Romanians stopped producing the md. 63 for their own use and started only exporting them. The new export format has the year, a hyphen, a three letter code and then a 4 digit number immediately following it:
Civilian sporter guns weren't marked until they came overseas so your WASR and SAR may have a completely different format of serial number on it. I am unsure of how the other military variants such as the md 86 etc. are stamped, this is still under research. In order to further find out patterns with serial numbers, there is a trunion marking database on these boards HERE. Please submit yours!
Sights:
The sight leaf on the standard length Romanian guns has the numbers ranging from 1-10 (each standing for 100 meter increments) and also the letter "P" at the base. This is the battle mode. The "P" stands for "Priveliºte", which translates as "landscape", "outlook", "scene", "sight" or "view". Another alternative meaning of the "P" would be "Pogrom", which translates as "battle".
Other markings:
Along with many other manufacturers of AK variants, the Romanians used a number system to match up parts. They found that their manufacturing created parts that weren't precisely measured. To ensure that they matched up correctly sized parts they marked each of the barrel related parts with a 1, 2, 3, or 4 depending on their measurements. The barrel will usually have a sequence on it of 3 or 4 numbers, something like: 2 1 2 2 stamped on it on the part that is hidden when a handguard is installed:
That would be: FSB, Gas Block, RSB, Trunnion. 2 is nominal, 1 is under-size, 3 is oversize, 4 is way oversize. If you have a "1" trunnion you can lap the hole and install a "2" barrel. If you have a "2" trunnion a "1" barrel is generally ok but only a moderate-to-light press fit. If you have a "3" trunnion and a "1" barrel, it will be loose. If you have a "1" trunnion and you try to put a "2" or "3" barrel in it you may crack the trunnion etc.
Finish:
There has been no solid agreement as to what the exact finish is used on Romanian military grade guns. Some say it is blued over semi-rough metal, some say parkerized and others say it is some sort of black-oxide finish. The commercial sporter guns imported into the US are mainly black paint over parkerization.
Early vs. late guns:
The earliest cost reducing methods can be seen in the 1976 guns. This was the year that the chrome gas chambers stopped and cast parts made their debut to replace milled parts. The early guns had milled and forged components such as the the sight blocks, gas block and rear trunion, and by 1980, had completely switched to cast to cut production costs. There were lots of cost reducing methods implemented during a bigger effort in 1980 which is evident in the gun quality. The G engravings started to be electro-penciled in by hand instead of stamped nicely via machine. Little care was taken when painting in the numbers and the "G" on the rear sight base. In the early days the excess paint was wiped off leaving a nice stamped, orange or white filled "G":
After 1980 you can see the paint running all over the place in the poorly created "G":
The serial number stampings started to be stamped without regard as to if the numbers lined up or not. Another good indicator of the quality decrease is on the barrel. If you run your fingernail down the exterior of a late gun's barrel, little rings are evident all the way down, whereas the earlier guns were almost smooth. The acceptable specs for the barrels quality was lowered in order to have less waste, so a barrel that would have been rejected in the early days and re-smelted was ok to use again. In 1983, Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu had heard there was going to be a coup attempt under the guise of a labor strike so he ordered his brother to shut down both arsenals that were producing AK rifles and jail or execute anyone who might help with arming the coup. When the arsenals were re-staffed later, the workers hired were much lower skilled and less caring and motivated, which is why you see an even further decrease of quality after 1983.
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ACCESSORIES:
Magazines:
The Romanians produced their own magazines for each caliber of rifle they produced. In 7.62x39 there is 10 round:
20 round:
40 round (for the RPK machine gun):
and also a 75 round drum also designed for the RPK machine gun:
In the relatively new 5.56 there is a 10 rounder:
and a 30 rounder:
The 7.62 magazines are very similar in design to the Russian steel 30 round mags. They have a blued or phosphated finish on them. Most have rough finishing marks, and Russian style spot welds on the feed lips:
Romanian mags have a lot of identifying features and have a very wide variety of various stamps found on the body and spine. The easiest to identify is the usual triangle with the arrow point upwards located on the spine, but mags with these stampings are rarer then the others:
The next most common would be a "22" or "022" on the spine. A single "2" or "02" would indicate Hungarian so watch out. The Hungarians also sometimes have a half moon with a face in it. Bulgarians usually have a 10 with a circle around it. Other stampings seen on the spine on Romanian mags include "0", "Z", "3", "V" and "F":
The magazine bodies themselves sometimes have digits on them which can include "L" and "F" near the bottom ribs:
The overall physical appearance of the Romanian mag is very similar to a Russian mag as both have weld marks and circles around the top feed-lip area. The differences are if you look at the top front side of the magazines, the Russian spot welds look like really big sunken pools. The Romanian spot welds at this location are also big sunken pools, but usually are more uniformly round and farther apart:
Another identifying feature would be the last indented rib near the back of the mag towards the spine. Most eastern bloc mags have this line going straight to the top while the Bulgarian goes up and then terminates at an angle right before the side plates. The Romanian version leaves a little gap and cuts off at a right angle:
The last identifying feature is the beveled area on the top front catch that goes into the magazine well first. When looking at the magazine from the side, the top edge of the magazine on all other variants goes straight across this catch. On the Romanian mags, it angles down at 45 degrees once the edge comes to this catch:
These are all features for the 7.62 magazines. I am still researching the other calibers.
Magazine Pouches:
The first magazine pouch used for these guns was a leather 4 cell pouch, in either brownish red or black:
These were used extensively in the Romanian revolution of 1989. The texture on these is bumpy and rough. These are very hard to come by but have been showing up recently in new-in-the-box WASR rifles. The standard magazine pouch that was used for 30 round 7.62 magazines is a drab green canvas-like material, 2-cell pouch which holds the magazines vertically, side by side. There are two variants of this, one with a lighter leather color and one with darker. The darker leather seems to have a thicker/heavier cloth material:
The closures are metal buttons on the pouch with brown leather straps with holes that slip over the buttons. When viewed from the front, there is a small pocket for an oil bottle on the upper left side and a pocket for a tube style cleaning kit on the right. The back has two webbed straps to attach the pouch to a belt with. Upon transitioning to the 5.45 caliber md.86, a 3-cell variant of the above was designed that could accommodate either type of magazine:
Another pouch used with the md. 86 was a 4-cell design with nylon strap closures:
There are various other pouches out there that are often seen with these guns such as the 4-cell that is meant to hold 40 round magazines for the RPK/AESB machine gun:
It has a built in carrying strap and one pocket on the front for an oil bottle. There is also a pouch for the 75-drum magazine that is often seen with the RPK:
The Romak/PSL/SVD/FPK (?) uses a pouch that has 4 pockets for 5-round magazines. There are three known variants of this pouch:
There are also some that are unidentified but are reportedly Romanian and believed to be produced for export only. The are mainly 4 cell pouches:
If you have any other information on these pouches, please contact me!
Bayonets:
The first type of bayonet produced for the Romanian AK had a bakelite handle and metal sheath with a brown leather "frog", a grey rubber insulator and a leather strap:
The blade had a hole in it to slip over the little protruding anvil on the end of the sheath and form sort of a scissors like device. With the plastic handle and rubber insulator, the whole unit could be used to safely cut electric fence wire. These also have serial numbers engraved on the sheath as well as the bayonet itself. These numbers follow the same serial number system as the guns themselves so you can easily identify the bayonet year if needed. The next type of bayonet produced had green nylon in place of the leather:
The final variant was designed specifically for the 5.45 caliber md.86 being that clearance was needed near the barrel for the new flash hider:
This variant is instantly identifiable due to the metal area near the back end and its square-ish appearance. There are MANY variations of each of these three types of bayonets, mainly in color of either the leather, nylon or handle:
Please see MrKrink's "AK Bayonets of The World" Reference guide HERE for a WAY more detailed breakdown of variants! It should also be noted that some of the earlier type 1 bayonets do have the Romanian Cugir arsenal stamp imprinted on them, right underneath the ring that slips over the barrel front:
The type II bayonets for the md 86 have markings as well:
Slings:
The sling used with the original military guns was a dark brown leather sling with a buckle at one end and a metal clip at the other with a leather loop keeper:
These are always a brownish/red color but as with everything else Romanian, there are slight variations in the color:
There are usually stamping marks on the back side of these slings but it has not been determined what they mean as there are many different types and no pattern is really standing out yet:
With the addition of the AIMS-74 to the military line a new sling was introduced that was made out of a green nylon material with a black painted buckle and clip at opposite ends as well as a green loop keeper made out of the same material as the sling:
These are usually a nice flexible material and are quite comfortable. There have been three versions of this sling seen. The first is a darker green material usually a little stiffer then the lighter shade. The second is the most common and is the light green almost "reflective" green material. The third is almost a golden shade. Two of these can be seen here:
These green slings came as accessories with all of the imported commercial sporter guns like the SAR and WASR lines but are not the correct sling for a G-kit gun. They are the sling that gets shipped with military contract export guns to foreign countries however.
Oil bottles:
The oil bottles that were issued with AK rifles in the military were originally re-issued bottles made for the Mosin Nagant rifle. They are a dual spout design and have two letters on the front corresponding to what is inside each compartment. There are a few known variants of this. The first group have U/S or S/U on the front.
The "U" stands for "ulei" which means "oil" and the "S" stands for "solvent". There are three known variations of this bottle, with the rounded edged one being the most common, and the rectangular style second.
The other type has B/U on the front:
"B" stands for "basa" which translates as "base", and "U" stands for "ulei", or "oil" again. Two variations are known to exist of this one, one being the rounded rectangular design and the other actually being a round container.
With the introduction of the AIMS-74, a black plastic single compartment bottle was used:
Cleaning kits:
Romanian rifles come with a tube style cleaning kit in the buttstock.
I have yet to find a way to distinguish the Romanian kits from the other countries production. This kit is a black parkerized tube with a removable cap. The tools inside are a cleaning jag, flat screwdriver/multitool, pin punch, bore brush and sometimes a small pin. I've seen two variations of the cap, one with a hole and one without. The hole exists so you can place the cap over the end of your barrel and use the cleaning rod through it, as to not scratch the inside of your barrel. Please see the guide on Linx's page HERE for a detailed description of what all the tools can be used for.
Other accessories
When exporting rifles, the Romanians include a few other accessories with each rifle. This includes a gas port reamer, broken shell extractor and a blank firing attachment that threads onto the front of the barrel upon removal of the current muzzle brake:
The md 86 uses a different blank firing attachment:
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FACTORIES AND BUSINESSES:
Cugir factory (SC Fabrica de Arme Cugir SA):
Link 1 Link 2 Link 3
Cugir was the sole producer of the arms used by the Romanian military from the beginning, and were the sole arsenal manufacturing small arms up to 1990. Cugir never produced rifles for commercial export, although import companies D.I.G. and Intrac were able to import some. Small arms production at Cugir started to be phased out in 1996 as they began the process of transferring inventory and equipment to Sadu. They stopped building small arms after getting caught by the UN in 2000, supplying weapons to terrorists (A container full of 14,000 AKMs was intercepted by the British Navy). After the bust, they finnished the transfer of all of their small arms equipment to Sadu, and were retooled for medium to heavy weapons production with all brand new state of the art modern equipment purchased from Belgium and Croatia. They now build very large vulcan minicanon style weapons, only bigger. They are located in the Alps in the district of Alba in the city of Cugir.
Sadu / Sadar factory:
Link
Sadu currently produces the export weapons sold as contract arms to other countries. They are also the ones who built the guns for export to the Century Arms facility in the US. They are currently the only Romanian factory making AKs. They are located in the district of Gorj in the town of Bumbesti, in a very poor area. The commercial sporters were made in a separate warehouse at the rear of the Sadu facility on 3 parrelel assembly lines. All of the equipment Sadu has for creating AKs is from Cugir. It was moved to Sadu and the Arms facility (which is about 6 miles from the Cugir arsenal) when Cugir was completely retooled after the UN bust.
Romarm (Romarm, the National Company for Military Technique) / Romtechnica:
Link
Romtechnica is not a factory, it is a state owned export and marketing agency / defense plant union. It is a Bucharest-based arms group, different than Ratmil. It is Romania's main defense importer and exporter. About 35 factories make up the "Romarm" National Company.
Ratmil (Patromil / Regie Autonoma pentru productia de Tehnica Militara):
Link
Ratmil is also a Romanian export agency / defense plant union. The name of the overall factory is Uzinie Mecanice Cugir. After getting in trouble with the UN in 2000 for smuggling weapons to terrorists, the Sadu and Cugir arsenals were forced to merge (on paper) and this is what they became. They are located in the city of Cugir, in the Transylvanian Alps.
Transcarpat Sportours International:
This is the actual business branch that is responsible for all the sales of everything commercial out of Romania. They are Located in Bucharest in the second district. They are who you deal with if you want to sell anything to the Romanian military. These are the people who have the final say when it comes to all things being exported or imported into Romania. The address is used with all exported weapons and ammunition, and this is why most people think that Cugir, Sadu, Ratmil etc... are located in Bucharest.
Arms:
Located in the district of Alba in the town of Cugir, this is a relativly new Arsenal which picks up where Cugir left off. It is specialized in the new 5.56 weapons, as well as the 9mm subguns and sidearms. They produce the new weapons that are used strictly by the Internal Romanian Military.
