AK-74

The AK-74 is a Soviet assault rifle developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov's design bureau and adopted by the Soviet armed forces in 1974 as a successor to the AK-47 and AKM, chambered in a new smaller-caliber 5.45x39mm cartridge intended to give infantry a lighter round with a flatter trajectory and reduced recoil compared with the earlier 7.62x39mm AK round. It retains the same basic long-stroke gas piston mechanism and overall layout that made the AK-47 famous for reliability under harsh conditions, and it entered widespread combat use during the Soviet war in Afghanistan through the 1980s, which gave Western observers and Afghan fighters some of their first extended exposure to the new rifle and its distinctive muzzle brake. The AK-74 and its derivatives became the standard infantry rifle of the Soviet Union and later Russia and remain in production and widespread service across former Soviet states and allied nations today.