Comments by "GunFun ZS" (@GunFunZS) on "The Israeli Galil" video.

  1. Funny, because toward the end of Mickey K's life, the Kalashnikov Koncern was mostly tinkering around with the AK12 and a bunch of limited run customs which had Israeli made parts. A lot of CAA stuff, which is basically the Israeli equivalent of Tapco. I have a folder with a bunch of pictures of him holding these guns and beaming. They are great reply pictures to the "Nyet rifle is fine" guys.
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  2.  @alienwizard9765  Argh. Typed up a reply and it just glitched away. The AEK-971 isn't enough better to replace the inventory that Russia has. MK was mostly a mascot in his final years, but even if he were the brilliant leader that they needed..... Well no amount of brilliance and foresight in design can overcome the economic realities. KK had no shortage of innovative improvements, though which ones they offered for adoption is a bit of a head scratcher sometimes. Their company had IIRC 3 bankruptcies this century, as well as partial mergers and un mergers with MOLOT, with leadership coming and going constantly. Often with the petty cash while the floor workers were unpaid for months. The Izhevsk arsenal is immense and the maintenance costs alone must be crushing to profits. Probably they are letting most of it rot. But the real problem is market saturation. Russia has stockpiles of AK variants that are insane. I have seen and forgotten numbers, but it is possible that they have more AKs than people right now. Any gun offered as a replacement has to be enough better to be worth throwing all that stockpile on the scrap pile and replacing it. Instead, Russia, which is still fairly broke buys just enough of the new fancy toys for their elite troops, and keeps the rest using the guns they have. They order enough rifles to just barely keep KK in business, and they discourage major exports. The company is being kept on life support, but not really allowed to thrive. It's not about lack of brilliant designs.
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  3. @Мармеладов ТВ He licensed it to the company around 2009 or 2010. He also licensed his name to a vodka brand before that. MK was paid for these, and had a lifetime figurehead position at IZH, and a lovely little country estate. Izhevisk machine works was renamed KK during the process of resolving the latest bankruptcy, with MK's permission. Then they formed a contractual agreement with an american company to be their stateside importer and manufacturer, giving them name rights and some technical data. That company is Kalashnikov USA. In the middle of that process, following the Ukraine situation, Obama issued an executive order that prevented united states companies from doing business with certain named Russian companies, including KK. This meant that K-USA as a legally distinct entity could keep doing business and using the name, but couldn't send money back to KK, or recieve the rest of the tooling and tecnical data from KK. At the time KK threatened to sue for some breach, which was not named. However, the trade executive order that prevented them from doing business together, also prevents lawsuits based on their contracts. Trump renewed that executive order, and expanded it to include Molot. It seems unlikely that future presidents will lift the executive order, so this situation will exist in stasis indefinitely.
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