Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another
video on ForgottenWeapons.com. I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today in Slovenia
by generous invitation of Polenar Tactical, and we're taking a look at a couple
of really interesting small arms. Today we have a Kalashnikov SR1. This is the civilian competition semi-automatic
version of the Russian AK-107 and AK-108 family, originally developed for military trials. And what makes this particularly
interesting is that it uses the counterbalanced recoil ... compensation
system. So we'll get to that in a moment. A little bit of a background on this:
since the 1960s and 1970s Russia (or the Soviet Union at that point), had a series of developmental trials very
much like the American SPIW program. They were attempts to improve hit
probability with the infantry rifle. Frankly it wasn't just the US and the USSR,
kind of everyone was interested in this. And a whole bunch of interesting
different ideas came out, and one of them was the
idea of counterbalanced recoil. Now, the first big misconception
that I want to clear up on this is that in a rifle like this, the
counterbalance system is not about compensating for the recoil of
the bullet coming out of the barrel. The rifle is a closed system,
as far as physics goes you can't compensate for the bullet
coming out unless there's something else coming out the back of the
rifle and leaving the system. Instead what this is designed to do is negate the impact of the bolt hitting
the trunnion when it chambers a round, and the bolt hitting the back of the
receiver when it gets to the end of travel. Those are the actions, especially
in a small calibre like 5.56 or 5.45, those are the events that actually
cause the gun to jump off target. That's what creates most of
the felt recoil of shooting. So the SR1 here is in 5.56, in military trials this was
developed in 5.45 primarily. But when it was not adopted by the Russian
military (at least not in any substantial numbers), Kalashnikov Concern decided to
make their own commercial version to sell for the sports shooting
market, primarily in Europe. I'm sure they'd love to sell them in the
US as well, but there's been a prohibition on Russian rifle imports into
the US for quite some time. So we don't see these
at all in the United States. So let's take a look inside, this thing's got gears
and ratchets and all sorts of cool stuff in it. Fundamentally the SR1 is two
different things in one package. One of them is the balanced
recoil mechanical system. The other is an adaptation of the AK to use
as much AR-15 setup essentially as possible. So this is a rifle that was designed
for the civilian competition world. As a result ... it's chambered for 5.56,
it uses AR-15 magazines. This one is a 10 round limited
mag that came with the gun because of Russian magazine regulations. But standard mags. An AR-15 safety isn't really feasible, but
instead there is a cross-bolt safety here. That's fire, that's safe, which is ... substantially easier
to use than the original system. We have an ambidextrous
magazine release here, and right here. And you can see that it's
set up for AR-15 magazines. The lever down here is
a bolt lock and release. So I can open the bolt up, push
that lever up, lock the bolt open, lever down, bolt closes.
So very much AR-15 style controls. The rear trunnion has been designed (instead
of using AK stocks) to fit an AR-15 buffer tube, so that then any AR-15
standard stock will fit just fine. The stocks that the SR1 comes
with are made by FAB Defense, as are the magazines,
I should have said. The pistol grip is actually an AK-12 pistol grip. So if you push these two buttons in
you can pull out ... the cleaning kit. Inside there's an oil bottle in the
middle, and then all your standard AK cleaning tools,
pin punch, brush, etc. Just two spring loaded little
tabs there hold it in place. The top cover is fitted with
Picatinny rail to use optics. There is a 1.5/6x power Russian
prismatic scope on this right now. But anything can go on there
as you would need to do to market this to
the IPSC rifle market. And then out on the handguard
we have a bit of Picatinny rail for a front sight if you want to use irons. The rifle also comes with a competition style
muzzle brake, three ports on the side and the top. And I suspect when we get this on
the range one of the things we'll find is that with 5.56 a significant
amount of the recoil control is actually going to be coming from that
brake rather than the counterbalance system. The charging handle is not ambidextrous, it's set up on the left side to fit right
handed shooters with an open slot here. This is the sort of thing that you
would be leery of on a military rifle, because it's going to let a lot
of dirt potentially into the gun. Not a big deal on a sporting rifle. However, just because the
charging handle is over here doesn't mean that
left handers are out of luck. You can actually put a charging
handle on the right side as well, I just don't have it on this particular rifle. A quick look at the markings.
We have a CIP ... proof mark here. Kalashnikov Concern, and "Made in Russia". On the opposite side we
have much the same thing, again Kalashnikov, SR1, .223 Remington. This is "Made in Russia" in Russian, proof mark. And these are made at the Izhmash factory. And typical of AKs, there is a
serial number on the front trunnion. Instead of being riveted in
place like an AK trigger guard, we have a plastic assembly here
(the whole thing's plastic) that contains the magazine
well and the controls. And it is screwed into
the bottom of the receiver. There's a second screw
underneath the pistol grip. Alright, now the bits you actually want to see. Disassembly: we have a lever in the back, going to pull that,
rotate that to about this position, and we can take the dust cover off. Pretty typical stuff there,
nothing that interesting. Second step then is to remove the
handguard, just rotate that lever back ... and I can pull the handguard off the rifle. Now we get into the
real meat and potatoes. Starting with the gas block, which actually vents
gas in two directions, both forward and backward. And there are two gas pistons here. This gas piston is
connected to this lower bar, which is connected to the
bolt carrier and the bolt below. This front one is connected to this top bar,
which is ... synchronised I should say, to the bottom bar by a pair
of cog wheels up in the top. And then they each have their
own recoil springs in the back here. So, this is basically going to fall apart if I try to cycle it without the
handguard and the top cover. But if we look at this in bits here. First at the front, when this cycles you
can see both gas pistons are moving, like that, one forward, one backward. Then if we look here, this is
where you've got the pair of rolling cogs that lock the two together. So when the bolt carrier goes back,
this top rail is going to go forward. Now we can further disassemble this
by simply lifting the top rail off, like that. I can then ... take the
rear recoil spring out. This is attached just like the
main recoil spring in a regular AK. Take that out ... and then
pull it out of its base right there. And then the bolt carrier comes back and
lifts out (there we go), just like a regular AK. Interestingly, the receiver
is totally standard AK. The rear trunnion here
is slightly different. You can see it's got sort of these
locking loops in it which interface ... with the disassembly lever and this
cut locking [bar] in the top cover. We've got a fire control
system that is standard AK, with the exception of the addition
of this little part here for the safety. And then the front trunnion started off
as a standard AK-74 front trunnion with a new bullet guide welded in
to fit 5.56 and AR magazine height. And then this locking block welded on
to mount the counterbalance system. And this ... basically spring seat welded on. So this ... is a fairly simple system
as far as the receiver goes, it's an AK that is then modified at the factory. Obviously the gas port is
fundamentally different as well. One last disassembly step, I can pull
the recoil spring for the top bar out. And then this piece comes
to the very back and tips off. And that is the part that's
responsible for synchronising the upper and lower pieces
of the counterbalance system. OK, so what is this actually doing? Fundamentally what's
happening is when the gun fires both of these gas pistons are being
pushed by gas from the cartridge. And their movement is locked
together by this central wheeled piece. You can see that we have
all of these holes in both bars. Those holes sit in these cogs ... just like this, and regulate the
travel of the two components. So when this fires, these two
guys are going to go like that. Now the question is what
does this actually achieve? And the answer is something
that's significant mechanically, but may not be that big of
a deal for the actual shooter. In a normal AK the two things
that really contribute to felt recoil, which is to say that contribute
to the sights of the gun moving, are not necessarily the
bullet leaving the muzzle. Instead they are the bolt carrier here
slamming into the back of the receiver, and then slamming into the chamber. There's a lot of moving mass in the AK and the gun tends to jerk back when
the bolt hits the back of the receiver, and jerk forward when it
chambers a round into the front. Perhaps a little bit less
when it goes forward because some of that energy is taken up
by pushing a cartridge into the chamber. But that is what the
counterbalance system is preventing. So where the bolt carrier would normally
push the gun forward when it slams home, at the exact same time this
piece is slamming backwards. And those two forces balance
each other out so that, at least in theory, the shooter
doesn't see any movement of the gun. The same thing happens when the gun opens. When the bolt carrier hits the back of
the receiver, it's being limited out by this. You've also got movement
going forward that's stopping. And those two forces
balance each other out so that the shooter doesn't notice
any movement of the gun. In theory you could do this
without a component like this, you could simply have
two gas pistons that are both simultaneously being
pushed in opposite directions. But then you would have to exactly balance
the mass and the friction in both components to ensure that they both
cycled in exact synchronicity. Otherwise you'd actually create more problems by
having one hit and then the other hit, out of sync. What this set of two little gear wheels does is it forces these two
parts to operate in sync regardless of if one's got dirty and is
dragging more, if one weighs more than the other. No matter what's happening, they have
to stay together because these wheels are locked into the little holes
in the top and bottom here. So that's how the system works. Now let's go down to the range and
see what the practical application is. Alright, so I want to see
how this actually handles. But I'm interested in what the recoil system
actually does, not the big compensator on it. So we've taken the
compensator off to begin with. Let's go ahead and try it out. Alright, so that is
definitely not recoilless. I ... was clearly getting muzzle climb. Not a lot of muzzle climb,
but definitely getting some. And that ... fits with what I've been
told by some experts on this rifle, which is really the thing that's doing
most of the work is that compensator. It was also interesting that there
was so much flash coming out of this, and this is just standard 5.56,
that I could see it through the scope. Which is kind of an
unusual experience for me. It's definitely light recoiling, it's
controllable, but it's not zero recoil. But maybe it will be
with the compensator. Let's go ahead and put
that back on and try it again. OK, that was much closer
to zero actual recoil. And I can certainly see someone who
has significant like race gun competition, IPSC rifle experience, having no problem at all
holding that just perfectly solid on target. But that's where the crux
of the problem comes in. It's not the balanced recoil system that's really doing the lion's share
of the work there, it's this muzzle brake. If you take this has got to be an
... 8 or 9 pound rifle in 5.56 and put that kind of muzzle brake on it, you're not going to have
a ton of felt recoil regardless. And ... the rifle is designed to minimise that
felt recoil, and does a really good job of it. The question becomes is it
worth it for the added complexity, the reliability factor, the extra
lubrication, the complexity of assembly. I can totally see why this was a
complete failure as a military rifle. The reassembly process and the
disassembly process for the recoil system is not something you would want to do
at night in the mud, let me put it that way. In addition, this didn't go ... over very well with
Kalashnikov Concern, who manufactured it. It went into production in 2018, they
only made one or two batches of rifles. A small number of them,
like this one, filtered into Europe. But there was very little
consumer interest in the rifle, probably because of the complexity, the cost, and the fact that Kalashnikov Concern
had substantial QC problems with this rifle. ... Basically it was a complete
commercial flop for them, as it had been a complete military
flop as the AK-107 or AK-108. ... This is an interesting situation of, yes, you
get the benefit, this rifle does what it claims, and shoots extremely flat, but at what cost? You can take ... an AR
that weighs pounds less, and do sort of the same style
of competition-type modifications, a lightweight bolt carrier, a tuned gas
system, a really good muzzle brake. And you can get the exact same result in
a rifle with a lot less complexity, and less weight. And something that's not unobtainium,
made with quality control problems. So, it's a really cool idea. I'd love to
have one myself as an engineering nerd. But would I actually go out and spend the money to
have one of these as a serious competition rifle? No. And if I was running a military
would I adopt this system? Absolutely not, it is
totally not worth it for that. I've been really excited to get my
hands on one of these for quite a while. I'd like to give a really big thanks
to MatevΕΎ for loaning this rifle to me, and for Rojal for access to the range
so I could actually try out shooting it. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video,
this was a really interesting one to me. Thanks for watching.
Thatβs was kind of a disappointment, all that work to reduce recoil and itβs the muzzle brake that makes the difference. I wonder how much less recoil it has than a similar weight 5.56 AK, both without brakes
Very cool, didn't notice the Grib Clamb Cβ’οΈ in the thumbnail when I first watched it. I would love to see a proper test of the felt recoil, so that it's actual effect could be meassured. But it does seem overly complicated when a compensator gets you most of the way there.
Oh FUCK YES
Iβve been waiting for this almost as long as Iβve been waiting for an AA-12 video
Maybe it would be more noticeable on full auto.
God damn it. I literally just got myself a 10mm S&W 6-shooter, why must you encourage me to do more bad spending decisions?!?!
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The real C gramp
Ian doesn't mention it, but I would also think this system fixes the other AK recoil problem, that of the throwing back and forth of an extended rod and piston on the bold carrier group, which causes the shifting of the center-mass of the rifle with each shot. This would really work to stabilize that issue.
I would've liked to see some "Professional Russian Soldier" style shooting using only the rail to aim