Police Found 33 Assault Rifles in Battambang Plantation

[CEOCambodiaNews]

33 Assault Rifles Found in Battambang’s Plantation
13/11/21 22:25

Phnom Penh (FN), Nov. 12 – Police found 33 assault rifles in a plantation in Battambang’s Phnom Proek district.

Interior Ministry’s spokesman Khieu Sopheak told Fresh News on Friday. “Police found 30 of AK-47 assault rifles and three M79 firearms,” Sopheak said.
=FRESH NEWS

[SternAAlbifrons]

What's the go with the blunderbusses??

(whatever - i want one. 'always have since my pirate days)

[CEOCambodiaNews]

What's the go with the blunderbusses??

(whatever - i want one. 'always have since my pirate days)

Here you go, pirate fans:

[SternAAlbifrons]

M79's apparently. (I still want one)

Here is an interesting other side to the usual "NVA using captured American weapons" saga that i had not heard before...

Even as Washington’s involvement in Southeast Asia waned, the Pentagon still made use of its captured stockpiles.
After a coup deposed Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihanouk in 1970, the Pentagon turned over more than 27,000 AKs and three million bullets to Phnom Penh.

^^ from Black Ops, Vietnam: An Operational History of MACVSOG

So.. given these well stored weapons (they seem to be in good cond) where found together with contemporary US made M79's >> maybe this buried stockpile was stashed by FANK forces, of their own MACV supplied AK-47s >> possibly when in the process of being overrun.
ie, Not an NVA or KR stash.
??

[SternAAlbifrons]

Hmm.. According to the the actual history of the arms flows from the early '60's, in theory, these AK-47s may have a lot of stamps in their passports..

Made in USSR
donated or sold to China
diverted to the NVA
who distributed them to the local "Vietcong" militia in the South
captured by ARVN when they exterminated the local communist forces in the south after Tet.
passed on to the Yanks
who redirected them thru MACV to Lon Nol
who handed them out to his 12 year old boy soldiers
who diligently buried them when they were left marooned and surrounded out there in the countryside,
before being overrun and possibly/probably butchered by the KR who were using guns very possibly made on the same day in the same factory in Minsk.

Behold Yee the AK-47; the gun that can do a quick double pirouette and then fire in both directions at the same time
'class act

[AndyKK]

Whatever the story, the weapons look in remarkable condition. Wonder how much money would be asked for a AK-47 in this type of condition.

[John Bingham]

They aren't AK 47, they are AKMs or Type 56.

[AndyKK]

They aren't AK 47, they are AKMs or Type 56.

Why is it when we see the news concerning guns in this country they always refer to the AK-47, when like you have said that they are actually another weapon altogether?

[John Bingham]

Just lazy journalism.

[SternAAlbifrons]

Thanks JB, but how did you tell from these photographs?
Hard to see if those front sights are fully hooded (the "dish" of the open sight on the Soviet guns looks like a full circle in most photos you see - unless a good clear shot). And i can't make out any undetachable folding bayonets. ??

From, Deviant Art
for all our true gun-nut devo's here...

AK-47: This is the original version that was approved for use by the Soviets. It fires a 7.62x39 mm. cartridge. It was originally approved for some Soviet forces in 1947, which is why the name has 47 after it. During 1948-1951, it went into general production to be used by other Soviet military units as well (the Type-1 model).
In 1952, the Type-2 version was introduced, which had a chrome plated barrel and receiver to resist corrosion and wear. The Soviets had originally tried to make the receiver out of stamped sheet metal, but didn't have the technology then to produce the part reliably. After a large number of rejections of faulty receivers, the Soviets opted to use a receiver made of forged steel, which was milled into the final shape using various machining operations. This made the overall production rate slower.

AKM: This is a popular variant of the AK family. This was created as an improvement of the original AK-47 design. The letter M in the name "AKM" stands for Modernizirovanniy, which is the Russian word for "modernized." The AKM design was developed in the 1950s and finally was approved for full production in 1959. It fires the same 7.62x39 mm as the AK-47 for backward compatibility. However, the design was much revised and enhanced from the original AK-47 to allow it to be mass-produced. The Soviets acquired modern mass production technologies from captured German engineers (including Hugo Schmeisser, the designer of the StG-44) and used those on the AKM.

Among some of its improvements:
Receiver made out of stamped sheet steel for much faster production
Using rivets instead of welds on the receiver, in order to speed up production.
Improvements to barrel, gas ports etc. to speed up manufacturing and enhance reliability
Weight reduction of approximately 1 kg. (2.2 pounds)
Retains the chrome lined barrel and chamber of the AK-47 Type-2 variant, but the barrel is pressed and pinned to the receiver, instead of the AK-47 which has a threaded barrel that is screwed into the receiver.
The barrel is the first in the AK family to have a slant compensator to reduce rifle climb, when shooting in automatic mode.
Gas relief ports are moved forward to the gas block, instead of the gas tube.
Bolt carrier was lightened slightly. The wooden stocks were also hollowed out as well, in order to reduce more weight.
Sights on an AKM are calibrated to go up to 1000 meters, whereas AK-47s are only calibrated to go up to 800 meters.
Changes to the metal treatment applied. The AKM is parkerized instead of blued like the AK-47.
Uses modified spring and trigger assembly for better safety. The AKM fires in automatic mode only when the bolt is fully locked. The new trigger assembly also reduces "trigger bounce" and has a hammer release delay device to delay the release of the hammer by a few microseconds in automatic firing mode. The hammer release delay mechanism is sometimes incorrectly called a "rate reducer" by some people, but it doesn't appreciably change the cyclic rate of fire. Instead it allows the bolt group to settle in the forwardmost position after returning into the battery.

AK-56: (or Type 56) This is a Chinese made variant of the AK family. Predictably, the number 56 indicates that the production of the Chinese models started in 1956. In the initial stages, the type-56 was a direct copy of the AK-47 type-1 model. However, in the 1960s, the Chinese incorporated some of the AKM improvements (e.g. stamped sheet metal receiver and slant compensator) and made some of their own modifications into their type-56 model, but did not change their version number for some reason.
*** One visual difference between the AKM and the AK-56 is that the front sight of an AK-47 or an AKM is a partially open type, whereas the type-56 model has a fully hooded front sight. They also have an undetachable folding bayonet.

These are only a few of the models in the AK family of assault rifles. Unfortunately, many people in the media insist on calling all of them "AK-47s", in spite of the major differences between all the models. Surprisingly, true AK-47s are actually quite rare these days, especially the Type-1 variant. Most of what is referred to in the media as an "AK-47" is usually not the original AK-47 model, the weapon in question is usually a variant of AKM, a Type-56, an AK-74 etc.

^^^ ps, this bloke agrees with you about lazy journalists too