There could be a cause for concern as the Kalashnikov Concern announced that it had completed a three-year contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense and claimed to have doubled the supplies of the AK-12 assault rifle in 2023.
The history of Russia s classic gun maker is more complex than you d expect.
Here s What You Need to Remember: While Mikhail Kalashnikov actually worked at the Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant, he and his estate actually have no ties to the company.
Perhaps the most surprising fact about the company that is known today as the JSC Kalashnikov Concern was that it was actually founded not by gun maker Mikhail Kalashnikov, the gun designer who created the infamous AK-47. Rather the company was actually founded in 1807 by Tsar Alexander I of Russia!
Technically, it isn t even a company, but the Russian defense manufacturing concern, and has been the main supplier of small arms for Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation for well over 200 years. Until 2013, it was also known as the Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant. And in recent years, it has supplied about 95 percent of all small arms in Russia as well as exporting to twenty-seven countries around the world.