On July 6, 1947, the aptly named AK-47 assault rifle went into production. After undergoing military trials in the Soviet Union, it was accepted for general use by 1949. Today, the AK-47 is still in production in many nations, and about 1 out of every 5 firearms in the world is an AK-47 or a closely related weapon. Production is 75 million rifles and counting, with AK family weapons accounting for another 25 million.
Digging Deeper
To put the enormous impact of this iconic rifle into perspective, the most-produced bolt-action rifle of all time, the M91 Mosin-Nagant and its variants, amounted to only 35 million, less than half the number of AK-47s. The venerable G98/M98/K98 Mauser variants numbered only around 20 million (although many countries based their own rifles on that design as well).
