The AK Pistol Manual of Arms

I got alot of positive response from the AK Pistol piece and I first want to thank all my loyal readers and future students out there for your kind words. I also got alot of questions and I wanted to address those in this article. As you know, I am building this company piece by piece every day..the same goes for my blog, so I have decided, for every hardware piece I do from now on, I will follow it up with a relevant manual of arms and tactics/training article to hopefully address all questions regarding that particular weapons platform. By doing it this way, you get the whole skinny on the weapon and not just some slick write up you could get from some gun rag like Guns & Ammo or SWAT. This is just another way of showing you guys my dedication to giving you the no bones skinny and real world training you guys deserve. OK, enough with the pleasantries, let’s get down to brass tacks.

The Manual of Arms for the AK Pistol differs somewhat from the MOA for the standard AK by the obvious difference of shooting it without a stock or cheek weld. The beauty of it though once we solve that problem, everything else stays the same…trigger reset, mag reloads, clearing jams, etc… So we will start with how to shoot this gun accurately and quickly and at the same time control recoil without a stock.

Whenever I am learning a weapons system, I spend a few minutes just handling the weapon..feeling out the ergonomics of its shape, weight and overall handling..this is much like test driving a car..you are getting to know the machine more intimately, feeling it out, if you will. Whenever you pick up an AK pistol you will find that when you place your support hand on the hand guard, and grab the pistol grip with your firing hand, something is just not right, the gun feels “twisted” in a way. This is mainly due to not having the stock support to the rear of the gun..it just feels awkward. Since every gun has an “axis” point or “center of balance” you have to find it on an AK to make the gun feel right..for me, when I shift my hand to the rear, just in front of the magazine, the gun feels totally different..more balance and quicker handling. I often do this on my full size AK’s when shooting in the field–I just favor this hand position, it feels natural to me. I also find it quicker to manipulate mag changes and the charging handle from this position also.

So once we shift our support and back and the gun is more balanced, now we need to bring the gun up so we can see the sights. I like a distance of around 10″ of eye relief..again this is what works for me, but this is a good starting point. I have also found in shooting these guns alot in the field in order to “carry over” your full size AK manual of arms in regards to using the sights, the enclosed circle HK type front sights that come standard on these AK Pistols may need to be modified into the standard AK open “wing” front sight..not a big deal to do, in fact I got a quote from a local gunsmith and he quoted me $40, so mine will be getting modified next week. This is important to think about since the sighting method of the “Poor Man’s EO Tech” (super imposing the front sight aperture on your target) is very quick and combat accurate to use with “wing” type AK sights. We will come back to sights in a little bit, but I wanted to mention this now so you can be thinking about modifications.

Once we have the correct grip, our eye relief at the correct distance and our front sight the way we want it, we need to start looking at body angles. By body angles, I mean the way our body is positioned when we are holding the gun up. Since we have no stock support, all of the weight of the gun (5.5-6 lbs with a 30rd mag) is resting in our arms and shoulders, we can distribute this weight more evenly (and the recoil consequently) with a few modifications. We also want to focus on eliminating unnecessary tension in our upper body. Often people think they can control recoil by tensing up the arm and shoulder muscles, but this will have the reverse effect, since the recoil of the gun is going straight back into a tense muscle, the muscle reacts by sending the energy up, causing the gun to “flip” up. When the recoil meets a semi-relaxed muscle, the energy is absorbed and the muzzle flip is greatly reduced. Being the 7.62×39 has little recoil anyways, this is not a difficult task to master. You also need to look at your grip on the weapon as a whole, which whether you are using a pistol or rifle, can have a big effect on accuracy. Try not to “strangle” the gun, but have enough pressure to control it. You will see in my pistol and rifle sections in the CO classes how this translates out to solid hits on target.

So, here is a quick rundown on what you should be looking for:

1. With the forward mag grip, make sure your thumbs are down and aligned down the receiver, not flared up. You will see the benefit when you start shooting ambidextrous. Can you say “AK Thumb?” Ouch…..
2. Elbows tucked..no “chicken wing’s”. This not only gives you better balance and control, it takes away a target for your enemy.
3. Lessen the tension in your upper body by easing off on the grip of the weapon in both hands..the gun does not have to be choked to death.
4. Feet spread shoulder width..power stance.
5. Gun held 10-11″ away for proper eye relief.

Once all these elements are in place, you now should be able to duplicate your presentation just like you do with your carry pistol. It should feel natural.  Remember how it feels when you find that “sweet” spot. There should be little or no tension in your body as you break the shot. You should be able to snap the gun up quickly, get a flash sight picture or super-imposed front sight post snapshot and break the shot quickly. Almost all of the drills from my standard AK course of fire can be duplicated with the AK Pistol, except the 300 and 400 yard drills. I emphasize heavy doses of mag changes and working the charging handle (which can be done dry also) during live fire drills. Your dry fire work should be about 60% of your overall time spent with the gun, while the remaining 40% should be live. Unless you are independently wealthy, this should sit well with most of us “working” stiffs since the price of ammo is on the incline again it seems.

If you want my specific AK (and Pistol) courses of Fire, you will have to come to a class. Hey..I can’t give everything away for free! I gotta eat too!! Stay Dangerous my Friends.