Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazryonh
the "AK-47 is the most illegally manufactured assault rifle in the world,"
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First of all, what does "illegally manufactured" mean? When Izmash OKB claimed years ago that the AK was "illegally manufactured", they were referring to all of the former Soviet Bloc factories that are producing AKs without paying licensing or royalty fees. You seem to be talking about civilians who manufacture AKs illegally in their home machine shops.
For weapons that are almost all metal and wood (the AK being the best example), its not too difficult to replicate them from scratch. Throughout the Northwest Frontier province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, there are gunsmiths who manufacture AKs and sell them from their homes or shops. I've seen pics of some of them, and they're very close copies of Russian and Chinese AKs. But these gunsmiths take a while to manufacture them (in the article I read, I think one guy said that with his family's help, he could make about 10-12 AKs per month, and he'd sell each for about $100 USD), and they're usually of vastly inferior quality compared to the originals. And obviously, these guys aren't going to be able to duplicate weapons such as H&Ks or ARs that use plastic (well, maybe they could build an equivalent in wood or metal).
Anyway, that's just in Pakistan, where any tools more complex than a lathe are going to be difficult to find (let alone power). In more developed countries, including the U.S., anyone can go to Home Depot and order a milling machine and dremel. I don't see why it would be all that difficult to set up a machine shop that could turn out illegally manufactured full-auto AKs and other weapons, provided it was done by a competent gunsmith. If you ever look at some of the "assault weapons" makers in the U.S. (the companies that are building new AR-15, AK, and H&K clones for the civilian market), most of them aren't gigantic corporations with huge robotic factories making their products. They're mostly just small mom-and-pop operations with 10-15 people who build guns that get shipped out to FFLs nationally. If somebody really wanted to to set up a similar-but-illegal operation that built full-autos instead of semis, it seems perfectly feasible.