The Russian AK-74 has been the subject of a continuous improvement program beginning with the first prototypes assembled in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It appears that every few years, some major design changes were made in the production lines, and although some were more or less transitional and individual modifications, many were adopted as part of specific improvement packages, and rifles made in those particular years can be identified as specific subtypes. Some of these subtypes are undocumented, and some are known, but sadly, few details have been elaborated on in either Western or Russian reference works on the subject.

This work is based on a draft originally developed and compiled by Ekie, and without his initial work we wouldn't have got off the ground with it. Much of the information was gathered by Ekie through multiple conversations between him, Malysh and myself over the past several years. It is generally based on research done through our trilateral efforts. ("Well at least I wrote the stuff out rather then being Cryptic about it..hehe" ---Ekie)

Normally, Russian nomenclature is based on designer, receiver material and manufacture, barrel length, type of stock (folding or fixed), and ability to mount night vision devices. Because even a major upgrade is sometimes not considered valid enough to warrant a subtype prefix (as in M16A2), extensive changes were often made without Russian type class changes. In these cases, we have had to create our own.

Each subtype has been judged through the observation of multiple changes that seem to have been made at the same time. In some cases individual changes were made at other time periods, and these have been noted as such due to their significance to the collector. We have tried to concentrate on groups of changes that are strong evidence for an undocumented product improvement program (PIP). Dates of introduction were determine by the actual dates of manufacture of the
rifles themselves, and by cross-checking sources and reference materials, both public and private.

Listed below each subtype is a short list of the most important, defining
production changes, rather than a total description of the rifle, since the
other features of the rifle are basically AK-74 standard and would take more room to properly describe than we have space for here.

The following document is not in any way a comprehensive guide, and much detail needs to be added. A few of the features listed may be hard for the novice to decipher without hands on inspection, while many are known to all who have looked at photos of the many versions.

Although we feel very confident the version printed here has been reviewed and revised adequately to ensure it's basic accuracy, there is room to improve. Any question among ourselves as to the validity of the information, or to the dates of introduction, is noted in the text. Most or all features and modifications have been cross referenced from several sources, including factory manuals, personal inspection of rifles, military journals, interviews, print and video media. We welcome any interested parties to add, correct, or modify any items they feel could be improved on, in an effort to create a database of serial numbers and date codes that will elaborate on principal design refinements in the series. Please e-mail us with any comments or suggestions. ---Tantal