It's amazing how 1000s hours of engineering could forget to account for something as basic as convenience and logistics lol

@@christiandelao2547 "they'll figure it out, it'll be fiiiiiine"

It can do a lot more than 1000!!! More like 100,000 to 1 million!!!

it's amazing how engineers can conduct thousands of hours of adaptation without ever considering the ergonomics...

@@christiandelao2547they’re so smart they got dumb

Maybe because hand fitted?🤔

Trust the Russians to make a worse copy of a Finnish design. Suomi's drums didn't have any problems with fitting. Suomi's drum mag is a pain to load while under fire, as you try to keep the cartridges upright while placing them one by one in the drum. But in combat drums are valuable asset. During the war drums were liked best by the recon troops and same is today with RK's fitted with Russian and Chinese 7,62x39 drums. Volume of fire is the key. Finnish problem was how to carry drums with you. There never was any pouch for them during the war, and only as the m/60 LBV was introduced, you could carry drum mags in a pouch. Some carried them in the bread bag and some on a some kind of hook or string on their belt and put the empty ones inside their tunic.

This is not the case with AK drums

Magazine fitment even in modern Kalashnikov rifles isn’t universal.

This was only the case during the early production when the industry was moved past Ural. At that time the PPSHs were produced in small shops or bike factories, that's the reason for the need to hand fit. These production facilities were unsuitable to make anything of greater precision. The unreliability is not the case for later production when situation on the front normalized. Don't spread the myth of inferior slavic production, it is wildly untrue.

Drums are fucking awesome but incredibly unreliable man. I one 7.62x39 and have had many for my draco, all fail. Only gun I’ve seen run drums stupid reliable is a old Mac 90

@@sonsofliberty3158I was going to make fun of the Draco but forgot that they actually are decent rifles. Drum mags do tend to feed into a rifle inconsistently. Well according to my friends who own drum mags.

You still need a place to put the empty drum and carry it.

Use a D60 for that. Also, don't carry empty mags.

I would say the other way around if you are going to carry one drum and 10 box magazine. You keep the drum until a key point Movement with fire is suicide but fire without movement is a waste of ammunition. So keeping that ability for log burst and "talking the guns" for a point that you are pushing up on a position rather that a spray and pray put of shock

Yes it's true. Now we can still see Russian special forces with drum magazines, but this is very rare. (Sorry, I’m not a native speaker). An AK with a drum magazine under the barrel is one of hundreds of ways to reduce the recoil of a rifle. The Soviets also created AK with a second box magazine under the barrel, made AK with a gyroscope, made it with a system of rollers and cables (long before the AN-94 Abakan). But with the transition to the 5.45x39 mm cartridge, the problem with AK recoil ceased to worry. Thanks for watching!)

😅😅

Your statement is quite well constructed. But there is one point. They do not use the RPK / RPK-74, and tried not to use it in the Afghan war, because it was easier to take the PKM

@@casperarms Maybe not easier, since that thing weighs 10-12kg or so when fully loaded. While I have not used the RPK, I have used the AKM, AKMS, AKS-74N and PKM in either firearm or replica form, hell I still own a PKM replica which I use. I myself would rather avoid the PKM in an actual conflict if I wasn't in a motorized or mechanized unit. Sure, the PKM is better suited for long range and for suppression, due to the caliber, box size and barrel, however it is much more clunky to use. Its heavy, can't be fired unsupported (at least very effectively), uses a different ammunition type than the one everyone else is carrying on the battlefiled, uses different magazines, the list goes on. I like to imagine the RPK as an early equivalent of the M27 IAR the US Marines use today. Given that the marines switched from carbines to IARs (at least mostly) during the afghanistan conflict, I'm inclined to think the RPK would be an adequate weapon. Sure, the regular rifles with rpk magazines would be better in chechnya where you had substantial urban combat, but as I said before - fighting in the hills and valleys of afghanistan is longer range and would benefit from the stability offered by the slightly increased weight, the bipod, etc. All of that said, I can understand that this is the choice I would make and not necessarily one the soldiers back then would, or a choice they'd have the luxury of making.

I dont agree. Pretty much everybody has tried the 'turn assault rifle into a light machine gun by making it a bit bigger' thing and all have been abandoned. The british armys zone in Afghanistan was full of close quarters terrain.

With the RPK it depends how you use it an the caliber, I think the Vepr imports where the best AKs ever imported to the US. But like China and Serbia I think a stamped AK should be 1.5 and a bulged trunnion is nice especially with spiked ammo (ammo that blows up) also the thicker barrel helps , I mean if you want a 5.56 AK in my opinion 20inch is the way to go for that caliber, I have seen some pics of cut down RPKs with AKM furniture, my most accurate 16" AK is a 16.5 Vepr that was converted with standard AKM furniture. But it's not like you can choose and customize. The PKM and variations, in my opinion it's the best GPMG that and variations of the mg42, zastava made them in 8mm until not so long ago. The RPK is a delight to shoot and it's lighter, Poland is trying very hard to convert it to 7.62 NATO with mixed results. The AK12 was probably made with mostly AK100 series spares or even old 74Ms but I would prefer a normal 74 or 74m with a side rail over the AK12, but if issued diverted civilian 5.45x39 as in tula, wolf, gold bear then I would not be happy as the velocity on most is about the the as 7.62x39 and the wounding effects nothing like 7N6, very anemic. Not many nations make 5.45x39 or use it as the USSR wanted a small fortune for the AK74. I sure soon in Ukraine maybe more NATO calibers but will never be a shortage of 54r 7.62x39 if your willing to buy it from nations maybe you would not usually like to buy from. The sig 6.8 is a wet dream for a weapons and ambition company, lots of spare barrels and crazy expensive ammo with components wearing out fast. The M5 seems just half baked to me the only redeeming quality will be the optic. Ironic how the NATO round was nearly .270 /. 280 British (7mm) as in a good intermediate round that could be modernised with better bullets powder and cases. Should have moved to 8mm for machine guns and longer range rifles as after ww2 well cheap 8mm steel case and an mg42 style, maybe they could shorten it a little, 9mm for handguns and smgs .50bmg for larger and. 338L for long range anti personal. Apartebtly 6.5x39 as I not grebdel but a 7.62x39 with it's standard taper just necked down to 6.5 that will fit in standard mags and just need a barrel change on an AK that I think Romania uses it with special forces maybe 85 grains or 95 but shoots flat and is a good intermediate cartridge. I really like the 7.62x25 tokarev it shoots flat and far and feel the 9mm makarov was a downgrade. PPS 43 mags that are double feed where some of the best smg mags of ww2, it shoots flat and fast with more range and will pass 3A As for arms exports less and less AKs are being made if you look at China's arms exports norinco does not even make AKs or 7.62x39 chambered weapons, some private company's make them with questionable quality but they mostly supply AR15 types and brass cased 5.56 for assault rifles now. Pretty sure they don't make 7. 62x39 type 81 tooling all went to Bangladesh they make plenty of 54r and 12.7 soviet but they have their own 5.8 assault rifle and pistol round that's not for export and are even make some rifles in 7.62x51 nato and .338L. They have a long range rifle I think made by norinco in .338L and they make steel cased ammo for it. The decades of rampant corruption in Russia has eaten them but it's also bad in Ukraine. This proxy war could go somewhere very dark......

The benefit of the belt fed weapons makes up for their weight cost and belts often are loaded to in 50,100,150 and sometimes 200. The benefit of volume of fire from a belt outdoes box mags any day. In Afghanistan the pkm was a better option but rpk drums were often carried in akms to shed the weight of longer barrels and and the solid steel bipod. As for their endurance drum mags when loaded are prone to internal mechanism failure if they hit things at speed such as dropping into prone or slamming into a barrier to rapidly take cover. This is also why you see a decent amount of Marines buy beta Cs and other types of drums with their personal funds and carry it as their first mag on deployments.

🤣 I didn't think about it🤣🤣

Nope, these mags work as well or even worse than drums. At least, this applies to the 60-cartridge magazine for AK, both from Pufgun and the 6L31 model from the Izhmash

@@casperarms Drums' reliability isn't the issue, that they are bulky is the main issue. Still the casket magazine seems likes a reasonable solution but as you say, it isn't common, and seems to have gone the way of the drums.

@@MrBahjatt Bulky? Hmm, quite possibly. But on the other hand, soldiers carry machine guns and light machine guns, and they are not light either

At one point, the Russian / Soviet army had only one drum magazine for AK. Just the one I showed in the video (well, except for those that were experimental). Those drum magazines that you have in mind (on which the lid opens at the back) are exclusively Chinese drums. There have never been such in Russia

"all the time you spend loading the ammo onto the clips to then load it into the magazine" It's a piece of cake to have the cartridges delivered in stripper clips from the factory, something that once was standard for most militaries. Heck, Sweden had their 9mm on a 6x6 stripper clip, with a small handtool for quickly reloading even the m/45 Carl Gustaf magazines in ten seconds or less from taking the clip out of the package.

@@johanmetreus1268 Refilling fixed magazines with charger clips of ammo was a neat idea in the late 19th century. It was a better deal than the Mannlicher-style "en-bloc" clips because of less chance of mud, etc., getting into the works. The advent of 30 round detachable rifle magazines changed that somewhat.. One of the LAST things a soldier wound want to be doing on the two-war rifle range, is filling magazines, via chargers or loose ammo. Hence load-bearing gear that hold numerous magazines that were filled prior to going "outside the wire". Drums on LMG / SAW platforms may be a good idea, especially in mechanized infantry assaults, but in reality, three thirty-round "box / stick" mags are a LOT cheaper to manufacture, are easier to package on webbing, easier to clean / maintain and do not cause major centre-of-gravity shifts on the weapon.. If you want "sustained fire", get a decent belt-fed gun. And "sustained fire" does NOT mean tearing off hundreds of rounds in an unbroken stream. It means short, controlled bursts with observation and correction between bursts. With a modern,tripod-mounted, belt-fed MG with a good quick-change barrel design and a good crew with a couple of "spare" barrels, a LOT of unpleasantness can be delivered for a "sustained" time. Until the enemy battlefield radar locates you and starts dropping high-explosives on your site.

@@bruceinoz8002 "It was a better deal than the Mannlicher-style "en-bloc" clips" Garand, M1 used en-bloc clips without much of a problem, even in the atrocious conditions in the Pacific. "Hence load-bearing gear that hold numerous magazines that were filled prior to going "outside the wire"" The typical infantry load-out is 4-8 magazines., that then has to be reloaded. Not even SF and light infantry carries more than that, all extra ammunition is in packages used t reload in the field since the magazines themselves add significant weight, something that isn't true about stripper clips. If you want true sustained fire, water-cooled MGs are the way to go. Those literally fire non-stop for days, perhaps weeks, before fouling becomes a concern. Of course, keeping them fed with coolant and ammo might put a strain on logistics, but since we're amateurs we don't talk about logistics, do we now.

@@casperarms do you know why at all? Just never produced or used or was there a reason?

I totally agree! - "Why do I want a drum?" - "Well.. first of all, it's beautiful!" :)) There's something about it that makes you feel like that guy from the 50s from the mafia who fires dozens of bullets from the hip from its Tommy)

@@casperarms When NVA and VC forces began an assault on US FOBs they would all initially use drum mags and then transition to stick mags.

That’s how you have to load it

It’s a bunch of stacks of 5

Yes, it's true) This thing is very well made. Some people think I don't like drums.. No, I love them!)

@@casperarms Just wondering what is going on. Specifically, I am suspicious that this is being shot on a stage set and the snow is fake. Like most Russian propaganda.

The officer in charge of getting gloves for the Russian soldiers just marked them as bought and used that money to remodel his kitchen.

No, "buben" is a tambourine, and a drum is a "baraban"

I'm wondering who are the six people who like this comment without doing research😅

No, my friend. They tried to make a drum magazine for the RPK-16 / AK-12, but they could not. To be more precise, they made several models to show them at presentations and shoot a couple of times. But this drum is not suitable for big things, it is very raw and made very unreliable

Despite the fact that I really love the military theme, I have never seen anything like it! However, to be honest, it's hard for me to imagine the real use of such a thing in combat

Just my style

Nope, you can’t do that on Russian drums, only on Chinese models

Have fun lugging it around all day...

@@georgewashington3393 just put it in your bag till you get to the start point

Maybe 100fps more MAYBE

The tool is too thin. Most employees of the Russian special forces and the army do not like it and do not take it (if there is an opportunity not to take it)

Is it any different from the PKM machine gun belt?

@@casperarms oh Soviets had 1 . Then don't know why were they trying to use drums on AKs . 45 round mags are enough along with a belt fed MG for a group

So it seems that in the Western armies and the SOF, no one really uses drums

@casperarms not standard issue by dod or police departments for sure. Though with how the dod and departments operate many people buy them out of there pocket sense there issued gear is pretty shit.

You can make reliable drum mag, but is it good? Naturally it's better than a magazine that doesn't work. It would still have all its negatives left.

@@XtreeM_FaiL Yes, you are absolutely right) It's great to have a good reliable drum magazine, but it will still be an extremely highly specialized tool for the military and SOF

"Shame eastern countrys cant do the same" You mean the USSR and now Russia? They've been making some of the best drum magazines for decades before Magpul even existed.

Not rare at all kid...thousands of AKMs in ukraine.

They definitely do not freeze or jam

Source, how do I find?

Not if a good drum. There’s like 3-4 designs. The RPK version is the best IMO.

Not if well-designed. The real issue with drums, besides, their weight and bulk to carry, is that their weight also makes them very susceptible to damage if dropped. You drop a steel 30-round magazine on a rock, nothing happens. You drop a fully loaded drum and it will probably dent it and render it useless.

Do you have any guesses?

The SOVIET drum magazine is loaded with one cartridge each! First, figure out what kind of drum magazines are for AK and RPK, and then take it upon yourself to correct people

@@casperarmswell i will check and doand you ..not cry so much

Compared to many other drums, the drum for the AK / RPK worked very well and quite reliably. There was no drum magazine on the RPD machine gun, it's just a round-shaped machine gun box where the machine gun belt lies

@@casperarms RPK not RPD, in mobile combat drums don't work for a battle rifle. At the range playing soldier they work well enough. The weight is also an issue, every ounce is a pound in the field. That's why military Thompson's were issued with stick mags, not drums.

​@@njzeigler4370Are you poor at trolling or are you genuinely just ignorant regarding firearms? You spew nonsense.

That's how you get dirt in your magazines and mess up the feed lips👍

You were using an AK in Iraq in 2004....raises a few eyebrows?

I'm not saying that the drums are bad. I love drums myself! But you do realize that no country today uses a drum magazine on its main rifles? I mean regular troops, not individual special operations (although, as far as I can tell from open sources, they don't like to use AR-15 with a drum, for example, very often)

@@ryanthomson6756not really a lot of US soldiers picked them up Not to mention paramilitary groups If you want proof look up “navy seal ambush iraq” I think that’s what the video is called it shows a navy seal holding a ak74 in a firefight

@@ryanthomson6756 That's because he's talking out of his ass.