@@Cheshire9k to be fair if I remember correctly, Enfield was basically told it didn't matter if it was successful or not theybwere getting axed. I'm sure if their livelihoods had actually depended on it they would have churned out a much hetter performing rifle. Granted I may be quoting fudd lore but I won't know till someone corrects me.
@@oktayyildirim2911 Yeah but the sights stayed shit and the already crappy trigger got even worse. Now you got a longer barrel that makes long range a tad easier on paper but actually squezing those shots got more akward and harder due to the sights, not being able to use optics and shittier trigger and ofc the bullpup configuration. You also lost any ability to reload fast or use 30+ mags so you lost 10 rds. This rifle is garbage for the simple fact that a standard rifle is hard to bullpup already imagine one that was designed in 47 and prior. Want a bullpup? Make one from the ground up. And even then most are bad.
Oh man, I remember hearing about the concept of bullpups in high school and immediately doodling a bullpup AK-47. There's something wild about knowing that actual engineers had the same idea...
If "actual engineers" have a brilliant idea that is on par with a high schooler who only recently heard of the concept, let's keep the quotation marks around "actual engineers".
It's truly remarkable how HK Produkt evolved from this kludged prototype to the elegant and slick VHS family of firearms today. They may not have had the technical knowledge to begin with, but boy, they sure caught up and eclipsed most of the bullpup market today!
Yes the xd Springfield/ Croatian HS pistol is ultimately reliable. My brother has one it's accurate. Good trigger. Ands it's a 1st gen. Runs like a tank.
@@robmicheal511 The barrel is way longer then on standard AK: standard AK barrel is 16", the barrel in that thing is 23.6" - a whopping 7,6" longer! :D As Ian says on the vid, the goal was to get better accuracy - but longer barrel aids accuracy only by lenghtening the sight radius, thereby lessening the shooter error; with optical sights you usually gets better accuracy with shorter barrel as it is stiffer, less barrel whip (if both barrels are the same thickness)
Oh a series on Croatian guns sounds fantastic, yes I'm a sucker for the VHS-2 but history of firearms development in such a clear visual way is always very fun.
@@allangibson8494 the British should have gotten rid of them already. All this money spent on a gun that kinda works, as long as you're not left handed or expecting to fight urban combat (which kinda is the future of warfare). If even the French can get over this national sentiment and adopt a German rifle, why can't the British do the same? Their rifles are already made by the Germans anyways
The audio is a little peaky and sound quality is unusually low, unlike recent videos. But thank you for that Ian. This feels like a classic Forgotten Weapons video from a few years ago. I appreciate the nostalgia, brings me back :)
You see a lot of homemade/"Khyber pass" AK bullpup conversions in combat footage since the start of the Syrian civil war. They seem to work just fine and there's a demand, I wonder why bullpup AKs didn't catch on before in a more official way. Like a version or kit from Kalashnikov itself - especially in the 90s.
I've seen photographs of bullpup AKs with custom paint jobs in the Middle east. Their camos don't match their environment, but I respect the passion behind making a customized gun in a warzone.
it did the Groza series and of course the bullpup version of the AEK971 (i think its that) groza didnt really take off unless it was in 9x39 WP for good surpressed shots
Because you cant use any parts that are interchangeable between the two platforms without even minor modification to them. This makes it no more cost effective than just building a better gun from scratch AND it doesnt offer anything that either the ak doesnt or that a bullpup should other than a longer barrel in the same OAL for the gun. And thats not even really what happens here because while the barrel is longer, so is the whole flipping gun. Bullpups almost always are designed to all for a new firearm that shoots the same round or one similarly powered one, that keeps the same barrel length or even a longer one but reduces the over all length of the weapon or keeps a similar OAL for a longer barrel. This allows for in the latter case a potentially more powerful and accurate weapon that uses the same ammo your force is already invested in and familiar with, or a special use platform that uses the same ammo but is shorter without sacrificing the power and accuracy for use in confined spaces and other cases where weapon size is important. This is just icky. I mean sure its cool. But where would it be used by a fighting force? Its not even as cool as the olympic arms ultralight ar designs to get around the awb.
@@smorrow There was also that odd little Valmet / Sako one back in the late 1970's. Also, the "prototype" / design study of a "bullpupped" L1A1, produced as a "project by an Australian Army officer cadet, again, back in the 1970's. Or the also-Australian-designed Leader M-71s; also later seen made in the USA, after the Oz designer fled there as a Techno-Political refugee.. Until recently, all of them suffered to varying degrees with "issues" regarding shoulder swapping in the field,. Side ejection and reciprocating cocking handles are prime considerations. See also::Gas / fragment handling in the unfortunate event of a ruptured cartridge case. My "table napkin" solution was to cant the magazine about fifteen degrees to one side and place the BOTTOM ejection port beside it, but offset to the other side of the "body".. Shuffle the bolt / carrier, extractor / ejector alignment to suit. Yes, you would have to invert the rifle to do a thorough "clearance", but that is no worse than opening "toilet seats", and / or "shaking out" stray ammo and brass.
"If it ain't broke don't fix it" Is probably the rationale. Aks work fine as is and while there's room for improvement is it really worth completely reconfiguring a rifle just to improve combat effectiveness by a tiny amount? Keep in mind militaries typically like to be conservative, so why should they adopt a different configuration of gun that would require retraining of personel and whatnot. When they could keep using what still works and not rock the boat so to speak. The new US army rifle is basically an AR as far as controls are concerned for that very reason. (I'm talking about how it's reloaded and how you use the safety and whatnot, I can see alot of gun needs REEEEEEing at that statement already so just to be clear im not saying they're the same gun, but they're familiar enough to someone trained to use an AR platform)
You know, the only thing that's truly cursed is the handguard (specifically that it has no upper for the gas tube). Otherwise, it's a really neat first attempt by some guys taking their first try at firearms design.
The angled grip on a assault rifle is just stupid, not ergonomic and also useless coz' the arm is flexed so of no use for recoil absoption. The angled grip is very nice for target pistol where it can block the hand in line with the barell for less mazle climb, and also for hunting rifles where the arm is more on the back and even more flexed - so flexed that the arm and forearm can almost become one and the recoil can be transfered more straight. On an assault rifle the grip can very well be close to vertical, and for this particular rifle this wey would be no problem for the full lenght AKM magazine.
Offhand I don't recall seeing very many handmade zero-day models on FW. Ian is great at tracking down trials firearms that are at a more advanced stage of development. I enjoyed seeing this, and I look forward to seeing later developments of the concept.
Just a minor thing, "C" in the south slavic languages is pronounced like ts (like in cats or tsunami). I think also other slavic languages (that use the latin script) also say it like that but I'm not sure. So Karlovac is pronounced like Karlova-ts
@Pero Djuric Eh? Not when you're reading them as a Croat would, but for English speaking people C is basically either K or S for us. Whereas they would read TS most closely to our C. He game an example tsumani where the TS is identical to our C phonetically
It's interesting to see how different groups try to alter the basic AK (maybe the simplest select fire rifle available) to create a better or improved system. As I think about it, the only obvious negatives of the AK design are the short sight radius and the awkward selector/dust cover. It's otherwise a solid rifle with few improvements to be made. That makes these designs so intriguing.
No consistent way to mount optics and a generally high weight for its size are its real shortcomings in a modern context, in addition to the poor ergonomics as you mentioned with the selector
Siderail is and always was fine for optics, particularly with RS Regulate type mount. Stamped 1mm AK is not particularly heavy, in fact Afghan era AKS-74 (6.5lbs unloaded, just under 7 loaded) is lighter than just about anything ever issued as a standard service rifle that isn't the M16A1. And ergos of the safety is fixed by the Krebs type finger tab models everyone is using now.
Depending on your preferences, the lack of a bolt hold open on the gun itself is another big one. The indication that your mag is empty without silly tricks like tracer ammo is worth the miniscule additional chance of bad stuff getting into the action.
@@hailexiao2770 that's a very valid point. That might be the most technically difficult improvement as an alteration would need to take place within the magazine to provide the function. Altering a rifle and getting that into service is much easier than offering a new magazine which doesn't work in the older rifle. I would be interested to see if that would take off in militaries already equipped with AK pattern rifles.
I hope you won't stop at IM metal designs. I'd love to see your opinion on some more renown and successful designs like MACS series, RT-20, PHP and APS-95, among others.
Ian, many folks today seem to have a "big ick" factor over guns. Some of the periods when mankind made it's biggest leaps were during and because of war needs- in guns we can see much of the evolution of better metals, past what improving steam had, precision machining moved from an art to artifice. And as your series will explore engineers, even good and well educated ones, have ideas that improve through the prototype(s). It will be interesting to watch the Croatian's design maturity and the final products. Yes, please do more on this line or others as you find them! FR
i love how much this video feels like the first time i discovered your channel a few years ago. the grainy audio, the lighting, and the unusual, really forgotten weapon.
There wer many bullpup AK around the world, but nothing like that was adopted. Based on this I think that AK is simply poorly suited for bullpup layout.
Y'know I never understood rock in mags. If the mag was just a straight shot in it would not only fit perfectly with the grip it would look hella cool too.
I have rocked a Tavor SAR-21 since 2013. Bullpups are to a great extent an answer to a question nobody asked. They have exactly ONE desirable characteristic. They are short. No shorter than an AK folder although you don't have to deploy the buttstock for any range above clearing a room.
This is a cool forgotten. Mr Ian, could you mention one forgotten conceled carry gun (pistol/revolver) would you consider? A forgotten "glock substitute", you sir may consider.
The Problem: Nation without major arms factories needs to make military-grade firearms domestically in a hurry. Observations: Nation has access to details on firearm designed specifically to be mass-produced with limited tooling and infrastructure (Kalashnikov rifle) Solution: Let's take that Kalashnikov and make it more complicated because we love bullpups! An unorthodox and arguably not very good solution to the problem, but I have a soft spot for unorthodox engineers, which VHS seems to have an abundance of. Instead of just focusing on the obvious solution, fabricating tooling for Kalashnikovs, they decided to see if they could bring something just a little different to the table and while they failed this time, they clearly didn't let it stop them engineering. If the company can keep that spirit going, I think they have a better chance than many to surpass FN, H&K, and Beretta as Europe's premier arms manufactory. Improbable for sure, but only time will tell.
@@kkrummelrhs Bashing a random stock, bipod and mechanical trigger mechanism onto a slab-backed receiver without a stock and a solenoidal trigger isn't bubbaing it?
@@WingMaster562 that shitty weld on the top cover reminds me of that one rifle with the scope mount welded directly to the bolt... perhaps we have already seen the next evolution of bubba? Bubbarino? Perhaps the mythical Bubbaking?
I'm still unconvinced that the downsides of a bullpup (for a military rifle, not so much for a civilian shooter) outweigh the upsides. I feel like the only thing holding bullpups back is that many modern militaries are used to an AR-15 style platform, and/or most accessories are designed with an AR-15 in mind. Essentially, if the HK416 (a very hot rifle for EU militaries right now) were available in a bullpup configuration, I suspect that configuration would be nearly as popular as the current one
Apparently they didn't continue with this prototype not because they were not satisfied with the results but because of how cursed it looked. Some designers were so distraught in fact, they would refuse to work on the design without an exorcist standing next to them at all times. True story.
One thing I noticed there that I salute - the trigger mechanism is on a pull rod assembly. That way it can only deform in one direction (stretch) rather than two as with a push assembly (compression and bucking) so should give a less horrific feel to the trigger if done well. The big chunk of metal in the middle looks like it might cause a chunk of unnecessary friction though. I'm very interested to see the next iteration of the design.
the beauty of engineering prototype design, per se, is innovation outside the usual parametres. a pal designed a hubcentre steering setup for motorcycles in the early 90s, he attacked it as an engineer, not a motorcycle designer. this was after bimota and yamaha had allready put hubcentre on the market. every journalist that rode his prototype back to back with the big manufacturer's wares were astonished at how perfectly it performed in comparison. too perfectly, his design removed all geometry change under breaking, a geometry change that all motorcyclists adapt to without thinking. the end result was a couple of journos running wide in corners as the steering angle didn't change to a more agressive one. he had to create a system of 'dial-able fork dive' to give the tightening steering effect under breaking. the bimota and yamaha hubcentres did not eliminate this as they came to the problem via motorcycle design that emulated traditional forks. of course, the ideal that was desired, the elimination of fork dive under breaking had to be reintroduced mechanically for those used to telescopic forks. it was his degree project, he just happened to have a gpz550 with destroyed forks.. as an engineer, I can see where HS were going with this. I can even see a few very minor tweaks that would make this a viable production model.
Oh shit. I can practically smell the sweat on brandon Herrerarararrararas brow while he's hastily and angrily slapping his keyboard with an RPG in response to this.
Negative comments....people don't understand that Croatia was a newly formed country with literally non existent small arms production. If you consider that this rifle was manufactured by 2 guys who were previously fabricating tractor parts, they actually did a pretty good job. 2 decades later they are producing one of the best bullpup rifles on the market as well as the Springfield XD series of pistols.
I love how Ian corrects himself after accidentally implying that the SA80 might have been successful at anything
Well excuse him
It did get a production contract. lol
Nothing wrong with it in A2 configuration, even better now in A3.
This is a cope response
@@Cheshire9k to be fair if I remember correctly, Enfield was basically told it didn't matter if it was successful or not theybwere getting axed. I'm sure if their livelihoods had actually depended on it they would have churned out a much hetter performing rifle.
Granted I may be quoting fudd lore but I won't know till someone corrects me.
"Let's just take the furniture, and PUSH IT somewhere else!"
YESSSSSSS!!!
I like how it's probably as long if not longer than an ak in a regular configuration.
@@DPRK_Best_Korea Like Ian said, their goal was to lengthen the barrel, not to shorten the rifle.
@@oktayyildirim2911 Yeah but the sights stayed shit and the already crappy trigger got even worse. Now you got a longer barrel that makes long range a tad easier on paper but actually squezing those shots got more akward and harder due to the sights, not being able to use optics and shittier trigger and ofc the bullpup configuration. You also lost any ability to reload fast or use 30+ mags so you lost 10 rds. This rifle is garbage for the simple fact that a standard rifle is hard to bullpup already imagine one that was designed in 47 and prior. Want a bullpup? Make one from the ground up. And even then most are bad.
@@IlNamelessKinglI Who are you talking to? All I said was that their goal was to lengthen the barrel.
Oh man, I remember hearing about the concept of bullpups in high school and immediately doodling a bullpup AK-47. There's something wild about knowing that actual engineers had the same idea...
The concept has seen rather widespread development, just not quite centralized into an efficient form.
And then theres the groza
Actual engineers were the people who turned doodling into a job.
If "actual engineers" have a brilliant idea that is on par with a high schooler who only recently heard of the concept, let's keep the quotation marks around "actual engineers".
@@BobPapadopoulos You've never actually hung around engineers before, have you.
The KA-74 was real all this time, what a weird shape it has
You´re referencing to DayZ here? :D
@@Fischbroetchen2k thats what i thought lmao
Karlovac license plates are KA also.
DAYZ REFERENCE?!!???!
XD
It's truly remarkable how HK Produkt evolved from this kludged prototype to the elegant and slick VHS family of firearms today. They may not have had the technical knowledge to begin with, but boy, they sure caught up and eclipsed most of the bullpup market today!
Yes the xd Springfield/ Croatian HS pistol is ultimately reliable. My brother has one it's accurate. Good trigger. Ands it's a 1st gen. Runs like a tank.
*hs not hk
With they made a modern day version of this ak in 6.5grendel.
i mean thats how croteam made serious sam in a nutshell
I love these videos and I hope to see more of these prototypes. I’m excited to learn more about this
Why though? This looks to be about the same length as a normal ak. So all the problems with bullpup without the only benefit.
@@robmicheal511 The point was to make the *barrel longer* without making the whole gun longer than the original.
@@robmicheal511 The barrel is way longer then on standard AK: standard AK barrel is 16", the barrel in that thing is 23.6" - a whopping 7,6" longer! :D
As Ian says on the vid, the goal was to get better accuracy - but longer barrel aids accuracy only by lenghtening the sight radius, thereby lessening the shooter error; with optical sights you usually gets better accuracy with shorter barrel as it is stiffer, less barrel whip (if both barrels are the same thickness)
@@jukkatalari3896 23 inches?! Ok i didnt hear that part. That is pretty good.
Oh a series on Croatian guns sounds fantastic, yes I'm a sucker for the VHS-2 but history of firearms development in such a clear visual way is always very fun.
Today's episode is an excellent reminder of why this channel is called "Forgotten Weapons".
The British had the L85, which had just been successfully, well, just been introduced. Nice!
yeah that gave me a good chuckle lmao
Hehe
And it is working really well on its third iteration now… (H&K rebuilt all the UK’s stocks).
@@allangibson8494 yeah, the only parts in common between the L85A1 and A2 is the two pieces of bent sheet metal that made up the receiver...
@@allangibson8494 the British should have gotten rid of them already. All this money spent on a gun that kinda works, as long as you're not left handed or expecting to fight urban combat (which kinda is the future of warfare). If even the French can get over this national sentiment and adopt a German rifle, why can't the British do the same? Their rifles are already made by the Germans anyways
The audio is a little peaky and sound quality is unusually low, unlike recent videos. But thank you for that Ian. This feels like a classic Forgotten Weapons video from a few years ago. I appreciate the nostalgia, brings me back :)
I prefer not having that kind of sound. It's easy to fix with freeware like audacity.
@@onpsxmember bot detected
@@onpsxmember I guess Ian recorded "too hot" this time. You can't really fix clipping audio after it's already there.
Keeps happening, I wish he'd just check the gain for the mic before recording.
Ian is absolutely horrid about audio engineering and quality. He's also said multiple times in multiple places that he Hates dealing with audio.
Those are called "agricultural welds" because if you have ever worked on a farm, that is the welding you do.
“Mom, can we have bull pup?” “No, we have bull pup in Hrvatska.”
IAN! I told you not to look around HS arsenal form 90s, now Brandon has Croats on his hit list.
You see a lot of homemade/"Khyber pass" AK bullpup conversions in combat footage since the start of the Syrian civil war. They seem to work just fine and there's a demand, I wonder why bullpup AKs didn't catch on before in a more official way. Like a version or kit from Kalashnikov itself - especially in the 90s.
I've seen photographs of bullpup AKs with custom paint jobs in the Middle east. Their camos don't match their environment, but I respect the passion behind making a customized gun in a warzone.
it did the Groza series and of course the bullpup version of the AEK971 (i think its that) groza didnt really take off unless it was in 9x39 WP for good surpressed shots
Because you cant use any parts that are interchangeable between the two platforms without even minor modification to them. This makes it no more cost effective than just building a better gun from scratch AND it doesnt offer anything that either the ak doesnt or that a bullpup should other than a longer barrel in the same OAL for the gun. And thats not even really what happens here because while the barrel is longer, so is the whole flipping gun. Bullpups almost always are designed to all for a new firearm that shoots the same round or one similarly powered one, that keeps the same barrel length or even a longer one but reduces the over all length of the weapon or keeps a similar OAL for a longer barrel.
This allows for in the latter case a potentially more powerful and accurate weapon that uses the same ammo your force is already invested in and familiar with, or a special use platform that uses the same ammo but is shorter without sacrificing the power and accuracy for use in confined spaces and other cases where weapon size is important. This is just icky.
I mean sure its cool. But where would it be used by a fighting force?
Its not even as cool as the olympic arms ultralight ar designs to get around the awb.
@@smorrow There was also that odd little Valmet / Sako one back in the late 1970's. Also, the "prototype" / design study of a "bullpupped" L1A1, produced as a "project by an Australian Army officer cadet, again, back in the 1970's. Or the also-Australian-designed Leader M-71s; also later seen made in the USA, after the Oz designer fled there as a Techno-Political refugee..
Until recently, all of them suffered to varying degrees with "issues" regarding shoulder swapping in the field,. Side ejection and reciprocating cocking handles are prime considerations. See also::Gas / fragment handling in the unfortunate event of a ruptured cartridge case.
My "table napkin" solution was to cant the magazine about fifteen degrees to one side and place the BOTTOM ejection port beside it, but offset to the other side of the "body".. Shuffle the bolt / carrier, extractor / ejector alignment to suit. Yes, you would have to invert the rifle to do a thorough "clearance", but that is no worse than opening "toilet seats", and / or "shaking out" stray ammo and brass.
"If it ain't broke don't fix it"
Is probably the rationale. Aks work fine as is and while there's room for improvement is it really worth completely reconfiguring a rifle just to improve combat effectiveness by a tiny amount? Keep in mind militaries typically like to be conservative, so why should they adopt a different configuration of gun that would require retraining of personel and whatnot. When they could keep using what still works and not rock the boat so to speak. The new US army rifle is basically an AR as far as controls are concerned for that very reason. (I'm talking about how it's reloaded and how you use the safety and whatnot, I can see alot of gun needs REEEEEEing at that statement already so just to be clear im not saying they're the same gun, but they're familiar enough to someone trained to use an AR platform)
You know, the only thing that's truly cursed is the handguard (specifically that it has no upper for the gas tube). Otherwise, it's a really neat first attempt by some guys taking their first try at firearms design.
The stock is pretty cursed to me. I've seen bullpup AK103s and the stock, on those, is just a flat thing.
Nah bro the length of pull is incredibly cursed. You’d need your arm to be perfectly straight to fire it shouldered lol
@@Hanitcal69 Or just be a chad with long arms 😎
@@Hanitcal69 You're probably a dwarf then
@@Frille512 I’m 5’1” thank you very much I am legally not a dwarf
[me seeing safety location] "Well done, Croatia!"
[me seeing safety manipulation] "Oh, gross."
AK-12 type safety before the AK-12 was even made. Good thing the Croatians ditched that for future designs
Wow so glad u here in Croatia Bro!!!! Have a good time here man!!!
I think it was meant to use a 20 round magazine. Like the Roman AKs, and Hungarian AMD 65.
The angled grip on a assault rifle is just stupid, not ergonomic and also useless coz' the arm is flexed so of no use for recoil absoption. The angled grip is very nice for target pistol where it can block the hand in line with the barell for less mazle climb, and also for hunting rifles where the arm is more on the back and even more flexed - so flexed that the arm and forearm can almost become one and the recoil can be transfered more straight. On an assault rifle the grip can very well be close to vertical, and for this particular rifle this wey would be no problem for the full lenght AKM magazine.
@@loochan325 lol
Posible since Hungary was one of rare arms supliers to Croatia in big quantity, along with Russia and Argentina.
Centurions didn't need 30 round mags, romans only used 20 round mags against the britons
@@Momo_Kawashima fallout new vegas
I love fw videos on my country's guns I always learn something new
Offhand I don't recall seeing very many handmade zero-day models on FW. Ian is great at tracking down trials firearms that are at a more advanced stage of development. I enjoyed seeing this, and I look forward to seeing later developments of the concept.
Really looking forward to seeing Ian take a look at HS Produkt's history. Hope he covers the HS-2000 series pistols along the way.
It’s great that these videos all look like they come out 10 years ago
Just a minor thing, "C" in the south slavic languages is pronounced like ts (like in cats or tsunami). I think also other slavic languages (that use the latin script) also say it like that but I'm not sure. So Karlovac is pronounced like Karlova-ts
@Pero Djuric so how do you pronounce Cres?
Im from croatia and the “ts” is a really good way to portray how we say c. It really is karlovats instead of karlovak if ur gonna say the name
@Pero Djuric so Karlovak?
@Pero Djuric Eh? Not when you're reading them as a Croat would, but for English speaking people C is basically either K or S for us. Whereas they would read TS most closely to our C. He game an example tsumani where the TS is identical to our C phonetically
@@georgethearle7612 Ts (as in tsunami) R (a very hard r, english is varied by accent a lot so hard to give an example) E (as in Erik) S (as in sick)
Glad to see you in my town, have a good time here!
It's interesting to see how different groups try to alter the basic AK (maybe the simplest select fire rifle available) to create a better or improved system. As I think about it, the only obvious negatives of the AK design are the short sight radius and the awkward selector/dust cover. It's otherwise a solid rifle with few improvements to be made. That makes these designs so intriguing.
No consistent way to mount optics and a generally high weight for its size are its real shortcomings in a modern context, in addition to the poor ergonomics as you mentioned with the selector
Siderail is and always was fine for optics, particularly with RS Regulate type mount. Stamped 1mm AK is not particularly heavy, in fact Afghan era AKS-74 (6.5lbs unloaded, just under 7 loaded) is lighter than just about anything ever issued as a standard service rifle that isn't the M16A1.
And ergos of the safety is fixed by the Krebs type finger tab models everyone is using now.
Depending on your preferences, the lack of a bolt hold open on the gun itself is another big one. The indication that your mag is empty without silly tricks like tracer ammo is worth the miniscule additional chance of bad stuff getting into the action.
@@hailexiao2770 that's a very valid point. That might be the most technically difficult improvement as an alteration would need to take place within the magazine to provide the function. Altering a rifle and getting that into service is much easier than offering a new magazine which doesn't work in the older rifle. I would be interested to see if that would take off in militaries already equipped with AK pattern rifles.
It's clearly a good design that's stood the test of time but in my opinion there's lots of negatives compared to modern rifles.
very very cool video that probably would never exist if Ian didn't dig up this rifle. Thank you!
Oh boy more videos of croatian firearms, cant wait. Again, cudoz to you and bravo for calling the homeland war and war for independece the right way
Only because he is in Croatia. Otherwise they wouldn't let him do the videos at the company. The proper name is War in Croatia.
@@zz3690 no. He said right
@@TheCro3 he did not, he was being courteous.
@@zz3690 are you from serbia ??
@@TheCro3 of course.
Old school forgotten weapons audio, what a vibe 🤌
Finally we know where the bolt go
Well played!!
That welding was done really nice for a dust cover
Pleaase do more of Croatian stuff!
Love bullpup videos and the interesting solutions they come up with! Looking forward to the rest of this series!!!
Cursed. Gun. Images.
Yep
An AK Jesus reference in a Gun Jesus video? Surely this is either prophecy or blasphemy…
#BrandonHerrera #cursedgunimages
Gun. Meme. Review.
First thing that came to my mind
I am from Croatia, and i didnt have clue about this, thanks alot for sharing this with rest of the world!
Man, you should come to Zagreb. We'll drink some rakija :D
Truly, the gun ever. Thank you for showing us
A bullpuped AK appear, you know to whom to report guys
Cool to see the rough starts of what is now a good company.
I hope you won't stop at IM metal designs. I'd love to see your opinion on some more renown and successful designs like MACS series, RT-20, PHP and APS-95, among others.
Mini-Ero too. I was obsessed with that gun for a short while. An intermediate between Mini and Micro Uzi.
I was just wondering about bullpup aks last week, thanks Ian
Ian, many folks today seem to have a "big ick" factor over guns. Some of the periods when mankind made it's biggest leaps were during and because of war needs- in guns we can see much of the evolution of better metals, past what improving steam had, precision machining moved from an art to artifice. And as your series will explore engineers, even good and well educated ones, have ideas that improve through the prototype(s). It will be interesting to watch the Croatian's design maturity and the final products. Yes, please do more on this line or others as you find them! FR
i love how much this video feels like the first time i discovered your channel a few years ago. the grainy audio, the lighting, and the unusual, really forgotten weapon.
An amazing dead end fork in the evolution of the AK. An extremely cool gun that lead to success later on.
That length of pull is a war crime
Hope you get to review some more Croatian guns in the future,like APS95, RT20, and more of those SMGs made during the war
The accidental and uninvited Herrera crossover..
Still better than the SA80
The bar is not that high tbh
Brandon Herrera: Does an Ian impression.
Ian:
"They wanted to increase accuracy..."
Slant muzzle brake...long barrel on an AK...bullpup...
No firearms experience, you say? I couldn't tell!
The brake was upside down too 🙃
Sweet ! I would love to see more stuff like this. Take that as you will. Bullpups, prototypes, one offs, proof of concepts and mock-ups .
Very cool excited to see what comes next
This looks like an AK that time traveled, but it didn't get put back together properly.
🤣👍...or was beamed up to the Enterprise but molecules got messed up
@Ian glad to see You were in my country 😁😁😁
“You had the British using the L85 which had just been successfully… well it was introduced”
OMG! i had no idea IM Metal made this! And i am Croatian. Ian, if you are still in Croatia, try to get your hands on RT-20 antimaterial sniper rifle!
I really really wish a *nice* bullpup AK would get mass-produced and get imported to America. This looks like the nicest one I've come across tbh.
Ukraine's Malyuk would be the dream
There wer many bullpup AK around the world, but nothing like that was adopted. Based on this I think that AK is simply poorly suited for bullpup layout.
@@sir0herrbatka the Ukrainians have actually adopted and use a bullpup 74 in small numbers
@@sir0herrbatka The vulcan works pretty well
SMH ...why?
Really excellent, as always...Love to see you be able to shoot it...Thanks for the upload!
Y'know I never understood rock in mags. If the mag was just a straight shot in it would not only fit perfectly with the grip it would look hella cool too.
Pronantisiation of Karlovac should be like a reading Karlovatz. :) Thanks for visiting Croatia
Forgotten Weapons: Cursed AK edition
I'm always impressed how Ian can freely speak a whole essay about a weapon he sees for the first time.
Without any notes
a wood stock bullpup looks so wrong
Check out the episode about Thorneycroft then try not to get a heart attack.
Almost all wood exterior, bullpup and worse, it's British.
It's always nice to see some prototypes of different guns
The other night me and a coworker were talking about why they never made a bulpup AK. Gun Jesus heard our prayers
Ots-14 Groza and Vektor CR21
I have rocked a Tavor SAR-21 since 2013. Bullpups are to a great extent an answer to a question nobody asked. They have exactly ONE desirable characteristic. They are short. No shorter than an AK folder although you don't have to deploy the buttstock for any range above clearing a room.
Waiting impatiently for a video on the Malyuk
This is cursed, truly.
That's being said, I do remember the HK-33 converted to bullpup by Thai military or something, there's even a mk2 variants.
It was Thailand, apparently.
Unrelated but could you pass the eye bleach?
if i recall corectly its named type 11
I had no idea this existed and now I almost want one
Never let the fact that you have no experience doing something stop you from doing it. Just be willing to learn and don’t be stupid.
This is a cool forgotten.
Mr Ian, could you mention one forgotten conceled carry gun (pistol/revolver) would you consider?
A forgotten "glock substitute", you sir may consider.
This is such a vague question there’s so many options
The best carry gun is the one you have on you, not the one you forgot :D
@@Wetcorps Very well put Wetcorps ;) lol
@@majikmesa3786 Hi. Yes, and such as... ? :)
@@festol1 Browning Hi Power is the first to come to mind, for a long time that was the ubiquitous double stack 9mm pistol.
This is a very epic series, can't wait for the next video
Y'all got any more length of pull?
I love seeing all the different solutions to engineering problems.
A VHS in Beta!? See what I did there? 😏
Looks cool from a distance, obviously prototype up close. Interesting design choices
The Problem: Nation without major arms factories needs to make military-grade firearms domestically in a hurry.
Observations: Nation has access to details on firearm designed specifically to be mass-produced with limited tooling and infrastructure (Kalashnikov rifle)
Solution: Let's take that Kalashnikov and make it more complicated because we love bullpups!
An unorthodox and arguably not very good solution to the problem, but I have a soft spot for unorthodox engineers, which VHS seems to have an abundance of. Instead of just focusing on the obvious solution, fabricating tooling for Kalashnikovs, they decided to see if they could bring something just a little different to the table and while they failed this time, they clearly didn't let it stop them engineering. If the company can keep that spirit going, I think they have a better chance than many to surpass FN, H&K, and Beretta as Europe's premier arms manufactory. Improbable for sure, but only time will tell.
awesome! looking forward to seeing the developments
Just like that video of improvised conversions of PKTs to wannabe PKMs in Ukraine, when war comes, suddenly every patriotic machinist becomes Bubba.
That's not going Bubba since the PK variants' designs had that idea in mind.
But unlike Bubba, this is actually designed, welded and machined.
Bubba relies on hose clamps and zip ties, not even JB-weld.
@@kkrummelrhs Bashing a random stock, bipod and mechanical trigger mechanism onto a slab-backed receiver without a stock and a solenoidal trigger isn't bubbaing it?
@@WingMaster562 that shitty weld on the top cover reminds me of that one rifle with the scope mount welded directly to the bolt... perhaps we have already seen the next evolution of bubba? Bubbarino? Perhaps the mythical Bubbaking?
Cool to see our less known weapon on this channel! Good work.
I'm still unconvinced that the downsides of a bullpup (for a military rifle, not so much for a civilian shooter) outweigh the upsides. I feel like the only thing holding bullpups back is that many modern militaries are used to an AR-15 style platform, and/or most accessories are designed with an AR-15 in mind. Essentially, if the HK416 (a very hot rifle for EU militaries right now) were available in a bullpup configuration, I suspect that configuration would be nearly as popular as the current one
Fingers crossed to see some APS-95.
God thats one of the most cursed AK prototypes ive ever seen. 😆😂
That length of pull looks fun.
Good lord that’s ugly but hell if it functions I would run it
Thank you , Ian .
🐺
Apparently they didn't continue with this prototype not because they were not satisfied with the results but because of how cursed it looked. Some designers were so distraught in fact, they would refuse to work on the design without an exorcist standing next to them at all times. True story.
Oh maan, you were in Croatia! I hope you liked it.
Early gang
One thing I noticed there that I salute - the trigger mechanism is on a pull rod assembly. That way it can only deform in one direction (stretch) rather than two as with a push assembly (compression and bucking) so should give a less horrific feel to the trigger if done well. The big chunk of metal in the middle looks like it might cause a chunk of unnecessary friction though. I'm very interested to see the next iteration of the design.
This might just be the ugliest professionally designed gun I've ever seen
"professionally", they were just 2 engineers with no firearm background
Another cool one, Thanks Ian.
"this is in fact the only example of it ever made" thank God its the only one
I heard but couldn't believe it. Never saw this until now.
east: we created a new gun!!
world: new design or ak platform?
east: ....
I believe the front trunnion is actually a shaved down stub from an M 70 milled receiver
You know what I love about the AK?
-The mushy trigger and janky sights?
Exactly.
There's nothing wrong with ak sight or trigger it sounds like operater error
the beauty of engineering prototype design, per se, is innovation outside the usual parametres.
a pal designed a hubcentre steering setup for motorcycles in the early 90s, he attacked it as an engineer, not a motorcycle designer. this was after bimota and yamaha had allready put hubcentre on the market.
every journalist that rode his prototype back to back with the big manufacturer's wares were astonished at how perfectly it performed in comparison.
too perfectly, his design removed all geometry change under breaking, a geometry change that all motorcyclists adapt to without thinking. the end result was a couple of journos running wide in corners as the steering angle didn't change to a more agressive one. he had to create a system of 'dial-able fork dive' to give the tightening steering effect under breaking.
the bimota and yamaha hubcentres did not eliminate this as they came to the problem via motorcycle design that emulated traditional forks.
of course, the ideal that was desired, the elimination of fork dive under breaking had to be reintroduced mechanically for those used to telescopic forks. it was his degree project, he just happened to have a gpz550 with destroyed forks..
as an engineer, I can see where HS were going with this. I can even see a few very minor tweaks that would make this a viable production model.
For a prototype, that's actually well made, IMHO-John in Texas
I was looking for a word to use to explain its first look and funky is the right word to use cause shit looks funky as hell
Oh shit. I can practically smell the sweat on brandon Herrerarararrararas brow while he's hastily and angrily slapping his keyboard with an RPG in response to this.
Negative comments....people don't understand that Croatia was a newly formed country with literally non existent small arms production. If you consider that this rifle was manufactured by 2 guys who were previously fabricating tractor parts, they actually did a pretty good job. 2 decades later they are producing one of the best bullpup rifles on the market as well as the Springfield XD series of pistols.
I hope you're having a good time in Croatia, Ian!