"Aziz proudly displayed a modified Russian PPSh-41 submachine gun, which can spew dozens of bullets in seconds. The weapon’s stamp dates it to 1945, but Aziz modernized it by replacing the folding stock with a pistol grip in front of the drum-barrel magazine and tweaking it to use the 7.62 x 25-mm.Tokarev round."
-The part on a folding stock being
removed is interesting; the guns did not have those. The bulk of the gun is definitely PPSH41, but it appears to have an adapter for a folding stock welded on; probably an AK underfolder, judging from the hole size and general dimensions of the PPSH receiver. Can anyone tell if that's actually an underfolder rear trunnion that's welded on there?
-I see the Iraqi's have no more preference for the Schpagin's factory ergonomics than the Russians did
"Specifically, he modified it to use the 7.62 x 25-millimeter Tokarev round. He turns the weapon over with his hands, removes the
thin magazine before cocking and then dry-fires it. Click. The weapon works."
-Ain't no PPSH41 drum any fool would call "thin." Pretty sure it refers to the pistol caliber AK stubby.
That is a caliber conversion. The formatting of the article jumping between paragraph, highlighted sentence, picture, and photo caption is great for holding the goldfish-like attention of idle readers, but pretty confusing at getting information across
-This conversion --AK to Tokarev-- is actually pretty common even among US gun builders, since the bolt carrier is practically the ideal weight as-is.
-The fact they retain the underfolder stock shows some thought; far more useful as an SMG than without one (and some sort of foregrip)
“Often I will work ’till 11 p.m. because too many people come,” he says. “They bring their weapons and say that they’re in a hurry — ‘We have to go back to the front line. Please, can you fix this quickly?’”
Replace "front line" with "range" or "lease"
"The price is higher during periods of heavy fighting."
--"Stupid gal-durn Cheaper 'n Durt fixin' prices 'n takin' all'er jerbs!"
"This particular example is a chop-shop job for a Peshmerga fighter. He doesn’t know where the fighter found the weapon, and he didn’t ask."
What, should he be afraid the
fighter might kill someone with it? If he was an enemy, he'd either be dead or killing Mr. Gunsmith already, duh-hoy.
"The weapon still smells like death."
Seriously?
It's a plastic/aluminum AR15; what, is there a finger still lodged in the foregrip or something?
Pretty sure that 'smell' is simply
Eau du Iraqi Bazaar with hints of nasty Iraqi guns (and sweaty gunsmith) mixed in. I'm sure every other gun smelled like roses (psychosomatic assault-weapon gun-stink?)
BTW, it appears the guy was drilling/grinding on the AR upper in order to remove damage/burrs that were the result of airstrike shrapnel. Meaning this was reclaimed by fighters with close air support (which must mean we're finally actually helping out over there again). "Property of US Govt" covered in US shrapnel damage, washed of the gore of fighters whose hands we allowed the guns to fall into in the first place --meanwhile there is no greater non-violent crime in the US than to possess that serialed piece of metal as a civilian.
In summary, the linked source article is about ten times more informative than the repeated versions I read elsewhere. The guy is an Iraqi Bubba, who happens to basically "the guy that knows about guns" in this area of the fighting, ergo he is of some value to the war effort. Goes to show that knowing about guns is an intrinsically useful trait. Good thing the guy wasn't a corporate tax lawyer before the fall, or he'd be SOL right about now instead of getting to mess with cool and expensive equipment for a living (and/or noble cause).
TCB
