AK-74M

Russia's modernized 5.45×39 mm Kalashnikov assault rifle — the standard-issue individual weapon of the Russian Federation from 1991, refined with a side-folding polymer stock and dovetail optics rail, and the direct predecessor of the AK-12.

Overview

The AK-74M (GRAU index 6P34) is the modernized version of the Soviet 5.45 mm AK-74 assault rifle, adopted in 1991 as the Russian Federation’s standard infantry rifle. Built on the long-stroke gas piston action that defines the Kalashnikov lineage, it chambered the 5.45×39 mm cartridge and introduced a lightweight polymer side-folding stock, a black synthetic handguard, and a universal side-rail for optics. The AK-74M remained the primary service rifle of the Russian Ground Forces through the Chechen wars, the Russo-Georgian War, the Syrian intervention, and the early phase of the Russia–Ukraine war, and though it is being supplemented in front-line units by the AK-12, it continues to serve in second-line formations, national guard, and internal security units, and remains widely exported or transferred across former Soviet and allied states.

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