How many Poles does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

The Polish may have trouble dealing with modern lighting techniques, but they make a darn good AK-47.  The AK is the most famous and influential gun in history.  It's the most common gun in the world, and no gun has had more influence on both freedom and oppression.  Both friend and foe alike, it's the official standard military rifle for 106 countries around the world, and is one of the most reliable weapons ever devised.  Even US Special Forces often use it on covert missions.  Often seen as the gun of rebellion and evil intent, it's also been used for good much like out M16/M4/Ar-15 has.  For example, the people of Mozambique credit it with so much influence during their struggle for freedom that they put it on their flag.  Since I have an AR-15(ish) gun, I decided I needed it's counterpart.  Also, with the Mosin done, I wanted another project and decided to stick with the Russians. It also continues my theme of dirt cheap ammunition.

You can buy these things called Parts Kits for many firearms, they are typically from fully automatic military weapons.  What they do is take disassemble the gun and destroy the receiver beyond it's usefulness and repairability according to ATF regulations.  Then, they sell you the leftovers and you build or buy your own receiver to reassemble it.  As long as it built for personal use and not intended for sale, you can build as many guns as you want.  There are a few very important caveats.  It CAN NOT be made into a fully automatic weapon, and CAN NOT be made as to be easily convertible to full auto.  With imported parts kits, there are also regulations as to the number of foreign made parts you can have in it.  We'll get more into that later.

I decided on a Polish parts kit.  The is the undisclosed project I've mentioned a few times.  Technically, it's an AKM, not an AK-47.  '47 was the year it was first introduced, and the M is for modified as the design was changed for cheaper/faster manufacturing by the Soviets in the 50's.  All later AKs are of the AKM variety.  The Polish guns are of middle quality, not as good as Russian or Bulgarian, but better than Romanian and Chinese.  I also went with a fixed stock instead of a folder because I like the more classic look.  As with most AK parts kits, mine was missing the receiver completely.  This particular gun was made in 1970, and except for the front trunnion, all the serial numbers on all the parts match.  Here's how it looked when I got it, all laid out and the missing receiver quite obvious: