Soviet-era rifle still beats Russia’s newest AK-12, analysis shows

A Ukrainian gunsmith used a borescope to compare three captured AK-12 rifles from different production generations with two Soviet-era AK-74s. He reported barrel or muzzle-crown defects in every AK-12, including pitting near the gas port of a nearly unused rifle manufactured in 2026 and flaking chrome in a second-generation example. The 1983 and 1990 AK-74s showed less internal wear despite decades of use and poor maintenance. The findings come from one technician's five-rifle inspection rather than a controlled engineering study, so they indicate possible quality problems but cannot establish fleet-wide performance.