Silver Shogun Technical Question

[StainlessSteelCynic]

In regard to a rebore of the barrel, it probably isn't a big problem in the short term for a semi-auto, casual-use rifle (e.g. a plinking gun) but for any rifle that was firing auto or rapid semi-auto or something you needed to rely on to put meat on the table, it's going to have a negative effect on accuracy and precision.
Keep in mind I'm not a gunsmith or armourer so this is from my own understanding of things (I know some of the guys here are gunsmiths/armourers so please step in and correct any dumb mistakes I make!)

Apologies in advance for telling everyone how to suck eggs but a little exposition is going to be helpful
Two simplified definitions for the non-gun people: -
Accuracy - the ability to hit the target where you want to hit it.
Precision - the ability to consistently hit the target with accuracy.

Because the barrel works as a heatsink, rapid firing can build up enough heat to cause the metal to soften and in extreme cases the rifling can be worn out much faster than normal and reduce the rifles accuracy over time. As I said, not a big problem if it's not firing full-auto or firing hundreds of rounds in rapid semi-auto in a short space of time.
The primary safety issue at this point would be that obviously, a thinner barrel will heat up faster than a thicker barrel and in the long term, this could wear the barrel to the point where weak spots develop. Should something like a blocked/clogged barrel or double-loading occur during firing, it might cause the barrel to split/burst at these weak spots with the potential to send metal fragments into the face and arms of the shooter.

The second issue with the barrel heating up is that it can affect the barrel harmonics. Harmonics describes the vibration of the barrel during firing and is important for longarms as the effects are related to the square of the barrel length.
Way back, people used to call this "barrel whip" but that's misleading because the greatest vibrations don't occur up and down like the motion of a horse whip (although there are smaller vibrations that do), they move in a circular pattern. Obviously, this has a very strong negative effect on precision and a thinner barrel is not going to be as rigid and therefore as resistant to barrel vibration as a thicker barrel.
Manufacturers will typically find a specific barrel thickness that makes the best compromise between weight and cost without negatively affecting accuracy and precision.
You often see precision target competition rifles with heavy or "bull" barrels specifically because they are trying to minimize the affect of vibration on precision but you don't necessarily want a heavy barrel on a hunting or military rifle.

By reboring a 5.45mm barrel to 5.56mm, you will probably screw up the harmonics severely because 1. the barrel thickness was optimized for 5.45mm ammo and 2. the barrel is a little less useful as a heatsink which in turn, interferes with the harmonics. As far as I can find, a typical 5.45mm AK barrel has a diameter of about 0.57 inches (approx 1.447mm) while a typical 5.56mm AK barrel has a diameter of about 0.59 inches (approx 1.498mm) so you're already starting with a barrel thickness that is not optimized for 5.56mm and by boring that extra 0.08mm out of it, you're reducing it's diameter from 0.57 inches (1.447mm) to 0.53 inches (1.367mm) taking it even further from it's optimum thickness-to-ammunition calibre ratio.

[Raellus]

By reboring the barrels, you'd also probably not be able to chrome them, which, over the lifetime of the weapon, would contribute to faster wear and corrosion, especially if substandard propellants are being used. I suppose one could chrome them, but that would mean increasing the diameter of the bore even more (albeit ever so slightly). First, this would be quite tricky, and doing so would further weaken the barrel.

It would probably take a long time for a small-scale gunsmithing operation to rebore and rechamber significant numbers of AK-74s. Most of the well-respected companies that assemble former East-bloc AKs here in the States do so in relatively small batches and, AFAIK, they don't have to do anything quite as complex as modifying the bore/chamber. As I understand it, they manufacture a few of the components and then mate them with imported parts (some companies then trick them out quite extensively). Apparently, not every bit of the foreign made, military-grade AK is legal to import and/or sell here; obviously, the fully-automatic capability has to be dropped but there could be other required mods as well. There are waiting lists for online purchases. But, there's not a lot of machining or remanufacturing of the major components done before the rifles are assembled. If reliable power was an issue, this sort of remodding would take even longer. This all was true a couple of years ago, at least. I was researching the purchase of a mostly Polish Tantal AK-74 clone (I didn't go through with it because of the complexity of the transaction). I settled on a AR-15 instead.

I can see why the PRC would want to get some cash from captured rifles, but they could probably put them to use themselves. In the v1.0 timeline, most of the PLA would still be equipped with domestically produced 7.62mm x 39 AK-47 clones but at some point in there, IRL at least, they began transitioning to a smaller caliber rifle round (5.8mm IIRC). Perhaps the Chinese would have issued their captured stocks of 74s to reservists, militia, paramilitary forces, or even SOF.

Maybe the U.S. did buy a bunch of captured AK-74s from China but political/legal wrangling meant that they never hit the civilian market. Maybe they sat in a couple of shipping containers in impound somewhere. Maybe they were stopped and impounded just on the Nevada side of the Cali-Nevada border, and stayed there in legal limbo until the U.S. got dragged into WWIII. Getting ahold of a few hundred or thousand AK-74s would make a cool mission for a CONUS-based game, especially if someone else (another local warlord, the U.S. military, Mexican elements) was also trying to get a hold of them.

Lastly, and I know this has already been mentioned, but it seems like it would be waaaay easier to manufacture 5.45mm ammunition for AK-74s than to rechamber/rebore etc. the rifles to fire 5.56mm. IRL, 74 clones are on the domestic market today and ammo for them is available. I'm not sure where it all comes from (I suspect a lot of it is imported from Eastern Europe) but I don't doubt that at least some of it is manufactured here in the States.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I can see why the PRC would want to get some cash from captured rifles, but they could probably put them to use themselves. In the v1.0 timeline, most of the PLA would still be equipped with domestically produced 7.62mm x 39 AK-47 clones but at some point in there, IRL at least, they began transitioning to a smaller caliber rifle round (5.8mm IIRC). Perhaps the Chinese would have issued their captured stocks of 74s to reservists, militia, paramilitary forces, or even SOF.

I am with Rae on this point. When a single potential militia man (out of a possible 200 million of them) is unarmed I don't see the rifles coming here to our civilian market.

My first thought on how a couple of ISO containers of such weapons and ammo could end up in the US, is that they were sent here for testing by the DoD. They would be interested in how durable the weapons are and if there are any manufacturing issues. Same goes with ammunition. Honestly depending on the size of the testing facility (which makes sense to be in the desert) you could have all sorts of Warsaw Pact equipment there.

[Webstral]

As always, thank for taking the time to share thoughts, gentlemen.

SSC, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for, even though I didn't realize it when I asked the question. Assuming that reboring is cheaper than buying a new barrel, this option provides me with a gateway into a characterization and plot development issue. If, as you point out, a rebored barrel is okay for plinking but not hard service, some distributor might decide that the cheapest possible rebuild for AK-74s is the way to go. The existing barrels get rebored and not chromed. A shop doing work of this type is operating in Nevada. (I'll have to figure out why 99th Wing doesn't take or destroy them on the way out of Nevada in early 1998.) The Shogun obtains the remaining stock of these rifles for his motorized army. The quality issues begin to show up, adding to his problems.

Regarding the issues of getting AK-74 from China to the US and onto the market, I think some good points have been raised. Regarding whether China keeps the AK-74s or issues them to troops, I think we would have to ask ourselves what the Chinese bean counters are going to say about equipping their troops or millions of militiamen. I am inclined to think that the militia are going to get SKS rifles manufactured in the PRC. If the sale of a single AK-74 using a non-standard type of ammunition can pay for 2 or more SKS for the militia, the Chinese bean counters may find this a desirable course of action.

Regarding the manufacture of 5.45B ammunition in the US, there are some political considerations. If there is a shortage of 5.56N ammunition, which may be the case once the war scare arising from events in the Far East takes effect domestically and globally, Congress may be convinced that an additional production of small arms ammunition suitable for assault rifles ought to be in 5.56N. On the other hand, it may be possible to convince Congress that a 5.45B line could provide some export revenues.

Were I a bean counter addressing the board of a major 5.56N producer, I would tell them that our lobbyists should be telling Congress to mandate all 5.45B weapons be standardized for 5.56N. If they are allowed onto the market firing another ammunition type, then either the company has to invest in tools and fixtures for producing that ammunition (assuming no one in the US produces 5.45B in 1995 or 1996), or the company has to forgo the profits of selling that ammunition. Neither option is attractive. Therefore, a lesser sum of money ought to be disbursed to ensure that Congress passes the right law governing the import of AK-74 from China for sale on the civilian market. And if the same company manufactures 5.56N barrels already, then the position of the company is a no brainer. The question then becomes how influential that company can be regarding the attitude of the right members of Congress.

The equation changes yet again when the war spreads to Europe. Whereas I have postulated that the PRC might be willing to endure some logistical headaches in order to get as many Western countries invested in Chinese victory as possible, West Germany might not be as tolerant. They aren't going to reequip the Bundeswehr with weapons firing 5.45B. They might want to keep some AK-74 around to equip East German units that need spares, but the long term goal will be to standardize equipment to West German norms. By the time NATO has pushed the Pact back across the Oder in December, 1996 the FRG will be swimming in captured AK-74--and war debt. The motive to sell a quarter million to the US at $100 each will be very, very strong. Now that the US is involved in the shooting war, the motive to sell captured AK-74 to civilian distributors at $225 each (just picking a figure of $25 per rifle for shipping and handling back to CONUS) will be very strong. Given that the labor for reworking the rifles and selling them will be taxed, as will the sale itself, there is a tidy and useful sum to be gathered from private hands in the US without raising taxes or selling bonds. If the pattern for mandating 5.56N standards for selling AK-74 has been established already, then the only that might need to change is the scale.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Happy to be of some help Webstral.
I like firearms and military firearms in particular and this forum is one of the few places I can use the information I've picked up without me being called a "gun nut --> potential psycho" by the people who aren't interested in weapons

[SionEwig]

If you want to have 5.56 AK-74s available near Vegas for a narrative purpose, then just do so. Don't worry about a justification more than just perhaps, there they were. But your economic reasoning is just, sorry, implausible. The political hurdles of importing military grade weaponry and that it's more "evil assault weapons" (going with the proposed conversion to semi-auto) in civilian hands is much larger and harder than I think anyone is considering. But like I said, if you want to have it for a narrative purpose, then just do it, don't worry about a justification.

[mpipes]

The US if anything would be PRODUCING Type 56 and 81 rifles as well as ammo for the PRC.

As for the AWB...never happened in my opinion in the T2k timelines. Congress would have had to many other things going on, and I don't think Bush would have lost to Clinton. We would have been hard pressed to produce enough M-16s, but in any event, most states serious about preparing to face nukes would have been passing out M-16s to State Guards (the militia) like crazy. At a minimum, Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Alaska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, and Tennessee would (I think) have been buying and issuing M-16s to civilians. You would have a HUGE run on available AR-15s that would have been unreal.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by SionEwig

But your economic reasoning is just, sorry, implausible. The political hurdles of importing military grade weaponry and that it's more "evil assault weapons" (going with the proposed conversion to semi-auto) in civilian hands is much larger and harder than I think anyone is considering.

What is plausible and implausible depends a great deal on what is going on at the time. All kinds of unthinkable things become reality when there is a war on. If anything, we have a tendency to underestimate just what kinds of variations from the norm can be found once the shooting starts. Isolationist USA was duking it out with Nazi submarines in the Atlantic months before Pearl Harbor; and very soon after Pearl Harbor we rounded up more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry, citizens and otherwise, without due process and threw them in concentration camps deep in the interior. We effectively robbed them of their property, then asked them to volunteer to help us win the war--which they did with an uncommon valor while their parents were behind barbed wire. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Were certain gun-averse members of Congress to raise objections to the sale of 50-100,000 units of rifles on the domestic market, more pro-gun members of Congress could simply counter with "Why are you opposed to helping our gallant Chinese allies?" Then, behind closed doors, the same pro-gun members of Congress could say, "Business is booming, thanks to the war in the Far East. If you don't want a piece of the action in your district, just say so and we'll find someone else's district for expansion."

A lot depends, of course, on the personalities and how they play their cards. One thing to be borne in mind, though, is that less plausible things than the an exception to the import of civilianized military grade rifles during a Sino-Soviet War have come out of the US Congress before and since in real life.

Originally Posted by SionEwig

If you want to have 5.56 AK-74s available near Vegas for a narrative purpose, then just do so. Don't worry about a justification more than just perhaps, there they were. But like I said, if you want to have it for a narrative purpose, then just do it, don't worry about a justification.

I'm perfectly happy to agree to disagree about the chances of such a thing happening if the various parties are willing to suspend as much disbelief as necessary.