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

A Ukrainian gunsmith who services captured Russian assault rifles for Ukrainian troops says the newest generation of Kalashnikov rifle, the AK-12, consistently shows worse barrel quality than the decades-old AK-74 it was meant to replace, based on a detailed inspection of five trophy weapons spanning more than 40 years of production.

Dmytro, who runs a weapons service channel called OrkovNetMedia, opened the video by noting that Ukrainian law allows soldiers to legally declare captured firearms, including rifles still configured for automatic fire, a policy he called “maximally civilized.” He said five declared trophy rifles arrived at his shop on a single day. Under Ukrainian law, owners of declared trophy weapons cannot convert them to civilian semi-automatic configuration or otherwise modify them until martial law ends. Each rifle must be kept, registered and inspected in the same condition it was captured.

For the inspection, Dmytro laid out three AK-12 rifles representing three separate production generations, alongside two AK-74 rifles serving as comparison points. He used a borescope, a thin camera on a flexible or rigid cable, to examine the inside of each barrel without disassembly, and said the tool costs only a few thousand hryvnia. He argued every soldier picking up a battlefield rifle should carry one, since a weapon’s exterior condition tells a buyer almost nothing about the state of its bore, and he has had soldiers arrive at his shop disappointed after hauling a 15 to 20 kilogram rifle out of the field only to learn its barrel was ruined.

The first rifle he examined was a first-generation AK-12 from 2019, already seven years old. He said its bore had clearly suffered from prolonged exposure to poor conditions, describing a foul-smelling residue inside consistent with organic decay near where the rifle had lain in the field. Despite that, once cleaned, the barrel’s overall condition along its length was reasonable, with chrome damage concentrated mainly at the muzzle crown, the precisely machined edge at the barrel’s opening that governs accuracy, rather than throughout the bore. Dmytro said damage limited to the crown, while still a defect, would only modestly affect the rifle’s grouping at typical combat ranges and would not be considered disqualifying.

A first-generation AK-12 from 2019

The second rifle, a second-generation AK-12, arrived in comparatively better external condition, having spent limited time in the field rather than in long-term storage. Under the borescope, however, Dmytro found the bore’s chrome plating had already begun flaking away, and he described the muzzle crown as looking “like beavers had gnawed it,” calling the damage worse than what he found in either the older first-generation model or, notably, in a much older AK-74. He concluded the rifle offered no real advantage over an unusable weapon and recommended discarding it outright, joking that its only remaining use was as a cleaning-rod holder.

A second-generation AK-12

The most striking rifle in the video was a third-generation AK-12 manufactured in 2026 and captured in what Dmytro said was nearly unfired condition. He said the weapon had belonged to a Russian soldier identified only as Yemelyanov, who was killed while still holding the rifle in a firm grip, having reportedly used it for roughly one week before his death. The rifle’s cleaning rod remained in place, unused, a detail Dmytro cited as further evidence the weapon had seen almost no service. Externally and even partway into the bore, the rifle looked close to new. Deeper inspection near the gas port, however, revealed what he described as pitted cavities in the metal, comparing the damage to the progression of a perforating ulcer, which he warned could eventually develop into holes straight through the barrel wall. The muzzle crown was also poorly formed despite the rifle’s minimal use. Dmytro’s verdict was that the rifle, brand new and nearly unfired, was still not worth carrying into combat and was suitable only as a keepsake.

A third-generation AK-12

By contrast, an AK-74 manufactured in 1983, shown as a comparison baseline, displayed an extremely high round count and had reportedly spent roughly 90% of its service life without proper maintenance. Despite that history, Dmytro said the bore remained in what he called a “living” condition along its full length, with a clean muzzle crown and no chrome damage of the kind he found in the newer rifles. A second AK-74 from 1990, shown briefly afterward, had heavier external rust and a dirtier muzzle assembly, and Dmytro admitted he had expected it to be in better shape than it was, but its bore still showed less wear than the AK-12 samples and its chamber remained undamaged.

Beyond barrel condition, Dmytro flagged a specific mechanical failure he said he has traced to at least one Russian soldier’s death. He described a small part on early AK-12 rifles known as the two-round-burst limiter, made, in his assessment, from substandard metal that can jam and lock the bolt in the rearward position. He said he had been told secondhand that a Russian soldier whose rifle jammed in this way during combat was unable to clear it and was killed shortly afterward, with the disabled rifle later brought to him for inspection.

Dmytro closed the review with a broader assessment based on his repeated experience servicing trophy weapons, cautioning it reflected his personal opinion rather than a formal engineering study. He said that, counterintuitively, older AK-12 production batches have tended to have better barrels than newer ones, citing several AK-12K carbines he had separately inspected, most of which he judged to be poor quality. He argued the AK-74 remains easier to maintain and modify in the field, since components like muzzle devices and barrel liners can be swapped in minutes, while equivalent parts on the AK-12, including its safety selector, are often pinned or swaged in place and effectively impossible to remove despite factory documentation suggesting otherwise. His overall conclusion was that the original AK-74 was built for military durability, while today’s Kalashnikov-brand rifles, in his view, are built primarily to win state procurement contracts rather than to withstand sustained combat use.

Reports of manufacturing defects have followed the AK-12 since its earliest development. Russian arms testing officials publicly acknowledged unspecified “technical faults” during the rifle’s 2012 preliminary trials without disclosing details, and Kalashnikov Concern scrapped that original design entirely in 2016, rebuilding the rifle around the AK-400 prototype to address the Russian military’s concerns over cost and reliability in automatic fire before adopting the redesigned version as today’s AK-12.