{"id":21455,"date":"2016-08-22T07:00:04","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T12:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/22\/prototype-wf-bern-ak44-copy-of-the-svt\/"},"modified":"2016-08-22T07:00:04","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T12:00:04","slug":"prototype-wf-bern-ak44-copy-of-the-svt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/22\/prototype-wf-bern-ak44-copy-of-the-svt\/","title":{"rendered":"Prototype W+F Bern AK44 Copy of the SVT"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"youtubomatic-video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"autoplay\" width=\"580\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bU5GR1MslNo?controls=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Swiss factories of SIG and W+F Bern both produced a remarkable number and variety of experimental self-loading rifles in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Nothing would be adopted by the Swiss military until the StG-57, but these two firms were continuously working to develop a military self-loader for either Swiss or foreign purchase almost form the end of the First World War. <\/p>\n<p>This example from W+F Bern, designated the AK-44 (for its design date, 1944) is not so much a new experimental design but rather a very faithful copy of the Soviet SVT-40 rifle. It uses a mechanically identical tilting bolt and short stroke gas piston, and even shares the metal front handguard, muzzle brake design, and simple manual safety of the Tokarev &#8211; although chambered for the Swiss 7.5x55mm cartridge and using a 6-round magazine instead of the Soviet 10-round type (almost certainly because of the Swiss use of 6-round charger clips).<\/p>\n<p>Multiple different variations on the AK-44 were made, with variations in the muzzle configuration (SVT-40 type in this case; others had K31 configurations, FG-42 configurations, and more). Several different types of optical sight were also experimented with on the AK-44, including a German style mount for a ZF-4 type scope on a side rail, and a Swiss periscopic optic in this case &#8211; the same pattern as the Swiss K31\/42 and K31\/43 snipers\u2019 rifles.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons The Swiss factories of SIG and W+F Bern both produced a remarkable number and variety of experimental self-loading rifles in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Nothing would be adopted by the Swiss military until the StG-57, but these two firms were continuously working to develop a military self-loader for either Swiss or foreign&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/22\/prototype-wf-bern-ak44-copy-of-the-svt\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Prototype W+F Bern AK44 Copy of the SVT<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":21456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}