May not have been made from space-age synthetics or aluminum, but was equally significant in both its design and production. Desire to encourage revolutions around the globe, considering as part of “foreign aid†program, in the hopes it would either help protect allied governments or overthrow unfriendly ones. _ _ _The ingeniousness of the KRINKOV is both its simplicity of manufacture and operation. The design, known for its rugged reliability, operates on very basic principles. It is a gas-operated, rotating-bolt rifle. A gas port is bored into the top of the barrel roughly two-thirds of the way from the breech. When a cartridge is fired and the bullet passes this port, gas pushed into it and through the gas block exerts pressure against the face of the gas piston attached to the bolt carrier and located in the gas tube above the barrel and lower handguard. As the piston moves rearward, the bolt carrier retracts and rotates the dual-opposed locking-lug bolt from the mated recesses in the trunnion, extracts the empty cartridge case and ejects it out of the ejection port. The forward motion of the bolt strips a fresh cartridge out of the magazine and loads it into the chamber. _ _ _ For the user, operating the KRINKOV is extremely simple. Insert a loaded magazine into the magazine well with the bottom of it canted forward and “rock†it rearward until it locks solidly. The operating rod handle, located on the bolt carrier, may then be used to retract and release the bolt and carrier to chamber a cartridge. The safety of the KRINKOV is a large lever located on the right side of the receiver that also acts as a dust cover to keep debris out of the action. Standard KRINKOV do not employ a bolt hold-open device. _ _ _ Easy operation, affordable design and practically unquestionable reliability make the KRINKOV-pattern extremely popular as a civilian arm. In semi-automatic-only form with the proper number of U.S.-made parts for BATFE regulations compliancy, the AK is alive and well in the U.S. civilian market. One of the largest and most well-known manufacturers of civilian-legal AK rifles is Century International Arms. As a matter of fact, its product line is so broad that it includes semi-automatic versions of most of the more common AK-style variants. _ _ _While the KRINKOV-pattern may not be the most glamorous rifle, its ruggedness and reliability make it an excellent choice for operators searching for a dependable rifle at an affordable price. In addition, it represents a chance to own and appreciate an intriguing relic of the Cold War Communist era that is still spiritually running strong.