Romanian Designations AIMS question

Question

I know the Romanians call the standard AKM The AIM and the underfolder version the AIMS. But what is the Standard AKM with the Side folding stock called? Initially I thought that the side folder was only standard on the AIMS-74 but I saw a picture a lont time ago of romanian soldiers carrying ammo boxes and both of them had AIM with side folding stocks on them. I beleve one had a 40 round RPK mag in the mag well also. Bioth rifles had forward curved pistol grips and muzzle nuts not slant breaks and both looked well used anyone have this picture???

Anyway id like to know more romanian nomenclature if anyone knows it.

Buckshott

Hello there!

’AIM’ is the export name for the Romanian AKM copy that’s correctly designated ‘Pistol Mitralieră model 1963’ [abbreviated as ‘PM md. 63’]. These could be had with the Russian-styled AKM bulged foregrip or the forward-sloping foregrip as you mentioned above.

There are two basic versions of the Romanian ‘AIMS’ rifles, one is the underfolder that’s correctly designated ‘Pistol Mitralieră model 1965’ [‘PM md. 65’ in abbreviated form], and the other is the sidefolder, which is correctly designated ‘Pistol Mitralieră model 1990’ [‘PM md. 90’ in abbreviated form]. The common export names for these rifles are simply ‘AIMS Underfolder’ [‘PM md. 65’] and ‘AIMS Sidefolder’ [‘PM md. 90’]. The ‘AIMS Underfolder’, when fitted with a forward pistolgrip, uses a front handguard with a pistolgrip that faces to the rear [so that the pistolgrip can clear the underfolding stock when this is being opened or closed], while the ‘AIMS Sidefolder’, when fitted with a forward pistolgrip, uses the exact same forward-sloping piece as the fixed-stock ‘AIM’/’PM md. 63’.

No Romanian underfolders left the factory with the forward-sloping pistolgrip, and no Romanian fixed-stock rifles or full-size [i.e. non-carbine] sidefolders left the factory with the rear-facing front pistolgrip.

It’s also worth noting that the Romanian side-folding stocks came in at least two different versions, one that has a push-button to lock/release the stock, and one that has the lever-type as seen on East German models to fill the same function. On the push-button type, the stock is eccentric [to the left of the rifle’s center] when opened, while the lever type is in-line with the rifle’s center when it’s opened [just like on East German and Polish rifles]. The push-button type seems to be the most common type of Romanian side-folding stocks.

The phrase ‘Pistol Mitralieră’ means ‘Machine Pistol’ in Romanian, and ‘Machine Pistol’ is in turn the common European phrase for ‘Sub-Machinegun’. [Of note; the East German AK’s are also designated as ‘Machine Pistols’ with their ‘MPi’ prefixes.]

Interestingly, the rifle with the export name ‘AIMS-74’ has the correct Romanian designation ‘Puşcă Automată model 1986’, abbreviated as ‘PA md. 86’. I’ve been putting a bit of research into this topic, since the history and development of the different AK models is something that I find very interesting. ‘Puşcă Automată’ means ‘Automatic Rifle’, and no one seems to know exactly why the Romanians went from a ‘Sub-Machinegun’ designation of the 7,62 rifles to the ‘Automatic Rifle’ designation of the 5,45 rifles. This gets even more confusing when one remembers that the 7,62 sidefolder ‘PM md. 90’ was presented as a 'Sub-Machinegun' four years after the 5,45 ‘PA md. 86’ 'Automatic Rifle'.

Hope this answered a few of your questions. :)



-Dan-

The push-button type seems to be the most common type of Romanian side-folding stocks.


I find this interesting, in that I've been collecting AK stuff for years and have yet to see a push-button Romanian wire stock.

In fact, I've not even seen a picture of one.

I find this interesting, in that I've been collecting AK stuff for years and have yet to see a push-button Romanian wire stock.

In fact, I've not even seen a picture of one.

Here they are:

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?p=843397


http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=140747757

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/PA_md_86_krink.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/42/Scafandrii_militari.jpg

Also check ak-nut's short Romanian AIMS Carbine here:

http://www.akfiles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59125


Most of the Romanian sidefolders I saw when I was working in Kosovo, were of the push-button type, and these are by far the most common surplus type found here in Europe. As far as I know, most of the 5,45 Romanian AK-74s were made with the push-button sidefolder. :)


-Dan-

In the US the lever is the most common Romanian sidefolding stock and they far outnumber the pushbutton type. But in general Romanian sidefolding stoks are very common here.

Thanks Dan

I have seen a many original Romanian AKM's when I was out of the country and as you stated the fixed stock rifles always have either the forward curved lower hand guard or palm swell standard lower hand gaurd. Though the standard hand gaurd seem to be greatly in the minority.

(I also saw literally hundreds of rifles with the forward grip cut off but this was not done at the factory.)

As for the Underfolder rear facing forward grips was prominent, but I saw just as many with palm swell standard forends and they where usually a beutiful honey blonde in color and had matching laminate upper hand gaurds. Of which one of these is in my collection.

All of the rifles I saw with Side folding stocks had the curved forward pistol grip type lower hand guard. And I believe they all had the lever type latch system not push button type.

I wonder if the lever type was the earlier model and the push button was later, or if the lever type was used on the 7.62 rifles and the button on the 5.54 rifles?

And a note on pistol grips. I saw some very battered and old PM-63's (in fact most where dated 1963) that had hard wood pistol grips on them but the butt and lower hand gaurd was laminate...these rifles all had palm swell lower hand gaurds on them.