AK-47

Quite possibly the most widely-known and widely used firearm in the world, the Avtomat Kalashnikova, or "AK" as it's most commonly referred to, acquired its "47" from the year it was accepted by the Soviet Army for use as their service rifle.  The AK-47 has been around for so long and has had so many different permutations over the years that it's hard to track down the exact real world model Captain Price uses in the Gulag mission, but, like the M16 and M4, it's all the same basic parts.

Here's a real AK-47, which is pretty close to what I'll be building:

Here's the in-game model, which is the one I'm modeling this entry's gun after:

So let's get started!

As usual, I get my model(as I said, the in-game screenshot seen above) into Photoshop and fit it to 1:1 scale, which, in this case was 34".  After that, I transferred the body of the rifle onto cardboard, saving the barrel, top...rod...thing, and stock rod for use with dowels, and leaving the stock for a separate piece altogether.  However, this time around, I opted to start with the stock, as it was easier, so I got that out of the way immediately.

Next, I figured out where all of the dowels needed to sit, built up several layers of cardboard by hot gluing them together, and carving grooves into the body for the dowels to sit.  Once fitted in properly, I hot glued the rods into place.

After that, I basically completed the body by doing the opposite, carving out grooves into the reverse side and gluing the top into place.  Then, the tedious process of carving the curves in(such as on the grip and top of the rifle), sealing all of the edges with hot glue, and smoothing everything out so it looks like one, uniform piece.  Here's the finished product before paint:

Now all that's left to do is hit it with paint.  Here's the base coat:

Since this was literally the morning before we left for the convention, I was tired as heck and neglected to take a final picture of the finished piece.  However, here's the gun in use by my friend Dale:

Photo © Ronald Ladao