Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today in Slovenia,
part of the former Yugoslavia, by generous invitation
of Polenar Tactical to take a look at
a number of interesting Yugoslav firearms.
And today we are specifically looking at a Yugoslav Model M70A underfolding AK.
Now Yugoslavia started its AK development program in 1959.
And they spent a number of years getting tooled up before they had their first
quasi-production version, which was the M64 in (predictably) 1964.
This was a rifle that had quite a lot of differences
from the standard AK that Yugoslavia would end up adopting.
It had actually aperture sights on the rear of the dust cover,
it had gas cut offs on all the guns up on the front, it had different handguards.
The original M64 underfolding rifle actually used the buttstock from the M56 submachine gun.
It was in many ways a variation from the standard Russian AK platform.
And most of those variations would go away by the time field testing was done
and really the final version was actually adopted.
That would be the M70 and the M70A.
So the M70 was the fixed [wooden] stock version, ...
the M70A, which is what we have here, is the underfolder.
These guns are often misidentified in the United States as M64s,
largely because of the flat on the side of the receiver here
which we'll take a closer look at in just a minute.
But what Yugoslavia did do on these that is unique to the world of AKs
is they actually equipped them with a last-round bolt hold-open.
A proper fully-functional one where when the ... mag's empty the bolt locks open,
and when you take the mag out the bolt stays open.
It's a really cool feature, and it didn't last all that long.
So let's take a look at an example of an early M70A with that feature.
The standard layout of the M70A is pretty much the same as
all of the other milled-receiver AK-47 pattern underfolders.
Now of course the whole reason for the underfolding stock
with the original milled-receiver AKs
was to create a weapon that would be a substitute for a submachine gun.
So this is the version that would be issued to paratroopers, mechanised troops,
other guys who ... needed a more compact weapon.
That's why they did the underfolding stock.
In order to open the stock, I simply press in on the button here ... pull the stock down.
As long as the butt plate is folded it will clear the magazine.
With the stock unfolded we can get a better look at the receiver itself.
These receivers are pretty distinctive among all other milled AK receivers
because they have in particular this slight lightening scallop
here at the very front of the receiver.
These use a barrel that is threaded in place, so there's no barrel pin visible on the side.
You can see we have this lightening cut on the back of the receiver.
This ... pin is also a distinctive element.
This is the part that attaches the magazine hold open.
So guns that were made without the hold open don't have that circular feature there.
We then have the manufacturer's marking here on the side,
which is Zastava, located in Kragujevac
(... which I'm not quite pronouncing correctly, but we're close) in Yugoslavia.
And then the "Z" there is Zastava.
The other side of the receiver is much more standard milled AK.
There's just a serial number in the lightening scallop there.
I do want to point out that the front end of the rifle, this piece right here and on the other side,
this was originally a grenade launcher sight and gas cut off combination.
So when this is pivoted all the way down it cuts off the gas port
so that the rifle turns into a manual repeater. And that's used for launching rifle grenades
so that you don't accelerate the bolt carrier back at a dangerous velocity.
Unfortunately, as part of its civilian legalisation and ownership here, that had to be removed.
In addition the bayonet lug had its little tabs ground off
so you can't fit a bayonet on this anymore.
But originally all of the M70s and M70As
had grenade launcher sights, and gas cut offs, and of course bayonet lugs.
Now let's take a look at magazines.
This is the original M70 magazine, and there are a couple of distinctive features here.
First off, it has a standard AK follower that does not catch the bolt, it does not lock open.
Instead it has a cutout here on the left side
that allows the follower body to engage a lever in the rifle.
Note that on this, the original magazine style,
there's a little hole cut out in the front of the follower there.
So ... the other side is standard, everything else about this is
just a normal 7.62x39mm AK magazine, standard capacity and everything.
That's the distinctive cutout.
Now after the M70B was adopted that did not use a magazine hold open,
they made a couple of changes.
So when they got rid of the hold open ... cut, they ... changed the follower.
So that now it has this big flat surface on the back.
This will stop the bolt open, so you know when the rifle has run out of ammunition.
But when you take the magazine out the bolt will slam shut.
Now some of these magazines were converted at the factory
to be usable in the early M70s, like this one.
And so when you see the flat follower with the cutout, that's a factory converted mag.
Or theoretically it could be ... someone with a Dremel tool makes this into an M70 compatible mag.
This particular one is a factory conversion.
And then you have the later production M70s, ... M70Bs and AB2s,
where you have the flat backed follower, no cutout here,
and this fits and runs in any standard AK.
And I should say these will also run in standard AKs,
but the hold open feature doesn't do anything unless you've got the parts in the gun.
So let's take a look at that hold open. First off, we have to depress the button here
in order to disassemble the rifle, that's another distinctive feature of the Yugoslav AKs.
This is a lock that holds the dust cover on
so that if you fire a rifle grenade the recoil doesn't knock the dust cover off.
So I push that button in, and then I can push the recoil tab in,
take off the dust cover, take out the recoil spring.
You can see right here how that works, it's a full diameter pin there
that blocks the spring guide from coming back.
And then right there is our hold open lever, it's really quite simple.
This tab above my finger is what is activated by the magazine.
And then this tab back here, when lifted up, interferes with the bolt going forward.
So if I take my cut out magazine ...
and lock it in there, you can see that the follower has pressed up on that tab,
which has lifted up that back lever.
When I push the follower down ... you can see the interaction there.
That's really cool and all. The downside is that a standard AK magazine,
like this one without a cutout ... can't be inserted into the rifle.
Because that ... hold open tab is catching on the side of the magazine body.
And that was the fundamental problem with these rifles in Yugoslav military service.
They needed to use standard AK pattern magazines for the Warsaw Pact.
These rifles couldn't do it, and that's why when they
put the M70B into production they got rid of this system.
So if we look down in there a little bit closer, you can see when the lever is down
the bolt travels right over the top of it.
If I push the lever up it's going to hit that bottom lug
... on the bolt that is normally used to ... feed a cartridge. That locks this open.
Alright, so if we look at this in action.
Let's take our cut M70 magazine here, lock that in, magazine's empty.
So when I charge the bolt it locks open.
When I take the magazine out, it stays open.
And I can then put in a new magazine and all I have to do is,
just like most other rifles,
pop this back just far enough to release the pressure that the bolt is putting
on that holding lever, and it'll snap forward and load the next cartridge.
So before we close this out, I'll just point out a couple of the other uniquely Yugoslavian features.
One of them is this black sort of contoured plastic pistol grip, it's got a thumb cutout on the side.
This would be standard on virtually all Yugoslav AKs for a long time,
as well as the Iraqi Tabuks, which are licenced copies of the Yugoslav guns.
There is a little bit of an extra tab on the safety lever at the top.
Sort of a preview of some of the modernisation that would come later.
We have flip-up luminous night sights.
That's them out of the way, that's them flipped up to use.
And the same sort of thing down here, normal front sight
with a flip-up luminous dot that you can use at night.
These would have been painted with a radium paint which has long since worn off.
But that's how they originally worked.
And like many early AKs, this ... does not have a slant brake,
this has just a plain muzzle nut that's used to protect the threads.
You would take that nut off and attach either a blank firing device for training,
or a grenade launcher spigot for launching rifle grenades.
Now as an extra cool bonus we have this accessory.
This is a Slovenian army deployment kit for an M70.
These were adopted just a couple of years after Slovenian independence, so '94 or 1995.
And this contains all of the equipment that a Slovenian soldier would have
when fitted out with a Yugo M70.
So same gear that they would have used in the independence war,
but packaged together in a slightly later setup.
So we've got a helmet, Slovenian crest on the front.
Helmet cover, sort of standard woodland camo helmet cover underneath.
Ammunition, and your ammo carrying bag there.
The rifle of course is held in by a pair of elastic straps.
So the rifle comes out.
Standard Yugoslav pattern bayonet for the rifle.
Like most standard AK bayonets you've got a serration on the top.
You've got a wire cutter set up right there.
That's why there's a hole in the blade, there's a lug on the sheath.
You have a gas mask.
Cool, classic ... Soviet-style Cold War gas mask.
Complete with filters and spares.
And you've got a magazine pouch.
We open this up, a couple of closing flaps. We've got four of our magazines,
plus a pull through, an oil bottle.
Cleaning kit. This would normally go in the buttstock of a full-stock gun,
but there's no place for that with a folding stock.
Grenade launcher spigot, that's what you screw on in order to use the grenade launching cut off.
And then your four M70 magazines.
It wouldn't be long after the M70 and M70A were adopted
before there were some changes made.
The problem was this bolt hold open feature was a bit expensive,
and an extra complication, and maybe not strictly necessary.
And perhaps more importantly, it prevented the use of standard AK magazines,
they had to have that little cutout in them.
And so what Yugoslavia decided to do was adapt the rifle to use standard mags.
And that meant getting rid of the bolt hold open.
So instead, as you saw, they added the bolt hold open flat
on the back of the follower to give you half of the functionality.
They retrofitted virtually all of the original M70s and M70As
to get rid of that hold open so that they could use standard magazines.
And surviving examples like this one with the hold open are really, really scarce today,
even here in Slovenia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia.
So I'd like to give a big shout out to Metod Shaus
for giving me access to this particular rifle from his collection to film.
Big thanks, these are hard to find. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.