Manipulating the Selector on an AK

Okey Dokey, Boys & Girls, Malcontents of all ages...When it comes to manipulating the
selector lever on a Kalashnikov, there are a handful of commonly taught ways to do it.
First method utilizes the primary hand thumb to move the selector lever and has the rest
of the hand stage under the trigger guard. Here's a pic of a troop in Chechnya using this
method.

And here's a pic of your humble narrator...

Using this method to disengage the safety.

And, finally, firing having used this method of operation. Notice the firing hand thumb has
remained on the right side of the weapon. You could, of course, wrap the thumb around
the pistol grip, but I found that that does not happen when pressed for time.
A second method has you keep the firing hand thumb flagged around the pistol grip and
the remaining fingers lie flat on the selector lever. The tip of your 'social finger' makes
contact with the shelf on the selector lever and the whole hand drives the lever down,
prior to establishing your fighting grip on the gun.

This method works quite well, but can be problematic when dealing with an unknown
gun. Some AKs will have extremely tight selector levers and you will find it awkward, at
best, to use this scheme of motion. With the lever disengaged...
My 'default' manipulation for any member of the AK family is to simply reach under the
receiver and drag the selector lever down using the tips of the fingers of my offhand.
This allows me to maintain my fighting grip on the gun during all manipulations and
works with any member of the Kalashnikov family.

And the selector off...

Originally posted by Paul Gomez at Total Protection Interactive. This PDF file is created to aid students of
self protection, as a tribute to those who wrote the content and is in no way a challenge to the original
author. The format of this document is protected by a Creative Commons Licence. Any derivative works
must give attribution to the original author(s) of the content. The copyright for the content is held by the
original author. I have edited spelling and grammar only.

James Marwood