In Part 1<\/a> of this article, I talked about the first prototypes of Yugo AKs, in Part 2<\/a> we dived into the history of M70 rifles with milled receivers. In this article, we\u2019ll take a look at the stamped receiver M70B1 rifles.<\/p>\n AK History @ TFB:<\/strong><\/p>\n Besides the milled M70 rifle, Zastava produced a light machine gun called M72 that also had a milled receiver in the early years of production. Generally, it closely followed the concept of Soviet RPK but had unique cooling fins on the barrel right under the gas tube. The fins are still there on the current production M72s, and earlier this year Zastava announced<\/a> that they plan to bring M72 to the United States.<\/p>\n While I\u2019ve seen plenty of modern M72 light machine guns, I\u2019ve never seen an early, milled M72. Luckily,\u00a0 after the previous article, one TFB reader from Slovenia contacted me and generously shared a picture of an early M72 from his personal collection. Thank you very much, G\u017d, I really appreciate that.<\/p>\n Rare early M72 light machine gun. Photo provided by G\u017d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As I previously established, Yugo AKs were not a direct copy of a Soviet AK, however, Yugoslavian engineers still followed weapon design trends that originated in the USSR. First, Zastava started pressing and pinning the barrels, and later on, sometime in the 70s, they decided that stamped receivers were the way to go.<\/p>\n The stamped receiver version of the Zastava M70 was called M70B1, but the same gun with the folding stock had two different names:\u00a0M70AB1 and\u00a0M70AB2. Why?<\/p>\n Zastava design engineers decided to experiment with the receiver design. The first guns had a relatively thin 0.9 mm receiver, the idea behind that was to make the weapon lighter. Very few guns with fixed stock and thin receivers were ever manufactured, so those unicorns don\u2019t even have a separate designation.<\/p>\n Extremely rare M70B1 with thin receiver and grenade-launching muzzle device from the collection of the Artillery Museum in St.Peterburg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n However, plenty of folding stock Yugo AKs with thin receivers were produced. Yugoslavia even taught Iraqis how to make two different types of receivers.<\/p>\n The folding stock M70 with the thin receiver is called\u00a0M70AB1, many of those were sold to the US as parts kits. Later on, most mil-spec Zastava AKs were made with thicker 1.5 mm receivers. Why so thick? Well, to explain that, we will have to look into the most unique feature of Yugo AKs.<\/p>\n RIFLE GRENADES<\/strong><\/p>\n Unlike many other AKs, every Zastava AK had grenade-launching capabilities. To use a rifle grenade, you had to screw on a special muzzle device and lift up the grenade sight on the gas block, which blocked the flow of gas into the gas tube. Then, you load a blank round in the chamber, attach a grenade and there you go \u2013 your AK is now a grenade launcher. You can see the entire process in this vintage video.<\/p>\n![\"Extremely](\"https:\/\/www.thefirearmblog.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/r11-1.jpg\")
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