TsNIITochMash (Central Institute for Precision Machine Building) developed it in 1987. Since 1987, the Soviet Army and the KGB used it in their arsenal. Russian Spetsnaz special forces and some divisions of the Russian Army also use it.
The rifle is expensive and there are not many AS-Vals available. It is not used often according to many Russian Spetsnaz operators. It is used during special operations by either sabotage or reconnaissance units deployed behind enemy lines.
The AS Val and VSS are very effective. Some Russian army and special forces units, and Moscow’s intelligence and security forces still use it. Forces used the rifles during the last years of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. They were also important in the Chechen wars and the conflict in Georgia.
Most recently, Russia used the weapon during military operations in Crimea and Syria.
The AS Val has an effective range of about 300 m. It uses heavy subsonic 9×39mm SP-6 (high-performance armor-piercing) ammunition (which weigh down the bullet). It also uses the SP-5 ball cartridge used by the VSS Vintorez suppressed sniper rifle. It can also use the same 10- or 20-round magazines of the VSS Vintorez and the 30-round magazine of the SR-3M. Controls are similar to all AK-type rifles. It has a charging handle on the right side, a tangent rear sight, a magazine release button behind the magazine well, and a safety lever above the trigger guard. The fire selector is located within the trigger guard, behind the trigger.
The rifle has two modes of fire: semi-automatic and fully automatic fire. It has a cyclic rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute (RPM). According to its users, the AS Val is reliable, accurate, and well liked.
The rifle has an AK-type side mount for various optical sights. For example, it has the 4x PSO-1 scope and night sights such as the 1PN51 calibrated for use with the 9×39mm cartridge. The standard open sights are graduated up to 400 m in 25 m increments.
The AS Val shares 70% of its components with its sister-gun, the VSS Vintorez. The differences are a skeletonized steel stock which folds to the left for storage and transportation (the gun can operate with stock folded, but it cannot have a scope while the stock is folded).
The reliability of the rifle is said to be equivalent to the AKM. This includes functioning in difficult conditions such as dust, dirt, sand, rain, and at a temperature range from -50 °C to +50 °C.
Qian Jingwen
Qian Jingwen (born 11 May 1998) is a Chinese volleyball player. She played for the Chinese national team. She played at the 2015 FIVB Volleyball Girls' U18 World Championship, 2016 Asian Women's U19 Volleyball Championship, 2017 Montreux Volley Masters, and 2017 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix.
She played for Shandong women's volleyball team.
Paige Tapp
Paige Tapp (born 21 June 1995) is an American volleyball player.
She played at the 2017 Women's Pan-American Volleyball Cup, 2017 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix, and 2018 Women's Pan-American Volleyball Cup.
She played for the University of Minnesota's women's volleyball team. Allianz Stuttgart, and Lardini Filottrano.
Amanda Benson
Amanda Benson (born 9 March 1995) is an American volleyball player.
She played at the 2017 Women's Pan-American Volleyball Cup, 2017 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix, 2018 Women's Pan-American Volleyball Cup, and 2018 FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League.
She played for the University of Oregon's women's volleyball and Dresdner SC 1898.
Jacobus Vrijmoet
Jacobus Vrijmoet (1744 or 1756 – 1831) was a Dutch painter.
He studied at the Stadstekenacademie in Amsterdam.
His work is in the Noordbrabants Museum, Petit Palais, and Regional Archive Tilburg.
Philipp Winkler
Philipp Winkler (born 1986) is a German writer. He won the 2016 Aspekte-Literaturpreis.
He studied at University of Hildesheim. In 2015, he was a fellow of the Graz "Workshop for Young Literature".
Mosquitofish
The mosquitofish ("Gambusia affinis"), also known as the mosquito fish, western mosquitofish, western gambusia, or live-bearing tooth carp, is a fish that belongs to the Poeciliidae family. It is from the southern and midwestern United States and east coast of Mexico. Human beings brought it to many other parts of the world, such as Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Australia, where it has caused problems as an invasive specie. Some scientists say that the western mosquitofish has had the largest effect on the environment of any fish in Poeciliidae.
The adult male western mosquitofish grows to 4 cm and the female to 7 cm. It has a round tail fin. It eats algae, insects, and other invertebrates. It can eat more than its own body weight every day. It can live in water that is twice as salty as seawater. It can live in water as hot as 43°C.
In the early 20th century, people brought the western mosquitofish to other places because they thought it would eat mosquitoes and their larvae, but this did not work. Sometimes there were more mosquitoes than before: The western mosquitofish ate, outcompeted or killed other fish that were eating mosquitoes. It sometimes killed fish that were better at controlling mosquitoes than it was. It also ate some of the insects that had been eating the mosquitos and larvae. It also ate zooplankton, which left more food for the mosquito larvae.
The western mosquitofish can kill larger fish by attacking their fins and eating their eggs and babies. It eats smaller fish. It likes to eat frog eggs and tadpoles. After people put western mosquitofish in a body of water, there may be an algal bloom because the western mosquitofish eats or kills all the fish that usually eat the algae. The western mosquitofish is one reason why many other species are endangered. Some of the important ones are the Railroad Valley springfish ("Crenichthys baileyi") in Nevada, the Sonoran topminnow ("Poeciliopsis occidentalis") in Arizona, and the damselfly in Hawaii.
The western mosquitofish usually has 60 eggs at a time, but it can have as many as 300 at a time. The eggs stay inside the female's body until they hatch.
The western mosquitofish "G. affinis" and eastern mosquitofish "G. holbrooki" used to both be called "G. affinis" because people thought they were the same species. They are not. According to the IUCN Global Invasive Species Database, most records in Australia that say ""G. affinis"" really refer to "G. holbrooki".
Barilium
Barilium is a genus of iguanodontian dinosaur which was first described as a species of "Iguanodon" ("I. dawsoni") by Richard Lydekker in 1888, the specific epithet honouring the discoverer Charles Dawson.
Nava Ebrahimi
Nava Ebrahimi (born 1978 in Tehran) is a German writer living in Austria. She won a 2017 Austrian Book Prize.
She studied journalism and economics in Cologne. She worked as a journalist for the "Financial Times Deutschland" and the "Cologne City Revue". She was a consultant for the Federal Agency for Foreign Trade. In 2007 she was a finalist in the Open Mike literary award. In 2013 she was in the Bavarian Academy of Writing.
For her first novel "Sixteen Words", she won the €10,000 debut prize of the 2017 Austrian Book Award. In 2020 she published her second novel, "Das Paradies mein Nachbarn," about Ali Najjar.
In 2018 she was invited to "the New Literature Festival" in New York City .
Meral Kureyshi
Meral Kureyshi (born 26 March 1983 in Prizren) is a Swiss writer.
Meral Kureyshi was born in Prizren, Yugoslavia in 1983. Her family came from the Turkish-speaking minority in Kosovo. She has lived in Bern since 1992. She studied at the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel.
In 2015, her first novel, "Elephants in the Garden", was published. She was shortlisted for the Swiss Book Prize. She won the 2016 Literature Prize of the Canton of Bern. She read at the 2020 Bachmann Prize, at the invitation of Martin Wiederstein.
Hannah Tapp
Hannah Tapp (born 21 June 1995) is an American volleyball player.