AS-44
The Sudayev AS-44 (Avtomat Sudayeva, "Автома́т Суда́ева") was an early Soviet automatic rifle that was designed in 1944 by Alexey Sudayev. It was produced in limited numbers and tested during 1945, but its development ended in 1946 due to the death of its designer. History. In 1943 the highly successful 7.62×39mm Soviet intermediate cartridge was developed and provided to Soviet small arms design bureaus to use in a new series of automatic rifles. A design competition was announced and at least ten different designs were submitted for testing from designers such as Fedorov, Tokarev, Simonov, and Shpagin. In  May 1944 Alexey Sudayev who had already designed the successful PPS submachine gun delivered the first and fourth models of his AS-44 for tests. The AS-44 successfully met the competition's requirements and in the spring of 1945, an experimental batch of AS-44 assault rifles was manufactured at the Tula Arms Factory. During the summer of 1945, these were sent for testing in the Moscow, Leningrad, Central Asian, and Transcaucasian military districts. The tests determined the AS-44 was reliable, but not as accurate, or long ranged as the Mosin-Nagant rifle currently in service. When fired from its integrated bi -pod its range and accuracy were judged to be superior to that of sub-machine guns in Soviet service. However, the AS-44 was overweight at and its accuracy, when fired without its bi-pod was considered inferior. In spite of positive evaluations, the AS-44 was not approved for mass production at that time. The next set of modifications and trials would have started in early 1946 but Sudayev became ill and died on August 17, 1946, which prevented this from occurring. Description. Sudayev built seven different prototypes with slightly different weight, length, and features for the design competition. The layout  of the AS-44 was similar to the what would be AK 47 with a fixed wooden stock, wooden pistol grip, adjustable rear sight, curved detachable 30 round en-block magazine, wooden fore stock, metal bi-pod, gun barrel, top mounted gas cylinder, hooded front sight, flash suppressor and bayonet mount. The AS-44 made use of stamped components to reduce production costs and speed production.