Vz. 78 Rifle

"*Please note that this particular rifle is not produced or licenced by AccuTech Precision Holdings or any associated companies, nor was it designed by any individual within this company. This article only serves a historical purpose for the United Provinces of The Free and the Free Army. However, the remaining few (500) rifles that have survived decommissioning have been offered to us to be sold for a reduced price to other nations.*"-Thanks, from AccuTech PR Team.

Vz. 78 Rifle
The Vz. 78 is the United Provinces of The Free Armed Forces service rifle, it has been around since 1978 and is in itself a variant of the AK-74. The rifle was made the standard service rifle after the newly formed country's military gained large stockpiles of them as a sign of goodwill from a neighboring state. The rifle has been through several design iterations and variants, but the current rifle has started to show it's age in war-game simulations against other nation's rifles. The main advantages of the design was the reliability of any Kalashnikov, but this particular variant's reputation has been squandered by soldier's complaints of high recoil, low fire rates, incompatible cartridge types compared to NATO standards, akward iron sights and an unusually designed stock. The United Provinces of The Free has decided that these design flaws are too substantial to simply create a new variant, and they are now pushing to replace the rifle with a brand new one in the form of the 5.56mm Challenge.

Design
The rifle looks like a pretty standard AK variant from the exterior metal, but inside it sports a different magazine well and a new barrel system developed after several variants. Most rifles have been in poor condition due to rushed variant and update production. This contradicts the AK's legendary reliability, but this rifle goes to show that even simple things can be done wrong. The craftsmanship of the initial rifles was pretty low too, considering the fact they were manufactured in a former dictatorship that has since collapsed in a war. This fault leads to a lower effective range and awkward ergonomics. Many soldiers have complained about this and a program is now in place to get rid of all of the nation's inventory of rifles. There are plans to melt the existing 45,000 rifles into shovels and picks to donate to local industries in The New United Kingdom.

The rifle will be exiting official service on October 2nd, 2016. some current designs considered for replacement are the AR Scorpion and the Model 2008.

Users
United Provinces of The Free
 * All branches of the Free Army, Free Air Force and Free Navy (Retired October 2nd, 2016)