Reply #43: AK-47/Kalashnikov: both of those are the same thing.

[Richard Steele]

Mikhail Kalasnikov was a Russian WWII draftee and self-taught inventor
whose natural genius eventually elevated him to "General Designer of Small Arms"
for the Soviet Army.

He designed the AK-47 around the "radical" idea of a medium power, limited-range
30-caliber infantry rifle cartridge (an idea originally conceived by the Germans
in the late days of the war.)

In Russian, "AK-47" was the military ACRONYM for "Kalashnikov Automatic, model of 1947".

He designed a lot of other stuff as well, of course...
but the AK-47 was always considered his greatest engineering achievement.
So when someone uses the generic term "a Kalashnikov", they're generally
referring to the AK-47.