Description
Beginning in 1952, Yugoslavia’s defence industry had been experimenting with new automatic rifle designs, mostly patterned after the German StG 44, an unknown quantity of which had been captured by Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. In 1959, two Albanian soldiers defected to Yugoslavia with Soviet AK-47s, which were promptly passed on by the Yugoslav government to be inspected by Zastava engineers.[5] Zastava was able to make metal castings of the two sample AKs, but could not glean enough technical data to reproduce the weapons or their associated parts. By the end of the year, however, the Yugoslav government had obtained more early pattern AKs from an unidentified Third World nation that was receiving Soviet military aid. At this point, there were enough AKs in Zastava’s possession for its engineers to study and effectively reverse engineer the weapon type.[5] Unlicensed production of an AK-47 derivative commenced in 1964
The original M70 design was based on the early pattern Soviet AK-47 (specifically Type 3), which utilized a milled receiver. There are a number of cosmetic differences between the two receiver patterns, namely the smooth left side of the receiver, which lacks the machined section normally found on original Soviet Type 3 AKs and their derivatives.[6] The M64/M70 dust covers were secured into place by a unique locking recoil spring guide, which prevents it from being dislodged while firing rifle grenades
