Famed Polish Firearm Manufacturer FB Radom to Open US Facility
Matt Korovesis 01.27.15
The next few years are looking to be exciting ones for fans of the AK rifle. At this year’s SHOT Show, FB Radom, a Polish manufacturer of high-quality Kalashnikov variants and other arms, announced that they’d be setting up a production facility in Texas by the end of this year.
Radom received the proper licensing from the ATF to get the ball rolling on its US operation, FB Radom USA, just last month, according to Ted Marshall. Marshall is a well-known name in the AK community—he has built some of the most impressive Kalashnikov-pattern guns available in America. Radom has tapped Marshall to help coordinate the organization of their production facility on this side of the pond.
Samples of the company’s products for the US market are now being produced and sent to the ATF for approval, a process that can take upwards of six months. To start out, Radom USA will offer a semiautomatic 9x19mm pistol, a .22 LR “trainer” AK, a rifle-length 5.56 AK, and a short-barreled rifle (SBR) 5.56 AK variant. The AKs will be modified versions of the Polish military’s Beryl line of firearms.
Once approved, Radom USA will import “sporting” configurations of the Beryl variants that will be remanufactured to more closely resemble their military counterparts (similar to what Arsenal, Inc. does with Bulgarian AKs) while still adhering to 922(r). The first 5.56 Beryl rifles and SBRs offered by Radom USA will feature magazine wells that allow them to accept AR-pattern magazines (the Polish military’s Beryls use AK-pattern 5.56 magazines). Prices for the forthcoming models were not immediately available, but Marshall stated that the Beryl rifles and SBRs should sell for under $2,000.
Marshall indicated that he hopes to be taking orders for Radom USA’s first products by SHOT Show 2016. Additional AK variants, including guns chambered in 7.62×39 and a fully American-made Beryl, are being considered for later release.
Remanufactured rifles from Radom have been available in the United States for the past few years, but they have never been offered through an “official” department of the firm.
I've been a history and gun enthusiast since I was a kid. I love to shoot just about anything, from silenced bolt-action .22s to fully automatic heavy machine guns, and I love even more when I get to write about them. My main interests are modern small arms and the military small arms of World War II and prior conflicts, with a particular focus on Russian and Finnish firearms. Reading about guns like the Mosin-Nagant rifle in books and on the internet got me interested in collecting, shooting, and writing about them, and I hope to do the same for others through my work.
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