On March 18, 1974, the AK-74 assault rifle was adopted by the Soviet army. Its main feature was the transition to 5.45 caliber instead of 7.62, which was used on the first AK-47 and its modernized AKM variant.
Reducing the caliber made it possible to reduce recoil, increase the accuracy of fire and increase the volume of portable ammunition. In 1993, a modernized version of the modernizedAK-74M was put into service by law enforcement agencies and special forces units.