Serbian AKs, Part 6: Morana, an Ambitious AK Upgrade Program

In Part 1 of this article, I talked about the prototypes of Yugoslav AKs, in Part 2 we dived into the history of M70 rifles with milled receivers, Part 3 was dedicated to the most common Zastava M70, Part 4 went over rifles that Zastava developed during the collapse of Yugoslavia, Part 5 was about modern Serbian AKs. In this article, I want to talk about a little-known AK upgrade program developed in Serbia by a private company Reborn Arms.

Over 32 countries manufactured variants of AK rifles, and many factories attempted to modernize Kalashnikov rifles. Some efforts were quite successful, like the Polish Beryl/Tantal, which remains the Polish army’s primary service rifle. Those new production rifles include all the upgrades straight from the factory.

However, there are few good examples of modernization programs for existing stock of rifles. There are plenty of reasons for this, but one of the most important ones is very simple – by adding accessories to an AK, you’re making it heavier, and few end users are willing to accept that.

Some units can deal with a heavier service rifle, but that is not the norm. One story I heard many years ago from a firearms instructor of Russian presidential security comes to mind.

Once upon a time, when the Russian government delegation visited the US, there was a friendly conversation between members of the Counter Assault Team (CAT) of the US Secret Service and their Russian counterparts. CAT used KAC SR-16, and the security Russian unit used AKs with Zenitco upgrades.

After trying out an upgraded AK, a CAT operator said: “Man, that is incredibly heavy, how do you even carry that”. Naturally, Russian officers took this question as proof of their unimaginable toughness, but actually, the question made a lot of sense.

An AK with Zenitco handguard, stock, and receiver cover weighs around 4.1 kg (9 pounds), 2.5 pounds more than a typical AR 15. And all those upgrades do not make an AK rifle better than AR, just allow an AK to have the same capabilities to mount sights and lasers. When you add a suppressor, sights, light, and laser, an upgraded AK weighs over 5 kg (11 pounds).

Over the years, many manufacturers tried to upgrade an AK and ran into the same problem – they add weight to a weapon but never subtract it.

The upgrade doesn’t change the operating system of the AK: bolt and carrier remain the same, however, the designers added a buffer to the recoil spring.

The axis of а stock on Morana is higher compared to the standard AK, which can reduce muzzle rise if proper shooting fundamentals are applied.

Morana upgrade includes its own rear trunnion, so the user can select the stock he likes, including a non-folding M4-style buffer tube. However, in most cases, Morana upgrades were demonstrated with ACR-style stock that folds to the left side.

Designers retained the original safety mechanism and added a tab on the selector, that allows the user to take the safety off with just a trigger finger. The charging handle is still on the right side, which makes sense for such a project – most military/law enforcement customers want soldiers to use an already established manual of arms instead of learning new tricks.

The name of the project, “Morana” is the name of the ancient Slavic goddess, which in traditional Slavic pagan religion is associated with spring and the “rebirth” of nature after winter is over.

The first AKs with installed Morana upgrade were tested in 2019. Initially, it was developed for the civilian market in Serbia with plans to offer internationally to military forces that use old AK rifles.