Polish Wz. 96 "Beryl" - The Original (and only) NATO Kalashnikov in 5.56mm (Feat. Rob Ski/AKOU 4774)

This episode was brought to you by Slate Black Industries. For M-LOK grips and accessories, visit slateblackindustries.com. The one and only, NATO service Kalashnikov in the standard 5.56, the wzor 96 Polish Beryl. Well before Rifle Dynamics introduced their NATO rifle, the Beryl was there. The combat proven 5.56 Kalashnikov that witnessed the end of communism and marched Poland into NATO integration. During the global war on terror in Afghanistan, the Beryl was there. In Iraq, the Beryl was there. This combat proven Kalashnikov is a testament that the 5.56 NATO cartridge is a viable and effective cartridge to deploy in a Kalashnikov system. To Poland, this was a worry-free problem solver with low logistical issues when deployed on NATO missions. To the world, it represented a logical, pragmatic and straightforward attitude that the Polish military had towards modern day operations. But before the Beryl, we had the Polish wzor 88 Tantal. In the 70s, as Russia moved towards the AK-74 and the 5.45 cartridges, other Warsaw Pact members also integrated. Instead of producing the AK-74 under license from Russia, FB Radom produced its own 5.45 Kalash system and tested and developed it to roll out in 1988, less than a year from the collapse of communism. And actually Poland was done and ready to field that rifle at the moment when the socialistic paradise was falling apart. So guess what, this is the 5.45x39 cartridge rifle and socialism is gone in Poland and there is no more need for the 5.45x39 rifle. Why? Because Poland will be joining the NATO. In 1991, post-communism Poland first started a look at rechambering the Tantal in 5.56 and subsequently worked towards the wzor 96 Beryl in 5.56. March 12, 1999. Poland was one of the first Warsaw Pact countries to join NATO and the Beryl became the only NATO Kalashnikov in 5.56 to serve in global conflicts to come. A combat rifle in 5.56 was a big deal. NATO standardisation towards 5.56 was a major logistical consideration for NATO members and Poland was eager to have the support of the NATO alliance on the Russian border. What we see here today is one of the later iterations of the Beryl, showing a collapsible stock, a removable dogleg picatinny rail on top, a left selector option, clear 5.56 magazines and an extended dust cover safety. The top mounted picatinny rail also has an iron sight channel that facilitates the use of iron sights for backups and Polish soldiers are often seen with EOTechs as a standard issue optic. The rail is of a sturdy design but some North American shooters may have issues over the sight height. The collapsible stock operates like an AR-15 carbine stock and works well with body armour. Early iterations were a side folder and we wonder why Poland never did a side folding collapsible stock. The front end handguard retaining system is entirely different from the AK-74 or the AKM. The Beryl features a retaining plate that covers both the upper and lower handguards. Under it we have a cold hammer forged chrome line 1-9 twist 5.56 barrel which is actually optimal for .55 grain ammunition. The side selector, despite having its markings for military selector settings, is a non-functional item for US imports. As a small caliber rifle, the Beryl is able to operate with minimal recoil and our close range handling shows. Check it out baby, I mean it's a 5.56 AK, super controllable, recoil's negligible, the sighting system very trackable, freaking awesome setup. The things that I immediately caught on to was the size of magazine release paddle, makes it way easier to hit the reloads. The oversized safety where you can ride your trigger finger on it and drive it down, that's something that we've seen on other western AK adaptations and I think it's a big benefit. It goes from having to utilize your whole hand and break your whole grip to be able to effectively snap the safety off to literally just being able to do it with an index finger. The dogleg style rail also seems to be a massive advantage from the standard side mounting optic which really doesn't give you a lot of versatility into where you can add your optic as well as which optics you can actually go with. Where I imagine the pulls were coming from in wanting to convert to a NATO style firearm that can accept and be crossed between NATO parts, i.e. stuff like Aimpoint Geotech, so on and so forth, seems to be a massive improvement. Now most of the time on other AK variants that are co-witnessed optics with the iron sights, if you wrap your thumb over the top of the grip, well you're obstructing your sight pretty significantly. In this particular instance that's not the case and I can kind of just fully wrap my thumb over the top of the grip and shoot, which is how I shoot my AR style rifles. So that continuity I found, you know, very much at home with what my support hand was doing in terms of accessing and the grip that I was getting. When we took it to the range, the rifle actually performed decently well. It registered a 3.56 MOA group and when we took the rifle to the practical accuracy course, it actually performed well for an EOTech capable rifle. With a high sight height, we suspect that this could be an excellent system with a low mounted LPVO, but understand that the Polish may also have been focusing on the 0-300m capabilities of the Beryl. A strange belief in the US among some has been that the 5.56 Kalashnikov is a bad idea that does not work, and to address this we have the following feedback from Polish troops. Thanks to Rob at the AKOU Homeland Contact. I deployed to Afghanistan with my Beryl and it was boringly reliable and it never gave me any trouble. I never had any issues with the magazines either. They were feeding and functioning without any issues. Our major complaints, not really complaints but some sort of inconvenience, was associated with optics. We all liked optics, just the Beryl optic rail was placing them really high and cheek weld was non-existing. Other than this, the Beryl served me well. The Beryl is an interesting development. It's perhaps one of the last in the line for the Polish Kalashnikov. It's witnessed both the independent Polish state and cooperation with the NATO alliance. It shows wisdom in the Polish military to immediately integrate into the allied supply chains with quick retrofits of a bomb-proof design. Buy them ample time for their next generation weapon system. Now the technical side of this video is I think a little bit shorter than usual and that's not to say that I couldn't go into any more deeper into the design details but part of me really feels that this rifle encapsulates a lot of the spirit of the Polish military in a sense that it's pragmatic, it's flexible in the way it adopts to NATO ammunition and yet it's driven by principle and it's reliable. Now of all the foreign nations I've worked with, I've worked with the Polish military the most and I've even learned to march their way and in fact I've marched in their formation during ceremonies. I rode on the back of armored vehicles on the Russian border in Poland. I learned to sing the Polish national anthem from the prettiest girl at a bar in Kielce. I've worked in cities like Warsaw, Bialystok, Lublin, Krakow. I even learned to drive the Polish Rosomak in Płoców. I broke bread and spent a lot of time in Afghanistan with task force White Eagle and the Beryl was the one constant item out of all of these different places but it isn't just about being a good host country for allied forces to work in which I can say Polish officers who hosted us through some of the best parties. Prior to NATO integration the Polish military organization was cumbersome to say the least. You would have colonels who would have trouble making decisions, brigade commanders having trouble making the call on ground because they needed to call up higher to central command. Now working with NATO means that they needed to adopt to small unit tactics. Junior commanders on ground had to be able to make decisions in a split second because they may not have an opportunity to call up higher. 2012, Ghazni, Afghanistan. A Polish ISAF patrol found a suspected IED on a route that was historically full of IEDs. Now the Polish convoy commander made the decision on the spot to halt the convoy, provide security and evaluate the suspected roadside bomb. As they got closer Polish soldiers actually noticed it moving and upon closer inspection they actually opened the package up and found a two-day-old baby in the package. Now the Poles sent soldiers to the local markets to buy baby formula and bottles because you don't get that in normal NATO supply, surprise, and worked with Afghan hospitals to keep the baby safe. Days later an Afghan couple who couldn't have children actually ended up adopting her. Now the Polish bomb baby incident, as we called it in the ISAF circles, it left a huge impression upon my heart and even though it wasn't in any type of mainstream reporting, to me it spoke volumes of the amount of heart that those Polish soldiers had. The convoy commander had every right to not have to stop the convoy and light the package up with ordnance. It would be faster or he could have stopped and waited forever for some type of order from higher, at which point the baby would have probably been put in harm's way being in the elements for so long. His men would be exposed to potential ambushes and instead the unit made a decision that ended up saving a little girl's life and gave her a home to grow up in. Now I don't know what happened to the little baby after adoption but the year is 2020 as we filmed this and little baby Arya now would be turning eight years old in September because of the men who wielded this rifle. Thanks. Almost forgot, huge thanks to Darren for loaning us this beautiful specimen from the Polish arsenal and I'd like to dedicate this episode to the bravest Polish soldier that I think we know of out there. Grzegorz Brankiewicz. If you're Polish you'd know. Dziękuję.