What the well-armed Somali pirate carries nowadays, somehow I don't doubt that it still works...

Nah, probably good to go. Push a wire brush through a few times and it should run just fine. Maybe not the most accurate thing in the world, but chances are it'ff still fire just fine.

Note that I said I don't doubt that it still works...

They really taped a piece of wood to hold a magazine together??? Wow...just wow.

My guess is that he was going for this effect:


and that is cardboard taped between two magazines.

I think what you are seeing are two magazines taped together opposite ended with a piece of wood in between them.

The thinking is you empty one magazine, then drop it, flip it around and reload the other magazine.

The wood is most likely a spacer, the concept is Hollywood.

Can you AK guys tell from the selector/safety if it is select fire - semi/full auto?

Note the evil bayonet too.

Must of bought it at one of them "gun shows" in the US

Two notches in the sweep of the selector seems to indicate it is full auto.

Edit to add: Wiki has a nice article on the type 56 found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_56
Of particular note, the mentions of Iran, Taliban, and Sudan & how those could be related to current events.

Notice hose shiny the bayonet is... weird.

Chrome, maybe?

Bayonet and bore, if memory serves, are both chrome.

Ahhhhh, yes now I see it....ok that makes much more sense now.

At first glace I thought he had splinted together a cracked/broken magazine. Makes much more sense now. It was a little hard to believe he's use a broken magazine when you consider how well maintained the rest of the rifle is.

Oh...I thought you were taking about this:

A 30 yard shot has got to be childs play for a trained US sniper, moving boat or not. We tend to forget how amazingly well some of these guys can shoot. Even back in Vietnam, people like Carlos Hathcock were regularly making approx. 2500 yard shots with an accurized Ma Duece. He claimed that when the trigger button is tapped just right, you can make an M2 fire a single shot. With a scope and an M2 Carlos used to take out NVA supply carriers on trails. Carlos helped train a whole generation of snipers after he was wounded.
This is the same guy who destroyed an entire company of NVA over the period of several days. It was just him and his spotter and they tracked these guys and shot them down one by one till the company ceased to be an effective fighting force. This was done with a bolt action 30-06. Ronnie Barrett was probably not even born back then butwith the tools Ron provides nowadays, these guys are incredible.

The book (Marine Sniper by Charles Henderson) about Carlos Hathcock's exploits is so incredible that it is hardly believable but its all documented. That was in the 60's. The art of sniping has surely advanced since then.