Point to remember is that when Egypt set up to build the Hakim, they didn't just tool up an old papyrus factory and steal a set of plans.
Nor did they simply make "monkey copies" the way the Chinese have done with so many firearms, using and re-using the tooling which was originally made for the M-14. They are at a point right now at which a Chinese M-14 actually has hand-finished parts in places: the tooling is being used for something else.
Rather, Egypt bought the entire production tooling for the AG-42. This is part of the reason that the Hakim does not have a couple of the smaller improvements which the AG-42B has: the B was a Swedish in-Service modification of existing rifles, undertaken after the tooling already had gone to the Land of the Pharaohs and Colonel Nasser.
I remember a discussion one time in one of Doc's classes regarding that "troublesome Arab" Colonel Nasser. Student asked why Nasser didn't just do as the Americans told him. At that time, Nasser was straddling the line between the Yanks and the Commies, taking aid from both of them and playing a very smart middle-of-the-road game. Dr. Lightbody retorted, "Colonel Nasser is not an Arab. He has an Arabic name but he is an EGYPTIAN. He is the same racial stock as the men who built the Pyramids..... and he KNOWS this. Colonel Nasser does not take ORDERS from ANYONE: he does what he thinks is best for Egypt."
And Egypt was building up a distinctive and fairly-advanced local arms industry. The Hakim was a slightly-redesigned AG-42. The Rashid was the same basic mechanism, altered in sizes, capable of being produced on AG-42 machinery, but set up for the Soviet Model 43 cartridge. The Helwan pistol was a Beretta Brigadier, the M951, produced in Egypt. Yeah, they bought THAT factory, too! THEN the Sovs gave them a complete factory for the AKM, which also was set up at Helwan. Hmmmm....... a Russian-built factory to make Russian machine-guns........ on Russian machine-tools, no less...... and NOT under Russian control, either...... wonder where all those brand-new AKMs came from, the ones the Yanks supplied to the Muj in Afghanistan in the late '80s. Yup!
I don't have both rifles myself but, given their history, I would not be surprised at more-than-limited interchangeability of parts between the two rifles. Quite probable that even BARRELS might interchange.
Just maundering along in my senility......
Back into the Sock Closet. Armaguerra is feeling threatened, surrounded by all those Lees!
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