The company's history can be traced back to 1878 with the first armory in the country - the Ruse Artillery Arsenal. Due to strategic concerns it was relocated in Sofia in 1891. After the nation's defeat in the Second Balkan War and World War I, in 1924 the company and all of its equipment were relocated in Kazanlak, a town situated in central Bulgaria. The armory was given the name Darzhavna voenna fabrika. Initially producing only artillery gun components and ammunition, the factory later began to manufacture gas masks, nitroglycerin, machine tools and finally assault rifles, optic sights and B-10 recoilless rifles. The first assault rifle, a direct copy of the Soviet AK-47, was produced in 1958. By the 1960s a total of seven factories were under the company's jurisdiction. Until the Fall of Communism in 1989-1990, the company was named Mashinostroitelen kombinat Fridrikh Engels to conceal its activities as a military enterprise. As part of this strategy it adopted the manufacture of various civilian products, including automobiles such as the then-popular Bulgarrenault-8. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Arsenal began cooperation with companies from Japan, Sweden, Ukraine and Germany. Currently Arsenal AD is a private company conducting international arms trade, although it also expands its civilian exports, now including high-precision metalworking machinery, mobile robot manipulators and synthetic diamonds.
AR-M1 / AR-M1F - improved AK-47 copy with an AK-74front sight base, flash suppressor, black polymer stock set, luminous spots on the iron sights and a rail for mounting optics. The -F model features a folding stock. Chambered in 5.56×45mm NATO and 7.62×39mm.
AR-M2 / AR-M2F - improved AK-47 copy like the AR-M1/AR-M1F, but with a shortened barrel, AKS-74U front sight base and muzzle booster/flash suppressor hybrid.
AR-M4SF - extremely short development of the AKS-74 with red dot sight, provision to mount a night vision or laser sight. Chambered in 5.56×45mm NATO and 7.62×39mm.
AR-M7F - improved AK-47 copy like the AR-M1, but with an AK-101-style folding stock.
AR-M9 / AR-M9F - improved AK-47 copy like the AR-M1/AR-M1F, features a thumb-operable fire selector and a different style polymer stock set. AR-M9F uses a NATO length right side folding tubular stock. Unlike most AK folding variants that have left side folding stocks. The advantages a right side folder has over a left allows the optic mount to remain on the weapon when folded. Instead of having to remove the optic mount to latch the stock. The AR-M9F can still be fired from a folded position as the reciprocating charging handle clears the stock. The selector lever can also still be used since the left side incorporates the thumb selector lever on left side of grip. AR-M9F civilian base rifle counterpart in semiautomatic is the SAM7SF-84.
AR-1 / AR-1F - improved AK-47 copies with black polymer lining and luminous sights.
AR-SF - based on AKS-74U with laser aim indicator. Chambered in 5.56×45mm NATO and 7.62×39mm.
Machine guns
LMG/LMG-F - RPK copies in 7.62×39mm, 5.45×39mm or 5.56×45mm NATO chambering
Arsenal MG series - different versions of the PK machine gun, all with polymer lining and slightly higher muzzle velocity;
