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VE-7 Battle Rifle — Description
Developed quickly from 1989 - 1991 by Estonian firearms designer Kaimo Hansen [Citation needed] Intended for use in the Estonian revolution. He predicted that the Estonian SSR's breaking from the soviet union would be a violent one, but fortunately he was wrong. He received a workshop and grant from the soviet government to design a new battle rifle for their forces. The rifle was adopted for a short time by Estonia after the collapse of the USSR, but was only exported afterwards.

It has many different attachable grips which attach onto a 'peg' system in front of the mag well. Users often opted not to use this grip, however, as it's effectiveness was limited to it's placement. Some remounted the attachment system further down the handguard to make these grips more useful. There was no way to add an optic without mounting a external device onto the rifle, but that didn't stop many owners from doing so.

The rifle was phased out of most military service in the early 2010s because of issues regarding parts and modernization. It has seen a recent boom in popularity, however, and these guns continue to be produced in Germany, Austria, United States, Czechia and China. (Though the latter are not called the VE-7 and are not license built, and are generally regarded as cheap knock-offs.)

The rifle has two main variants, the I6 model which was chambered in Soviet 7.62×39mm, which saw the most units produced at roughly 10,250. But there was also the I9 variant, which was chambered in 7.62x51mm NATO. This variant was produced in and from then on after 1991. It was intended to increase compatibility with NATO forces and increase Estonia's chances to be allowed into NATO. Roughly 3,000 models were produced and some reproduction versions of this rifle are still produced today, though with black polymer pieces in place of the food furniture and stock of the originals.