Most East German equipment was surplussed out with a few notable exceptions. A fair amount of East German AKs ended up on the US surplus market as "parts kits," where the receiver is destroyed and the rest of the gun is sold to be re-built. The newly reunified German military remained aligned with the West, so adopting AKs that lacked parts and ammunition commonality with the rest of NATO wasn't really an option.

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An unfortunate side-effect of the reunification for the West German military was that it killed the G11 caseless rifle program, as the economic problems of unification combined with the sudden dissolution of the driving threat behind West Germany's military to dry up military budgets. However, the more conventional G36 program that followed would allow the Bundeswehr to get some utility out of the stockpiles of East German equipment. The G36 was designed in such a way that many of the East German AK bayonets that were still stockpiled could be easily modified to fit the new rifle.