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AK best to worst.

I have a ak74 that i love. I believe that it is a complete bulgarian that was brought in a long time ago. Long story ahead...

Way back when, 15ish years ago, I was searching around and found this super cheap caliber 5.45x39. I was some deal where if you had a FFL or C&R it was like $70-80 for the spam cans which are 1040 i think. Anyways, this was around the time when wolf 556 and 762 had jumped up to around $150 per thousand, so i loaded up on this shit. I bought around 20k rounds and sold off 5k right away for a little profit. Had no idea what kind of rifle shot it, but i didnt care. I had found cheap ammo again.

So the search continued and i found out about the AK74. Searched for the cheapest one i could and found what everyone was calling a "truck gun." Ordered it for around $400. They were all original bulgarians(i think) with chrome lined barrels.

Anyways, i abused this shit out of that rifle. Only shot corrosive primered ammo, wasnt cleaning it after. Bolt rusted shut once and had to jump on the charging handle. Me and my friends would load up 10 mags and bump fire the thing until the forearm would start on fire. Basically the worse shit you could do to a rifle and it just kept taking it.

I have probably run 5k rounds through it and maybe 1k of them were actually trying to hit something. It is somehow still accurate and keeps working. Now that they have banned a lot of the foreign parts i wish i would have bought two of them. One to abuse like i did, because those are some great memories, but another to use it normally.

I kept buying more spam cans because they went on sale again. I think it was cheaper than dirt that had a busted link that would bring them up for 80 or 90 per tin with a limit of 5. If you went to their site and searched for it it was around 150. That link got passed around fast and only lasted a few days, but i picked up another 10 spam cans.

Someday when i gp back to where i grew up i need to go to my dads office and see what all is there. I have been shipping stuff there for around 10 years and he has just been piling it up. At this point im not even sure what all is there.
 
I had a minute to do some research last night. I bought the KR-103. It has forged trunnions, chromed barrel etc.. I like the idea it is made by Kalashnakov for some reason. It is going to be/do what I want it to do and it is amazingly light and recoil/jump is really non-existent. Just loud as fuck which can be solved with a suppressor.

I am still going to order a 2K$ milled one when I get home as I want one with a picatinny rail for some kind of optic. The MK1, Mod 1, AK sights are not meshing with my older eyes anymore.
 
I would like a nice side folding 47 or 74. 2k seems really high, but i am also way out of touch with what prices are in the last couple years
 
DICKWEED said:
I ended up buying the Kalashnikov USA one for 1K. I just didn’t see the point in buying the arsenal one for an additional 1K. Bought a couple mags and 1K rounds. If it doesn’t run then I will get the arsenal one when I get back home. Going up on the mountain in a bit to melt the barrel off of it.
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That should be a good runner, as long as it doesn't have any teething issues out the gate which should pop up in the first few hundred rounds.

Give it a good clean and lube it with synthetic 5w30 motor oil, and regular white lithium grease on the bolt carrier rails. Inspect the bolt locking lugs every few mags to see if they are wearing correctly on the locking surfaces.

Then whenever you clean it inspect the trunnions and bolt/carrier for cracks or wear. These things don't need much cleaning, more often than every 1k rounds is a waste of time. You can go much longer if you want as well.
 
I run the cone brake on mine and it's still loud but I don't hear it as much.

There are other options for optics then a expensive receiver. I run a dot on the Midwest Ind hand guard and it's worked fine. Company in Texas does a railed dust cover, etc.

CNC Warrior and Arms of America are some of the AK vendors that I have used before.

Zenico has some nice parts and pieces but hard to find and $$ it seems.
 
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Oh and I agree with the muzzle device comments. The AK103 brake does a good job of reducing felt recoil, at the expense of being loud AF and flashing a lot out the sides. They are nice to shoot with good ear pro, just not in low light.
 
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DICKWEED said:
I had a minute to do some research last night. I bought the KR-103. It has forged trunnions, chromed barrel etc.. I like the idea it is made by Kalashnakov for some reason.
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They... are like armalite ARs made after the '70s
they ain't the same 'armalite'

forged trunnion and chromed barrel is good news
kinda wonder about the bolt, be afraid of it being MIM
 
Weasel said:
I don't think those are even on the same planet.
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well it's hyperbole

it works plenty good for a lot of things, wouldn't blink at a hammer, sear, rear trunnion, bolt carrier or barrel hardware made with the process
bolts and front trunnions are known to wear at the locking lugs
 
Wow. Never would think someone would come up with an idea to make a pot metal bolt. That kinda defeats the design purpose of an AK.
 
again, not die cast zinc

it is injection molded steel powder with some sort of low temp binder, sintered later on to weld the steel grains together and burn away the binder
 
should wear well but it's one of those tech method's that I'd be worried on testing the first couple hundred. It should be a pretty easy process to control for repeatability and HT though.
 
I've got a cheap $400 Romy WASR 10 that I picked up 10 years ago and it has worked flawlessly every time I've taken it to the range. If I were to spend more money on one it would be an Arsenal.
 
Weasel said:
should wear well but it's one of those tech method's that I'd be worried on testing the first couple hundred. It should be a pretty easy process to control for repeatability and HT though.
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I’m no expert but my understanding of it is that it’s similar to ceramic. Hard, durable, low friction, but prone to fracturing in some cases,
 
Gatorgrizz27 said:
I’m no expert but my understanding of it is that it’s similar to ceramic. Hard, durable, low friction, but prone to fracturing in some cases,
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huh, what I saw was more like bearing spalling,
my experience is in some injection pump internals, a VE pump drive coupling cross (from the input shaft to the camplate), so something that reciprocates under heavy torsional load.

Not so much fracturing, but the wear surface kinda breaks down at the bonds between grains.

IIRC parts aren't pressure sintered in a die in this process like an oilite bearing or a spur gear, they're just baked in an oven with an inert atmosphere and allowed to shrink together naturally. There's a large amount of shrinkage from the as-molded part to the completed part.
 
[486] said:
huh, what I saw was more like bearing spalling,
my experience is in some injection pump internals, a VE pump drive coupling cross (from the input shaft to the camplate), so something that reciprocates under heavy torsional load.

Not so much fracturing, but the wear surface kinda breaks down at the bonds between grains.

IIRC parts aren't pressure sintered in a die in this process like an oilite bearing or a spur gear, they're just baked in an oven with an inert atmosphere and allowed to shrink together naturally. There's a large amount of shrinkage from the as-molded part to the completed part.
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I’m not in the industry, so I’m just parroting what I’ve seen and heard, but it’s basically been several examples of this. (Post #4)

Replacing mim parts

I previously replaced the hammer with an Apex Evolution IV DAO hammer and got lucky with it being a drop in replacement...so I decided to also replace the trigger (Power Custom), cylinder stop (TK Cus
smith-wessonforum.com

I’ve seen AR’s shear off bolt lugs before, so I’d think some wear from a softer material and rounding of edges was preferable to cracking.
 
Gatorgrizz27 said:
I’ve seen AR’s shear off bolt lugs before, so I’d think some wear from a softer material and rounding of edges was preferable to cracking.
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are there really MIM'd AR bolts now?
fuck man, those are something that's already engineered real close to the limit of the alloys they use, can't imagine using something lesser would work well...
 
I suppose there are many diff process that can be used and called the same tech. All about controlling grain direction, size and material properties in the heat process.
 
Drove 9 hours today but am back home. I broke the bolt out on mine last night but it was so dirty I couldn't really tell anything and I had some beer in my eyes. I am going to tear it down tomorrow and give it a cleaning and look over. Bought another 1,000 rounds on my way out this morning. My 103 has some rail on the side that I need to research to see what optics are available for it. I think I am going to lose it because my girlfriend likes it so much. Other than the noise and the shitty sights, it is a pleasure to shoot. The land we have been negotiating for has a pond about 300 yards from the house and what would be, "our mountain" behind it. It would be a blast to put something in the pound and pound rounds at it or eliminated turtles.

We are definitely buying another one so I am going to get a milled receiver so I have the rail. Everyone in my small town in PA is super tin foily about the Govt and everything going to shit. My high school buddy is a logger and he was telling me how he constantly see's all the US Govt vehicles out in the middle of nowhere where he is logging. We had the FBI pull the wool over everyones eyes over the lost gold up in Dents run. (Google it). We were out in the middle of nowhere riding Thursday and our phones turned off and then our iPhones had a 5 minute wait before we could sign in again. They still wouldn't work until we had my sister call our phones. They were still funky the rest of the time we were up there. Historically, we have had some weird shit go down in PA where I lived so I can't really blame the locals. They have conspiracy stories for everything...why the deer population disappeared, insurance companies bringing in coyotes, FBI presence in the middle of the woods etc.. They are guarded and ask me weird assed questions because I work for the Govt. I keep telling them I write contracts and do not work for the Pentagon lol.
 
Not broken, just dirty as shit and I was buzzed so I just threw it back together and will break it down tomorrow.
 
Best AK optics mounts are the RS regulate mounts:


Actual russian optics leave quite a bit to be desired, except valdada. Best option is to just go with pic rail and mount whateve flavor quality optic you want.
The milled rifle won't actually gain you anything, except be heavier. Thay aren't any more accurate, or durable, but that said, I would like to add one eventually.
 
I wanted an optic so I bought the Kalashnikov full rail and a Vortex Strikefire. Immediately took the Strikefire off because you had to break your cheek weld to see through it. Ended up mounting a Holosun, Eotech looking thing on it. Still not great but workable. Put a couple hundred rounds downrange Saturday and was able to hit 6" gongs at 200yds reliably but, still isn't feeling right. GF's son comes out with his AK and it has a side rail with the Picatinny rail still on the side and some kind of high dollar red dot on a mount that puts the sight on top of the receiver. It felt great and I was able to maintain a good cheek weld but I am not investing the 1500.00 into this gun.
 
Yotota said:
Haha even the cheapest AR has decent quality cast upper and lower receivers, so they still look and feel smooth and ergonomic. Material quality is a huge difference though especially when comparing cheap new production ARs with surplus parts kit AKs or European import AKs. A cheap $500 AR will be shot to shit in less than 5k rounds and the barrel will be punching buckshot pattern groups, whereas the AK will be humming along and asking for all the abuse you can throw at it.

AKs we're designed in 1940s Russia and ARs were designed in 1960s America where everything was getting the cast/smooth treatment. Forged AR and AK receivers are the best of course, but I will take a stamped steel gun over a cast aluminum gun all day every day.

They're all just tools at the end of the day. I don't own anything just to own it, it's for a purpose even if that purpose is 99% "shoot shit because shooting shit is fun".
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I have many $4-500 AR's with more than 5k down the tube. Replace the barrel every 10-20k rounds and you're good to go.


One of the machine gun ranges kept track of round count. The AK's were beat, stretched, cracked, etc by 100k rounds. They had AR's over 250k, still working. They did have to put kns anti-rotation trigger pins in to keep the pins from falling out around 150k rounds. :laughing:



The AK works generally. It's not magic and still takes maintenance and replacement parts or it will stop working.


The main thing keeping me away from any AK is the complete shit show in the ergonomics, coupled with the fact that it was designed for someone about 5'2" tall.
 
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