After reading my post on buying your first AR fellow West Coast Armory range officer Jaxon submitted a great article on something I know absolutely nothing about: buying your first AK. Jaxon is our go-to guy on the range when it comes to AKs: he has one of the only AKs I have ever seen that I would be willing to describe as “nice”, possibly even “tacticool”, and also owns the Draco Pistol Concealed Carry rig I mentioned earlier this month.
AK Buyer Guide
To kind of pick up where Shelley left off with Buying an AR-15, I want to give some information to folks out there who are shopping for “that other rifle” the notorious and infamous: AK-47 (author’s note: the guns we call AK-47s actually aren’t the 47 variant but that name has become intrinsic with firearms utilizing that action and design.)
The old saying is still true: You get what you pay for. So if you shopped online for a $350 AK or one that was a home built rifle from a parts kit from www.boobradleysguns.com then don’t be surprised when the rifle is junk. Imagine if you did all your AR rifle shopping in the bargain bin at Goodwill. You’d end up with a Franken Gun from Olympic Arms or something equally terrible.
If you see an AK held together by screws or it has welds where rivets should be then I suggest running away. Most likely some entrepreneurial Bubba Gump thought “How hard could this be?” when he slapped a few AKs together during the commercials of televised Monster Truck rallies. If you want a good gun you’re going to have to pay for one.
Don’t have unrealistic expectations either. The AK is a rifle built for a different purpose than an AR is. So no, it does not have the same level of mechanical accuracy as an AR. It does offer other advantages over that system, which you could turn blue in the face arguing with Black Ops online warriors about. Does the AK do its intended job? Yes! Wonderfully well at that! This rifle will get you hits reliably out to 200-300 yards with decent (i.e. mostly American made) ammunition. If you ran a ho-hum AR-15 with generic plinking ammunition is comparable to a cheap AK and old military surplus ammunition; not a great combination for accuracy! But, a Noveske built AR-15 rifle running match ammunition would do much better wouldn’t it? So if you ran a high end AK and shot Hornady V-Max or Cor Bon DPX ammunition your results would be much better, wouldn’t they? Truth be told, loaded with Hornady V-Max rounds, AKs are being pushed out to 500 yards on steel targets. Not terribly impressive for 20″ AR-15s but for a 16″ barreled AK that’s pretty damn good.
Tula Krinkov from Rifle Dynamics
The best production AKs right now are coming from Arsenal Inc. and Saiga. There are other companies putting out good rifles and even Century Arms who butchered thousands of old Romanian WASR-10s has finally started to learn from their mistakes and put out half way decent rifles. As much as it surprises me to say it, the current crop of Romanian WASR – 10/63s aren’t half bad. There are even AK specific gunsmiths out there who will build you a beautifully tuned AK with polished parts and internals, de-horned edges and fresh new coats of paint. Check out what Krebs Custom and Rifle Dynamics to see what they are doing for this venerated firearm.
As a shooter and a shopper there are some things you need to pay attention to:
The triggers in most AKs are usually gritty double stage triggers. With lots of shooting they smooth out, or you can polish it yourself or pay someone to do it for you. It’s not hard, these guns were designed so even the most backwoods peasant could learn it in a day. With your American ingenuity you can educate yourself (and with the internet) how to do this! Or just buy an aftermarket trigger from TapCo (their G-2 trigger is the only product of theirs I would endorse) or Red Star Arms for their adjustable match trigger.
Get your hands on the exact rifle you want to buy and check to make sure the good magazines you want to use will seat properly, have little to no wobble when locked in place and release without difficulty. To correlate: The best mags on the market are Bulgarian Circle 10 polymer “waffle” mags. Steel mags work fine but the Bulgarian waffle mags are tough to beat.
Sometimes the front sight is canted on the lower end rifles. Make sure this is straight or nearly straight, enough so you can zero with your iron sights.
Warsaw? NATO? This denotes the length of the butt stock. Most folding stocks are Warsaw length. Warsaw makes for a shorter handier gun, but many people find NATO length stocks fit American sized shooters better. Also NATO is more pleasant to shoot in the prone position because of that extra length.
Make sure the AK has a threaded muzzle. Don’t get lured into a good deal with a cheap “sporter” AK that doesn’t have a threaded muzzle. I guess if it’s a really good deal, go ahead and get it and just accept the fact you’ll need to pay to get the muzzle threaded.
Depending on how you do it, you can get into the AK game for about $1000 bucks. Just now the American market is waking up to the AK platform and new products are being put out by reputable manufacturers. So now you can pimp out and Barbie up an AK just like you did with your AR, go train with it and maybe one day your Red Dawn fantasy will come true. Now you’ll have a rifle to act the part of the Wolverines!
If only Jennifer Gray would re-materialize as her 1984 self then life as a Wolverine would be complete.
The standard AK trigger is single stage, although Arsenal does make a two-stage as an option.
Not many things about AKs are standard, but I do stand corrected. Arsenal outfits their SGL and SLR rifles with double stage triggers. Most triggers from parts kits are single stage and the Tapco G2s that are going on most Century and other production rifles are single stage triggers as well.
I know you’re the go-to-guy for anything AK, Jax…but who knew about Jennifer Gray? ;)
I would say $1000 leaves plenty of room to save. I converted two saigas, one a 223 with ace folder and magpul ctr, the other a 7.62×39. You could get 7.62×39 saigas converted from kvar for $600 or less.
Arsenal has 223 side folders available for $699.
Both great deals.
Jaxon: I’m an AR guy who has never owned or shot an AK style rifle. A few months ago I started looking into AKs more out of curiosity than anything else. Came across the Arsenal Inc website.
They offer both the AK47 in 7.62X39 and the AK74 in 5.45X39. I know both have been around for years, but the 74′s don’t seem to be as popular. If one were in the market for an AK, what are the advantages and disadvantages between the two guns……Bub
Bub, that’s a great question. To answer that in a comment reply would leave some information out. I’ll write up a follow up today/tomorrow