The Fighting Carbine, AK Edition

[shep854]

Jippo, it's nearly a year late but thank you for that informative test and reply. One photo can indeed say a lot.

[Chriscolo]

Thank you.

[MountainRaven]

Should I get a milled or a stamped gun?

This one is a subject constantly argued on the interwebs. It is said that a milled gun is, ‘tighter’ and, ‘more accurate’ but all of that can be thrown out the window. What a milled AK is, is more relatively rare (and therefore easier to dump on the market). There has been little research showing that milled rifles are better in most situations. In fact, with rifles that have seen high use, the scale is slanted towards the stamped side: Stamped receivers allow more stretch (stamped receivers which have seen high use have shown expansions well over 1mm beyond the initial factory specs) whereas most milled guns would crack (and no longer work) at that point.

So what’s the point of a milled gun? Re-sale and rarity, that’s it.

Or, I suppose the pleasure of carrying a heavier rifle. You decide (for anyone who has carried a rifle for hundreds of miles on patrol, this one is a no-brainer). If you’re buying to ultimately re-sell, buy a milled gun. If you’re buying to actually use, buy a stamped gun.

Just thought that I'd update this with this thread from 2015: Link.

Short version is that Battlefield Vegas, the big machine gun rental place in Las Vegas, has never once had a milled receiver break. Every stamped gun of every nationality they've run (and they have AKs from everywhere but North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba) has eventually suffered a cracked front trunion.

However, the trunions on the stamped guns don't generally fail until 80,000-100,000 rounds have been fired through the guns. Receivers very rarely fail, and they typically pull the barrel and trunion once the trunion cracks and install a new trunion and barrel. Romanian WASR barrels are still not shot out enough at this point to keyhole at the relatively close ranges they use.

So there is a theoretical benefit to running a milled gun and that is if you're running tens of thousands of rounds, especially at a cyclic rate.

An image associated with the above: 30 days of 7.62x39 casings:

[Moose-Knuckle]

Battlefield Vegas has really provided some interesting findings that is for sure.

After watching Mrgunsngear's video tour, if I lost all my rifles tomorrow and had to start over I'd just get a couple of SCAR-Ls and call it good.

[shep854]

Just thought that I'd update this with this thread from 2015: Link.

Short version is that Battlefield Vegas, the big machine gun rental place in Las Vegas, has never once had a milled receiver break. Every stamped gun of every nationality they've run (and they have AKs from everywhere but North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba) has eventually suffered a cracked front trunion.

However, the trunions on the stamped guns don't generally fail until 80,000-100,000 rounds have been fired through the guns. Receivers very rarely fail, and they typically pull the barrel and trunion once the trunion cracks and install a new trunion and barrel. Romanian WASR barrels are still not shot out enough at this point to keyhole at the relatively close ranges they use.

So there is a theoretical benefit to running a milled gun and that is if you're running tens of thousands of rounds, especially at a cyclic rate.

Given the heat and stress that full-auto mag dumps impose on a gun, rifles fired in semi only ought to last even longer

[RetroRevolver77]

Milled receivers don't flex and become butter smooth after a while but they are heavy. I chose stamped. Specifically Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian along with some Russian kits built onto US receiver clones. Either way, if you factor in how you save shooting nothing but steel cased ammo minus what you would have spent running brass in another type of firearm- the weapons pay for themselves. Figure around a 10 cents difference per round overall- times a thousand and that's $100 per case in savings. Multiply that by the number of cases you've fired and within eight to ten cases- you've paid for the rifle. I just want to add, the best overall rifle to own is a stamped 7.62x39. It's the most popular, magazines are plentiful, and ammo is relatively cheap along with being low pressure- which means longer barrel life.


7n6