Mebbe time to say farewell to AK rifles..?

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Honestly with current AK prices vs. quality staying with the platform is turning into a tough row to hoe.

This is the problem with Kalashnikovs in a nutshell. Once upon a time a Chicom, Bulgarian, Romanian, etc. rifle could be had for between $250 and $500. My ban era thumbhole Bulgarian SLR95's literally cost $239.95 in 1997. A Colt AR of that era was still over $800 IIRC.

Once AK's started to cost as much as AR's, they lost a lot of their appeal. I wouldn't spend $1,000 even for a perfect Arsenal. I think the last one I bought cost $750 or something like that in 2008 and I thought that was just a tad high. The current SLR107R shows a price of $959.99 on K-VAR's website.

The cheapest Colt I ever bought was a 6720 that cost me approximately $840.00 from Impact Guns last November.

So the world is upside down and a tier 1 Colt AR costs less than a tier 1 Arsenal AK if you look hard enough.

That's what's killing AK's. When it was a $400 rifle one could overlook their little quirks; not so much a $1,000 rifle.

[RetroRevolver77]

Delete.

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. Perhaps the pricing in the market reflects that level of reliability? Who knows.

M

I think it's more to do with the fact that AK's require a certain percentage of US-made parts now. All of the $250 AK's I ever owned were 100% foreign made. My Romanian SAR-1's were $400 guns and had just enough US-made parts to qualify for importation. Not that I keep up with the price on every AK variant made today, but can you even buy an AK of any stripe for less than $600 now?

[RetroRevolver77]

Delete.

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I think the cheapest factory variant is the WASR which is around $700 now days. I wouldn't pay that much for one personally but some people might.

So, a cheapo WASR is $700. When you say you wouldn't pay that much I think thousands of other potential AK buyers are thinking the same thing.

I bought more than one Colt 6720 from Impact Guns for under $850.00. Doing a search on Gun Deals a 6920 ranges from $799 for an OEM2 up to roughly $990 staying with the best pricing among several websites.

So for about $150.00 more than the WASR you can have what basically amounts to a pencil-barrelled M4 (6720), or for $300 more than the most basic AK you can buy a Colt 6920. That is you're getting a rifle that is more accurate, more easily accessorized, and with more than acceptable reliability. The AR also has the popularity of being "America's Rifle". That last part is in fact important to some people. I know people right now who won't own an AK because it's the weapon of the "enemy" and yet own AR's.

I'm of the opinion that price and popularity of "America's Rifle" is what's wrong with the AK market now. In the naughty 90's they were cheap and everybody wanted a cheap AK and an SKS. The GWOT made the M4 popular and increasing prices turned many people off the AK.

I think the main AK buyers of today are the fanboys that "just have to have one." I was that in 1992. Don't even need one now.

[Kevslatvin]

I think it's more to do with the fact that AK's require a certain percentage of US-made parts now. All of the $250 AK's I ever owned were 100% foreign made. My Romanian SAR-1's were $400 guns and had just enough US-made parts to qualify for importation. Not that I keep up with the price on every AK variant made today, but can you even buy an AK of any stripe for less than $600 now?

This quote "The availability of inexpensive AK's during the late '80's, '90's and 2000's was again a market anomaly. In their desperation for cash, the former communist countries were producing at very low prices because their tooling was already paid for. There's no way they would have been able to sell at such low prices if they had to create all the tooling. " I pulled from this thread:
https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread...22#post2546922 may factor in as well.

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Good post, and read down a little bit you'll see a critique of the AK's "legendary reliability". This coming from a mag manufacturer.

https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread...71#post2554271

The "AK Reliability" thing is actually kind of nuanced. More tolerant, to a degree, of contaminants and lack of maintenance? Yes, absolutely. More reliable in normal conditions with even a minimal lubrication schedule? No, actually significantly worse than a good (mil-spec, not 'great') DI AR, from a lot of rounds in mag testing, and that includes Russian built guns, bulgarian built guns, yugos, and rommys. That doesn't include customs from someone like Krebs or Fuller (didn't have the heart to destroy them in high volume testing), but does include proper, arsenal-built guns with both com bloc mags. That's one of the things we sought to address with the AK PMAG program was to get reliability numbers (MRBS) up to what a good AR with a GEN M3 PMAG will do.

And more:

https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread...45#post2556945

I'll have to dig into the data for exact numbers. In the standard TOP 03-02-045 firing schedules, with lube added at the specified intervals, good ARs with Gen M3 PMAGS pretty much only stop with bad primers or the occasional broken bolt. AKs can be all over the place depending on how the tolerances stack up, and in general, the MRBS was lower. Kind of surprised us. But, if the good AK goes 2000 rds between stoppages and the good AR goes 5000...no one will likely notice unless that extra stoppage happens when you really don't want it to. Softer com bloc polymer body AK mags also HATE the Mil spec dust, especially with wolf poly and the like, but the operating system is more tolerant of it.

[1168]

I've been running 106FR's since I had the proto type built before the ban sunset. I've also been running AR's during that same time period. So comparing two 5.56NATO rifles, overall, the Bulgarian 106's have been more reliable- especially with some of the past import surplus ammo. I've encountered maybe a handful of malfunctions during all that time. Perhaps I've just been lucky but I'm willing to overlook a slight shortcoming in ergonomics for what I have experienced to be a much more reliable weapon system. Perhaps the pricing in the market reflects that level of reliability? Who knows.

M

“Maybe a handful of malf’s”
I thought the AK was infallible?

On the subject of price, I would never consider paying more than $500 for such an inferior weapon. In the 90’s they were cool, because the price reflected the quality of a garbage peasant gun. Today’s prices? I’m not sure the vendors realize what they are selling.

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More on the AK's "legendary reliability:"

https://lockedback.com/ak-47-vs-ar-15-mud-test/

For those who don’t want to watch the video, here’s a summery: it failed. The fabled Romanian stock AK-47 repeatedly failed to function fully when soupy mud was poured on the rifle.

The mud gummed up the AK-47 pretty much turning the rifle into a sort of functioning bolt action rifle. The semi-auto functionality of the rifle no longer worked – but the charging handle could be manually operated in order to fire. So the AK-47 definitely gets some points for being in a semi-functioning state.

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For the AR-15 mud test, InRangeTV takes the same mud filled wheelbarrel with the same soupy mud used on the AK-47 and performs the same mud test on an entry level mil-spec AR-15. This test was performed just minutes after the AK-47 test, so the conditions were identical.



The AR-15 functioned almost flawlessly. It was able to fire repeatedly in semi auto mode when the test had been performed with the dust cover open or closed. It did not lock open on the last round fired, but that is a minor detail all things considered, especially since the AK-47 doesn’t lock open on the last round fired anyways.

Why did the AR-15 out perform the AK-47?
The answer is simple really. The loose tolerances and the gaps in the AK-47’s design allowed mud to get into the fire control group, causing it to seize up. The AR-15 operates as a mostly sealed firearm, preventing most mud and gunk from getting into the firearm.

So while the AK-47 has many benefits to its piston design, primarily requiring so little maintenance, there are definitely many flaws to the AK-47.