AK variants - what to look for?

[Gunsmoke4570]

ARs generally shoot good out of the box, as long as you have good ammo. The AKs I have experience with I will rate the Romanian at the bottom, then the Bulgarian/Arsenal rifles and the Saiga family about even, and the Valmet and Galil styles on top. As previously mentioned, the biggest hold up is ammo, but I will say every SKS I've shot will out shoot an AK with the same ammo.

[OBIII]

In my opinion, AK's are, as you said, "Battle Rifles". Cheap to make and easy to maintain. That being said, I have a Romanian AK that I bought a while back. Finally took it to a gunsmith who told me that the bore was .310, the chamber and barrel looked good, with the exception of the slight bulge (.311 to .312) in the 1-1/2" distance prior to the end of the barrel. I don't expect to get tack driver accuracy at 200 yards, but I must say I will get hit after hit. It just seems to me that if you have access to loaded hi-cap magazines, you can throw a lot of lead downrange prior to having to change mags. I use my 03-A3 for distance shooting.

[JIMinPHX]

A lot of people seem to be of the opinion that ammo has a lot to do with the accuracy of an AK. Does anyone have specific loads that they recommend? Do you guys think that it would be best to load down to the point where the action stops cycling & the gun functions as a straight pull bolt gun? I'm going to be starting with the 160 grain Harris design boolits, unless someone has a good reason not to. I'll probably start with 2400 as a powder.

[GRUMPA]

Here is what i just got done shooting.



Attachment 27940




Shot 2 different loads with pretty much same results. This one I uploaded is Norinco stuff. Other group was Hornady #3147 with 25gr. RL-7. 100yds rested, MAK-90 Norinco, with so-so eyesight, iron sites.

[JIMinPHX]

You need to reset the date gizmo on your digital camera. That picture reads August of 2003.

That's a pretty good group relative to what other people have been saying those things are capable of. If I can get down to a group like that, I'll be pretty happy.

I've got a little RL-7 kicking around from loading my .30-30. If you're getting groups like that, maybe I'll give it a whirl too.

Thanks,
Jim

[MtGun44]

I have built and bought lots of ARs, ALL shoot at WORST 1/3 the group sizes that my one
and only AK can do. I'm going to load some quality ammo for the AK before I assume that
it is just a rattly old ***, but so far, that is my impression. Yeah, it will work (altho mine has
jammed more than any AR that I have) most of the time, and no doubt that is important,
but seems like a FAL or HK91 will outshoot them by a bunch, and they work, too. I have multiple
ARs that will keep them all in 3" at 300 yds, or 5" with junky milsurp ammo.

Not sure where it says that you have to be inaccurate to be reliable.

Bill

[MilSurpFan]

There's the challenge that I was looking for. I'll pick one up & see if I can get it to hit golf balls at 100 yards.

Golf balls at 100 yards may be going a bit far. The again, I can't even see a golf ball at 100yards so I might be biased.

I've gotten decent results with Hornady 150grain .312 jacketed loads using 4895 and 4198. I know I've run a few loads through a Romanian with the Lee 160gr TL though I don't have any clear recollection of the results. Must not have been too memorable either good or bad as I would remember better.

I'll look though the pile of old targets to see what loads looked promising. Maybe I'll find my notes from the Lee 160s. Plenty of good info out there for this caliber already as I am sure you are aware.

[82nd airborne]

You do know, with a milled receiver, you can make a barrel from a blank and make your own trunion and get some decent accuracy for a decent battle rifle. Ive got one I build from a receiver flat and parts kit when I was in my teens. With the Lee 220g cast it will do 3" if I can, but AK irons and I are not a good mate.

[GRUMPA]

Jim from what I've been reading from other sites in my particular case may have a weee bit of an advantage. The Norinco ammo is no longer imported, hasn't for years and from other sites it was at the time pretty good stuff to use. Alot of the budget type ammo for those is covered in some sort of lacquer (mine is copper wash)which again from reading from other sites creates problems for some. And since theirs alot of so called clones floating around on the market and the AK is my least favorite to shoot I can't comment on what brand is good and which one isn't.

And again from other sites the Norinco AK's for in my mind being a budget gun were pretty good for alot of people, which stopped being imported in the early 90's. Which one is good now? I have no clue. But the reloaded stuff I shot worked very similar to the factory stuff so I would guess my Norinco is a pretty good shooter. It's really kinda hard to figure out which one works for the individual when you can't try out different ones before you buy.

[JIMinPHX]

Well,
I've dipped my toe in the water on this one. I picked up one of the cheap Romanian refits that was done by Century, so I expected to be starting near the bottom of the quality scale. I found a few pleasant surprises & a few things that didn't exactly make me smile.

The first thing that I did was to take it home, give it a quick cleaning & a function check. When that was done, I grabbed 100 rounds of ammo & headed for my favorite shooting spot. Out of the box, this thing was able to make a soda can jump @ 50 yards, more times than not. At 20 yards, I could make the can jump about 1 out of 3 times shooting from the hip. In 100 rounds, I didn't have a single feeding problem. I fired the last 30 round magazine in steady, but not really fast, succession. After that, the oil on the outside of the barrel started to smoke. OK, I guess that means that this thing handles like an AK is supposed to handle.

I took it home, gave it a good cleaning & looked it over a little closer. The bolt & carrier assembly look to be pretty well made. The OD edges of the gas piston were sharp as a razor, so I dulled them up with some 400 grit. The gas piston tube has some SERIOUS clearance designed into it. It would just about take an act of god to clog that thing up. The poor excuse for a slant cut muzzle brake on the front of this thing was really loose & wobbling around badly. I mean it had like .030" of movement in it. It was bad. The chrome bore looked nice & shiny. I didn't slug it yet.

The muzzle brake was held on by a M14 x 1 left hand thread with an index locating pin. The pin engaged about 3/4 of a turn out & the threads were sloppy, so that's where the wobble came from. I made an aluminum shim to go under the muzzle brake & tighten things up. That part is about 98% better now.

I decided to take this thing out today & treat it like a rifle, rather than a lead spraying device. I took 5 shot strings with 6 different types of ammo, letting the rifle rest for about 5 minutes between strings. I loaded the cartridges by hand, rather than using a magazine. The range was 50 yards. Conditions were 65 degrees, sunny, with a slight breeze. I was shooting over the hood of my truck with only a towel for a rest.

2 different loads with 13bnh Harris design boolits shot the worst, with 3 out of 5 inside of 3" & the other 2 off the paper. The best group came from some Herter's brand FMJ. Wolf soft points come in a close second. The best group had all 5 shots inside of 2.75" @ 50 yards. That is certainly not bench rest class, but it could pass for a rifle group & it is a place to start. It certainly is minute of Bambi & the 154 grain soft points would seem to be suitable for that kind of task.

I'm going to try to work up some better cast loads for this thing & see if I can get the groups down to 1.5" @ 50 yards. I think that poor excuse for a muzzle brake is the first place that I can look on the rifle to make some accuracy improvements. Unfortunately, my lathe doesn't have a metric threading gear box on it, so a left hand M14-1 thread is going to be something that I can't cut myself. I may have to look around for something on the open market that I can just buy.

Any other ideas or suggestions out there?

[waksupi]

I was going to suggest if the accuracy went bad as things heated up, remove the aluminum shim you put under the muzzle break. They are supposed to have some slop in them as designed. Allows for metal expansion. If it really bugs you, stone some of the back surface off, until you can re-index on the plunger pin.

[JIMinPHX]

Actually, my best group was my last group. If anything, heat might have helped the accuracy improve. The rifle didn't get very hot though. Not today anyway.

[Ole]

Remind me next time I head out your way Jim and i'll bring along a few boxes of M67 Yugo Milsurp ammo. I have a boatload of it for my SHTF stash.

It's corrosive, but supposed to be among the most accurate 7.62x39 ammo you can get.

Have you slugged your bore? Recovered any of the Lee 2R bullets in your trap?

[JIMinPHX]

I managed to snap off a few more quick rounds today. I cast up some harder boolits out if recovered shot + 15% babbit. Water dropped, they came out @ 30 bnh. I loaded them over 21 grains of RE-7 for around 1800fps. Out of an SKS, I got a 1-3/8" group @ 50 yards. The AK gave me about 4" groups with the muzzle brake shimmed snug & a 2-1/4" group with the muzzle brake removed. That's better than the best group that it shot with the muzzle brake on, even with j-word bullets. I think that I'm on the right track. I'm going to see if I can make some more muzzle area improvements.

[Shiloh]

There's the challenge that I was looking for. I'll pick one up & see if I can get it to hit golf balls at 100 yards.

Good Luck!!

Shiloh

[82nd airborne]

cutting a crown couldnt hurt.

[JIMinPHX]

cutting a crown couldnt hurt.

I was thinking that too.

[JIMinPHX]

After scratching my head & figuring out that I could get pretty close to a 1mm pitch out of a lathe with an Imperial gearbox by setting up for 22tpi & running a 13:15 auxiliary gear ratio, I did manage to cut a M14-1L plug gage.

Then I did some more thinking & it dawned on me, that everything I post on this thread is available to anyone on the internet at large. I often speak my mind here, rather freely, as though I was sitting in a living room with a bunch of friends. Unfortunately, it's not only friends that can read what is written here.

Since the AK is predominantly used by people in this world that are not friends of the US, it is probably not in my best interest to post a bunch of hop up tips for that type of rifle on an open access internet forum. The last thing that I want to do is help some Taliban type in Afghanistan improve his rifle so that he can shoot at US soldiers better.

Based on that realization, I'm not going to post anymore of my findings on this subject. I don't want to be remembered as the guy that gave aid & comfort to the enemy.

I did figure out a few more things about that rifle, but I'm going to keep my new found info local.

Now, when I manage to scrape together enough money to someday get into the AR platform, I'll be happy to share what I learn & figure out about that.

[HighHook]

A man with an ak is one bad MO FO. No dought about it. They all have there little quirks. Just get one (any one) and you will love it. They shoot the lee 155 really nice.

Jim I am sure you have other stuff to shoot nose hairs out of squirrels.

When you go shooting make sure you bring plenty of ammo and make sure you make your buddys stop off at wallmart and buy ammo...

We all wonder about that internet thing.

[txpete]