Russian Iron (Oh Dear Lord, Not Another Firearms Thread)

Dave Rishar

Dave Rishar

Joined
Oct 25, 2004
Messages
3,178
...or, "This Home Protected by Kalashnikov."

By coincidence I found myself doing some work on all three of my Kalashnikovs over the last few days. Since they were all out, why not some pictures?

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The Avtomat Kalashnikova -- an American classic. ;)

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Whenever I read the caliber stamp "12x76", it makes me giggle for some reason.

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The only thumbhole stock that I've ever liked. (And it's a good thing, too, as the Veprs have proprietary geometry at the rear of the receiver and don't accept standard furniture.)

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I've heard complaints that magazines sometimes hang up on vertical foregrips. I've had no problems but I use drums just to be safe. :)

Got AK?
 

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Really nice. I've got a couple I have to finish dressing out. Are all of those Russian manufacture? Let's see, a Saiga shooting shotgun, a Vespre (sic) and a Krink clone? No, wait that's not a Krink; that's just an amazing stock set.Where'd you get that?

When you said, Russian Iron, my first thought was their massive WWll tank.....




munk
 
Damn! You gots a .308 VEPR? Sweet! On my wish list.

Got AK? :)



GP WASR-10, birdcage flash thingy, Tapco furniture, forget who's pic rail, Nuwaii Q3. Parkerized mag. Pic rail has laser inside.

It IS a milsurp, just not a C&R.

Mike
 
From left to right:

WASR, Saiga-12, Vepr I in .308. The WASR's muzzle looks a bit funny because I removed that foolish cap and discovered that there were no threads beneath it. I'm not about to weld the thing back on. I'm still considering my options here. The WASR's furniture is standard Romanian gear that's been woodchucked a bit. For combloc laminated milsurp wood, they look halfway decent with some stain, oil, and a bit of wipe-on poly.

The Vepr is a great rifle, weight aside. It doesn't really need a different set of furniture but I'd like the option, you know? It was hard enough getting the bipod on there.

As for the Saiga...12 gauge is cool. AK is cool. Leave it to Izhmesh to put them together and come up with something so indescribably cool that I'm not even worthy to discuss it. I bought mine when they were $199 plus tax. I should have bought ten of them. They've appreciated considerably since then, and for good reason. Even at $400 (which is what they seem to go for now) they're a bargain. When the multitude of 10 round magazines under development achieve fruition, they will be even more of a bargain.

Okay, I'll discuss it a bit, but merely from a developmental point of view. Note cutoff receiver cover to allow the ejection of 12G hulls from an AK receiver. How to keep the dirt out of such a large aperature? Simple -- attach a reciprocating plate to the recoil spring. (Visible in the pic.) In battery, it's AK dirt-proof; during the recoil cycle, there's enough room available to eject a hull. Brilliantly simple and reliable in practice. It even has an adjustable gas system with two settings, one for light loads and one for heavy. In use, the setting for heavy loads cycles light loads reliably enough after the weapon has been broken in. Such simple elegance is dazzling. I understand that Mikhail is a fan of the 7.62x39mm and doesn't like change in general, but even he ought to be proud of such a thing. Could any other battle carbine accomodate a shotshell without extensive re-engineering? (In three different shotshell calibers, no less.)

AK protip: the $40 Tapco set of fire control components is worth it. The Saiga-12 received these during the pistol grip conversion in order to retain legality and it now sports the best trigger pull of the bunch. The WASR will be getting a set in the future. (The Vepr is not quite as good, but is definitely good enough. The Russians can produce an acceptable trigger pull when they have to, evidently.)
 
Dave ? Is the fourth of July a lively time at the Rishar household ?

I have never fired a semi-auto shotgun . (At least I hope its sem-auto?)

Unfortunately the best I can do at the moment is a right hand bolt action . My being left handed does slow things down a bit .
 
Very nice! I wish we could have those here in Canada. As for Izhmash, you are absolutely correct. Any AK made by a "licensee" will be different from the original, and the difference is in the metal used. Congrats on a great setup!!
 
Ah - the incredible AK.
My one has been personally dropped from great heights("Oops ..now that's a looong way down"),dunked (ie: "How deeps the river?"..."Err I'm actually swimming"..."Oh" ),raced, rolled (ie; "Hey you should've seen how far your rifle went when you crashed"..."No kidding"),abused ("Whats that POS you got there?"),electrified ("Hey is this fence hot or what?"...Zap!!!) And yet the piece of junk still goes bang! Mr Klashnikov I think you might have a winner there...LOL!
 
Excelent Dave, I havent kept up with the last 20 years developments of these.

Wonderfull pieces, Im impressed.

Spiral
 
Dave Rishar said:
As for the Saiga...12 gauge is cool. AK is cool. Leave it to Izhmesh to put them together and come up with something so indescribably cool that I'm not even worthy to discuss it. I bought mine when they were $199 plus tax. I should have bought ten of them. They've appreciated considerably since then, and for good reason. Even at $400 (which is what they seem to go for now) they're a bargain. When the multitude of 10 round magazines under development achieve fruition, they will be even more of a bargain.
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I have been looking to pick one up for quite some time! I think you just tipped me over the edge.....10 rounds of 12 guage love....what can compete with that!?
 
Well, I suppose you could chamber 1 then put the mag in...so there is your 11:thumbup: :thumbup: How about a 30 round drum?
 
I like the Tromix stuff in general but getting a shorty around here legally is fairly difficult and the full-sized stuff is...well, full-sized. I'm not in the market for one of these currently but I might change my mind in the future. What I would like is to have Krebs convert the Vepr to take M14 magazines but I never seem to get around to working out the shipping details.

John, the foregrip is off of one of these as best as I can tell -- they seemed to appear around the same time as the RomAKs did. I'm not positive but the general appearance and construction (i.e. plywood) seem to indicate Romanian origins. :)
 
Thanks, Dave.

Forgot the AMD-65 only reversed a pistol grip.

I'm looking around for an AK variant in 5.45 or 5.56 for Jordy.

John
 
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