Support AKOU Channel, shop at the AKOU store: www.AK4774.com Please Like, Comment and Subscribe! Link to the Full Video with shooting at 600yds: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-T4NhMzNE_1I.html Thank you for watching!
Love your videos, both the AKOU and the Vintage Rifle Shooters Club. But my question has nothing to do AKs or awesome old rifles. It is this: Who makes the jacket you are wearing? I've been trying to capture screen shots in the fleeting hope I could read it, but no luck. Keep making fantastic videos!
When using owner-supplied parts, even if the builder is a hack, poor performance is always 100% the fault of the owner. Quality of parts is obvious. But the owner bears fault for having selected the builder.
according to battlefield las vegas the wasr barrels last the longest,around 100,000 rounds!! my wasr has AR accuracy. the ultimak rail adds to AK accuracy as well.
Rob I know this was off subject. You gave me a lot of ideas for upgrading my WASR. I wanted to add another AK to my inventory. Unfortunately I was dianosed with cancer. I wasn't able to do either. Thank you and many others on RU-vid for helping me pass my time while going through treatments. So far I'm cancer free. I'm back at work.
Kind of why you can put a Finnish Sako barrel on a captured Mosin Nagant and get something that held the 9 hole review top military WW2 bolt action rifle award for a long time.
Don’t let the gun snobs know, some dude just argued me for 3 days straight that PSA is the worst company for the gun community, mind you he never even owned one.
@@sirstan262 I personally own several Saiga's, Bulgarian, Hungarian AK's as well as a custom build. Not cheap AK's. The GF5 Russian Red (Rosewood) with FN barrel is not only accurate, it is beautifully finished. So I can personally say that PSA gets better everyday. I bought an AR kit from PSA and their upper finish matched my Spike's Tactical (are they low quality?) lower perfectly. Looks like they were finished together from the start. Hey, I have had to return Sig's, S&W, Mossberg's, etc. So far no returns to PSA (5 for 5). I plan to P/U their STG44 when it comes out. As long as humans are involved, shit happens. What's important is does the factory fix the problem? If so. . . . . move on and enjoy the sport!
@@sirstan262 I've found that a good chunk of online gun owners have zero capability for independent thought and they just follow trends they read/watch videos about.
I have two PSA uppers, one basic mk18 type ($330 for the upper and pistol build LPK) and a 16” faux-dissipator midlength with the CHF barrel ($360). Neither upper has ever malfunctioned. However the 10.5 came with a front sight canted a fair amount but still usable. It was missed in the quality control process which is where PSA lacks behind some higher dollar manufacturers. For the price range they are really your best bet despite QC issues. I’ve heard complaints of PSA not headspacing correctly and canted FSB are common. That doesn’t feel important to me but I also have two PSAs so I’m not exactly a high-brow consumer.
@@azmaddog6if they would just dimple the receiver to the trunnion and use the proper rivets. I've always been thankful they make decent stuff for us poors. BUT what would it take to do the dimpling and riveting properly? $15 maybe. Most don't realize it cuz they shoot a couple hundred rounds a year. I understand they have a lifetime warranty though I shouldn't need it inside of 5K rds bc they want to skimp on the simple shit. Oh and the heat treat on the bolt is questionable.
The AK isn't a Porsche. It's only been made that status because of stupid import restrictions and domestic manufacturing costs. The AK is vastly overrated. I say this as an AK rifle owner. You can see even in 3rd world shi*holes, once they get access to AR-based rifles, they ditch the AK. Here in the West, the AK has become more of a boutique status symbol among certain gun nerds. But if you look at firearms as tools for self-defense, anyone with at least an average IQ goes for the AR. Nothing beats the value, versatility, and capability of the AR platform.
I can never fully express my gratitude to you Mr. Ski for steering me in the right direction when I went looking for my 1st serious AK years ago. Watching and listening to your videos armed me with the knowledge I needed to make an informed decision. I am the proud owner of an Egyptian Maadi AKM built by a guy who knew what he was doing (it was his 75th build, IIRC). Green Mountain barrel, quality receiver, excellent rivets. After I bought the rifle, I installed the DD "fighter" brake, MI side mount, PA 7.62 ACSS dot and KNS piston, all based on your recommendations. Money well spent. I have a very fine rifle that is a joy to shoot. In homage to you, all of my AK's retain at least one original wooden piece of furniture, too.
"Some rando with a Toth Tool build me my redneck AK in his garage, but trust me it's gud to go" lol. No, a factory Zastava import is still far better QC.
@@Enjoyer.762 does being an ass to random people on the interwebs make you feel better about yourself, what a miserable life in the real world you must lead, uglyness begets ugly tho ...
Great practical advice from a sincere and honest man that truly cares about his audience. Merry Christmas and I hope you and yours have a wonderful 2024!
He's one of the most legit reviewers and one of the few I know for sure isn't corrupt and will tell the honest truth. Buffman range is another honest dude I personally know
@@jackjones9460 wbp is a polish arms manufacturer that probably make the best aks you can get for 1000 dollars right now. Arms of America (AOA) is their US distributor.
Glad I listened to channels liked you. I bought a PSA 103 premium (because of the barrel) after making sure it had no issues but it’s definitely very reliable and accurate. Currently I’m just upgrading it with ALG and Midwestern industry furniture to gain some experience in gunsmithing.
PSA has inconsistent QC. There is more of a somewhat legit argument to buy one of their beater ARs as a training rifle, you take to carbine classes. ARs are easy to work on so barring any major tolerance QC issues, most minor QC problems can be resolved by the end user. But their AKs aren't to be trusted.
@@Enjoyer.762 that’s what I inspected for before I picked it up. Eventually I’ll look to see when I should get the rivets changed and find a better bolt carrier group but for my AK inspecting it, testing it, etc I’ve had no issues.
@@Enjoyer.762 My PSAK Gen3 is very good, I haven't had any issues. I also have an AK from a DDR parts kit, which is my real pride and joy since I was in the NVA.
@@Enjoyer.762 To-may-to, to-mah-to. If you prefer an AR, great. But I prefer an AK, I was trained on the AK platform, and real-world experience backs the AK platform.
+1 for Green Mountain Barrels. It's awesome to see you recommend them after I had similar great experiences with them. Pretty consistently 1.5-2moa with basic Wolf and Tula 7.62x39 through it, which is plenty acceptable to me as a fighting rifle. They're well made and reasonably priced, hard to go wrong with them for this platform and caliber.
Hey Rob; I know the customer rifle you described is probably going to or has got a new barrel, but if it hasn’t already, there may be some actions to partially rectify the poor accuracy if you / the customer are willing to roll the dice on the labor for this possible fix. 1.) get the barrel clean to an unreasonable degree and any copper fouling removed from test firing. 2.) use stiff stainless or brass brush and JB-bore paste and make many strokes (several applications of JB cleaning past may be necessary). 3.) clean barrel again to unreasonable degree 4.) wrap a patch or two around the cleaning brush and again coat patch externally with JB bore paste and make many strokes, then replace patch / re-coat patch with paste & repeat many strokes. 5.) clean barrel again to an unreasonable degree 6.) shoot copper jacketed ammo (any type), 1-bullet at a time, sending a 1-wet patch / 1-dry patch through the barrel between each short (using a NON-copper-removing bore cleaner), for about 30-rounds. 7.) test accuracy again using whatever ammo you originally got 5-MOA with (I bet accuracy improves). Doing this is lapping a barrel (without needing to pour lead into the barrel to make a lapping plug); and has made some pretty poorly performing barrels tighten up groupings for me at least.
So more people will get sucked into the same mistake? A decent builder would never touch low quality parts in the first place. It's not 2000 anymore, we name and shame in 2023.
Without naming name…. What’s the barrel that was used? I only ask because I do have those expensive kits and I don’t have barrels. I did sacrifice one PSA w/ FN barrel for an Izzy build but I need 3 more
I am so glad to hear “Merry Christmas “ from an icon/celebrity. It’s as awesome as not name dropping in your videos out of respect for fellow AK enthusiasts. Top shelf guy.
Rob. your range is Awesome! I think your a very honorable man to not drop names...even though we would like to know the bad manufacturers, your very professional and that is honorable...
Something else to add to that, I built a galil ten years ago and used a surplus new old stock barrel. I figured it was imi made so it would be fine. The rifle functioned great but kept keyholeing using green tip. I couldn't figure out why. Turns out it was from the late 70s and had a 1 in 12 twist. It couldn't stabilize the heavier round. I switched to m193 and it was night and day. Moral of the story even if you get new surplus barrels, know what they were for and when they were made.
This is new for me as I have never heard of anyone selecting parts for someone else to custom build an AK rifle for them. Been watching this channel for years and I jumped in on Rob’s high rating of the Molot VEPR AK-47. If I were to get a similar AK today my pick would be the PSA AK with the FN barrel. It seemed to me that PSA kept updating the design until they got it right.
To my knowledge they still aren't doing it right. Receiver not dimpled to trunnion. No swellneck rivets. Will eventually lead to broken rivets. Maybe 1k rds maybe 5k. Who knows. But it's sure not. 'Right'
@@matthewbeaver5026 I have 6 AK's all different, Polytech, sam7r, molot vepr, meridian defense, Wasr 10/63, psa gen2 with the billet trunions.. The psa is the beater, that I use to pump rounds thru.. It has over 10k rounds, as it has gone thru 4 different classes of 1500-2k rnds + each.. It has a xtra power recoil spring and an ALG trigger.. Otherwise bone stock.. still shoots approx 2moa.. I cannot believe it still actually works, as its not even forged, and was the first rifle they made that wasn't "cast" trunnions.. they are milled billet instead of forged.. the headspace is still within spec and doesn't have any issues.. I get it that its smart to have the best materials, but really does it matter the the normal guy who shoots a few mags a year.. NO, hell no.. Gun Snobbery is hilarious..
@@Clutch_Kick187 I'm not an ak guy. Was interested in psa bc I have limited funds to put towards getting into one. Just seems silly that they went through the whole progression of cast to billet to forged. But won't put an extra $10 in parts and $20 in labor to use the proper swellneck rivets and dimple the receivers. I appreciate what psa does in the ar market and own mutiple. I'm their target demographic. Yet still think it's enough of a flaw to wait for a 4th gen to see if it's fixed. Rumor is that it's suppose to.
@@matthewbeaver5026 If your low o funds, and just want something that will work and last, there is only one AK you should look at.. A romanian Wasr.. They are rough around the edges, but will last a lifetime and there are tons of ways to upgrade it to your liking..
Hey Robski! As you may know, there is some new 7.62x39 coming out of Azerbaijan from a company called TelaAmmo. It's quality of manufacturing and accuracy in practice has apparently been hit or miss varying from person to person. I think the community could benefit quite a lot from a review and analysis of this new ammo and putting the rumors to rest, it's a pretty readily available ammo source now too.
@@nellsonstout7001 this stuff is non corrosive. You're thinking of the other new import ammo from Kyrgyzstan. That stuff is corrosive and not worth the asking price.
Tela ammo not to be confused with Tula ammo 😂 I’ve been seeing a lot of these tela cases popping up for less then 50 cents a round but have been skeptical too
Absolutely agree sir. I started building when the original barreled kits were still floating around so I got lucky on early builds. Then the barrels dried up and ESS barrels became a thing for a while. Junk barrels. soft... trash. I usually recommend people look over kit builds when they find them in the wild. Merry Christmas to you and your family Sir. have a happy new year.
Same with ARs. People are willing to drop 1-1.5k for a mil-spec gun running M193 or M855 and it's shooting 4 MOA. Or crazier yet, drop 500 for a fancy reciever set and drop a Faxon barrel on it.
M855 is known for accuracy issues due to the imprecise centering of the steel penetrator with the bullet. You are just wrong about $1k+ ARs average 4 MOA. Even a beater PSA M4 clone without a free-floated rail system will easily average 2.75 MOA with M193. Unlike AKs, AR barrels are much easier to replace. The AR is the superior design and overall has great consistency in QC.
@@Enjoyer.762 $1-$1.5k MIL-SPEC for just the rifle (no optics or accessories) is rediculous. Modern manufacturing has more consistently brought the baseline from 4 MOA to 3 MOA. While 3 MOA at 500 yards gets hits it better not cost me more than a PSA. Yes PSA systems that are the old-style $400 can do that, but that's also $400 vs $1-$1.5k. If I'm gonna drop over $1k for just the rifle it will shoot better than me.
Arms of America and Atlantic Firearms sells FB Radom barrels. I compare it to classic Romanian hammer forged. Also, changing barrels on an AK is more involved than an ARs since you have to get rid of the rivets and then punch out the barrel pin, and then press the barrel out. So make it count!
After a couple years now of following you and everything. You still bring the best advice for AKs in general! My M70 shoots fantastic with the advice you gave and the products I used from your site. The 3x prism is my absolute favorite sight to use! And I know a lot of people may not like this but I use a green dot for close range shooting targets with point firing. It’s pretty accurate
The barrel is the absolute heart of any rifle system. It’s true for AKs, ARs, bolt actions, lever actions, single shots, whatever. Using all high end parts on a shitty barrel is just putting lipstick on a pig.
Ive been wanting a custom built ak but have been deterred. Mostly due to the vagueness in performance when watching peoples videos. So i appreciate not only the insight but the transparency of your channel. I ended up buying a galil ace gen 2 in the mean time as i continue to do research.
@@Enjoyer.762In all seriousness, what's the point of coming to an AK video and chiming in on multiple comments about ARs? People clearly made their choice as to which platform they're interested in if they're on this video to begin with. If it's a trolling attempt, it's not really working. It's just a bit awkward.
Rob, total agree not only is cheaper unwise but doing research will be more beneficial and prevent a FUBAR situation😎😎 Have a Happy New Year and may 24 be a better year for all
Complete agree about barrel quality. I had a custom barrel made for my 308 savage axis by apache gunworks and installed it myself. It went from 3moa to 0.5moa.
Barrel and bolt are the two most important parts of any rifle, it's better to save up for a premium barrel tomorrow than a horrible cheap barrel today.
One of us is going to have to move, either you by me or me by you. How else am I going to get a great AK man as my neighbor. Ha ha. Always enjoy your videos. Well done.
AK Sage! Top wisdom, focus on the reason we build the rifle---rounds on target. The barrel is the MOST important part. Period. Then use top notch parts throughout! Only issue should be 'operator error' if you don't group well.
Something that is repeated time and time and time again with consumer products is that if you go for bottom of the barrel, you will get bottom of the barrel. It's not that expensive to go to mid-tier and get a significant jump in quality. The barrel is how the rifle speaks, and if you put in a shitty barrel, well.. you know what'll come out.
We need more 5000 round reviews. I miss your reviews, I know it's difficult to find the ammo but maybe you can do some 5.56 AK's. It would be amazing to see a new 5k review by AKOU!
Exactly right Rob! Don't cheap-out on any parts that actually determine function or accuracy. Personally, I don't cheap-out on anything in my builds (bolt, AR, AK, pistols, etc...), but that's because I have an obsession with accuracy. And Townsend Whelen once said it best, "Only accurate rifles are interesting." This is why I was skeptical in my first AK trade that I made with a buddy who bought it brand new, and decided he wasnt' an AK guy after he put about 100 rounds through it. He bought (brand new) a PSA GF5 with the Toolcraft bolt & carrier, and the FNH barrel in it, and once I found out it was the model with the FNH barrel, I traded him. Otherwise, I was expecting it to shoot Minute of AK (4MOA 😂) at 100 yards. But this thing is an absolute tack-driver, even with just a Vortex Spark Solar 1x red dot, and cheap Wolf steel case 122gr ammo. Headshots at 200 aren't a problem, which has impressed me tremendously. I put a JMac Customs 360 14x1LH KeyMicro on it, and run my Sandman-S MIL-Contract can on it. It's an awesome combo. I'll never get rid of that AK just because of how smooth it runs, and how well it shoots.
The barrel is the heart of the rifle. As stated it does not matter what optic, components used or build quality if you have an inaccurate or defective barrel.
If you are a builder/gunsmith some responsibility does fall on you when it comes to the functionality of the product and satisfaction of the client. As a professional, with the knowledge and experience that someone is putting trust in, part of your job is to educate the client. If the client is obviously uneducated with the parts they purchased, it is not just common decency, but your duty as a professional, to help educate them and make sure they want to continue with that particular project, they may wait and come back with better parts, and now you have e helped someone out.
Simple but effective advice from Robski! If you are going custom, do it 100 percent right. No cheapskating on any parts. Why bother if you are going to do a75 percent job.
