If you really want basic, bare-bones and no bullshit at one point Big Boy's had Romanian WASRs that I believe had been inspected by the boys from Two Rivers Arms as they were in the same shop building. Nothing wrong with them if you inspect them properly from the get-go or buy from somebody who did. Slap on a light, a sling then lock'n'load and lay down the hate as needed.
As a good rule of thumb, anything actually made in a foreign country that once did or still does issue the platform militarily is good to go. Arsenal (Bulgarian) Saiga (Russian), Maadi (Egyptian), Norinco (Chinese), Zastava (Yugoslavian) are all ones that spring immediately to mind. There are many variants, some costing more than others due to collectibility or rarity. WASRs are Romanian and among the cheapest in cost and coincidently quality. The former makes them quite popular but it is possible to get good ones that function great. To be frank, nothing is as cheap as it used to be.
True Zastava-made guns were imported by an outfit called Mitchell arms if my memory serves me correctly (Point worthy of note: most Yugoslavian rifles, Kalashnikovs included, did NOT have a chrome-lined bore. This is also true of most rebuilt kits.). As semi-collectible they will likely be priced according and probably not of much interest to you. Most of the 'yugo' AKs out there are rebuilt kits, along with lots of other variants. Whether a kit that has been rebuilt on a new receiver is troublesome or not depends upon a couple of things, the biggest of which is who built them and whether they did it right. Short of loading the gun and test firing it there are sold only so many things that you can physically check for such as a canted front site base or front trunnion/rear sight base, a bolt that moves freely through its entire range of travel, that the magazine well takes standard military magazines with little or no binding (many actual imports like WASRs are made in a single-stack 'low-capacity' format so that they may legally be imported. Afterwards, the magwell is milled out to the correct size and other parts are changed out with US-made 'compliance' parts.), that the gas piston on the front of the bolt carrier has a bit of play between it and the carrier and the whole assembly is not 'rigid' and that the rifle passes a basic Function Check. As far as milled receivers VS stamped... get the former if you want to pay more money and get a workout while shooting. :wink:
The problem now with most rebuilt kits is approximately three years ago the F Troop (BATF-E) Decreed that Firearm kits imported from overseas could no longer include barrels unless they were rendered unusable. Sad to say but most US-made Kalashnikov barrels are not much worth a damn. This has severely effected the cottage industry around building your own guns and importers biuilding de-milled kits on US-made receivers. This is especially for AKs and FALs.
Regarding Century Arms (CAI), if they built it stay away from it like a plague ridden a hooker. If they imported it the item is probably okay. Regarding a company called 'I. O. Ordnance', see the above advice on arms made by Century and multiply it by three.
There's a hell of a lot of good knowledge laid out in this thread over on the M4Carbine forums:
http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=934
Yugoslavian mags are a bit peculiar. The back of the magazine is cut low and the rear of the follower is squared off. This is done so that on the last round the bolt will catch on the follower and lock open instead of closing on an empty chamber and giving you a click. Now, as soon as you remove the magazine the bolt will close and it will still need to be charged upon the insertion of a fresh magazine. I am unaware of whether this works on non-Yugo guns but I don't see why it wouldn't. I'm not particularly interested in them.
Quite literally any steel magazine (in 7.62) made outside the US by a country that does or has issued the platform will be good to go. Chinese ones are great if you can find them because they don't have the obnoxious rib running down the spine (expect to $spend...). The Hungarian 20 round magazines are my favorites and you can see them in the picture above. They are stupidly handy for working in vehicles or carrying on your person. Many sub-standard polymer ones exist as well. The only poly mags I recommend are the 'Circle-10' mags from Bulgaria. Bulgaria also made a slew of other poly mags that were not steel reinforced like the military 'Circle-10' magazines. These are stupidly-expensive now and while probably the best mags made right now I personally don't feel that they're worth the $40-45 a whack folks are charging for them at this time.
I have a half-dozen of the US-Palm mags and while they're light weight and have performed OK so far I don't believe I will be buying any more. The 'steel reinforcement' in them is only on the front and back locking lugs and each piece is separate from the other. The bulgarian military mags have an entire steel cage running front to back, around the sides and up into the feed lips. The US-Palm mags are also extremely bulky in comparison to practically any other mag made and at times can be difficult to load because the springs seem to bind. I can't wait for Magpul to get their elephant dung together and start cranking out the AK Pmags they've announced. I hope the steel reinforced model introduces some competition back into the market and I hope it specifically kicks KVAR in the testicles so they bring the prices on the Bulgarian 'Circle-10' mags back down.
Regarding my rifles, the top one is a SLR-107CR from Arsenal. It's had a bit of work done to it. If you want a no-bull turnthekeyandrunlikeastripeassedape rifle pick up an SGL-21.
Forgive me but I'm terrible with matching names to faces so if you know me then I apologize for not placing you :jester: . If you want to shoot either of my AKs sometime you're welcome to rock out as much (factory) ammo as you care to bring. I should be shooting the pistol match this weekend.
Ek
