AK Rookie

[Ashgrove07]

Hi everyone, I am barely getting to know the AK47 and kinda know which ones are low and good quality rifles. I recently purchased an ATI Milled Ak and was wondering if anyone out there can tell me if these are good AK's. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

[Cali-Shooter]

ATI Ak is a good brand, not that high end, but it's better than Century or IO.

Most important thing is make sure it functions and shoots well.

This is my small list of different AK quality of brands:

Low Quality:
IO AK's
Century Arms WASR or Ak-74 (you might get lucky and get a good one though).

Decent to good quality:
Atlantic Arms
Henderson Defense certified Century Arms AK's
Saiga 762 or Saiga 223 or Saiga 308 (unconverted)
Lancaster Arms
Century Arms Draco pistol
T.G.I.

High quality:
Arsenal Inc.
Norinco (if you can get your hands on one, many are banned here in CA).

[Ashgrove07]

Thanks, the Chinese AK's are real good, my friend sold one for $500 a while back

[Ashgrove07]

Are the Yugoslavian and Polytech AK's considered High Quality? What about Bulgarian AK's?

[Cali-Shooter]

Yugo depends on the maker, but is anywhere from low to good quality.

Polytech is at least decent to good quality,

Bulgarians are also like Yugo's, they can range anywhere from low to good quality, depends on maker.

Also, Interarms AK's are decent good quality, and Waffen Werks are good as well, not as high quality as Arsenals, but still above Century Arms and esp. IO.

[SocomM4]

I'm gonna get in on this , I was just shopping around last night for my first ak.
What about building one. What parts kits and how hard is it to build a solid quality rifle?

[Ashgrove07]

So I guess the milled ATI Ak is a keeper? I was told the milled ones are hard to find here! My ATI has a wobble on the upper piece hand guard by the gas tube ( sorry correct my terminology if I am wrong), is that bad or normal?

[Ashgrove07]

I want to keep either theWASR or ATI milled AK

[Cali-Shooter]

The ATI looks very nice, from what I've seen of them. Just as long as it functions well, you've got a keeper!

For me, I got my SGL-20 (Arsenal) and a bunch of other converted Saiga's. Not milled, but they are excellent within 100-250 yds.

[Ashgrove07]

Ok, so is the wobble normal? I also heard of them not having lightning cuts and having their rear trunnion screwed on or something like that ( please explain that to me) At least the WASR's barrel is chrome lined, I think the ATI's is not

[Cali-Shooter]

Hand guard wobble is not a big deal, but it's not exactly a good thing either. Handguards are easy to change out,



It might be the handguards that came with the rifle, or it might be the rifle's handguard mounting brackets which are at fault.

If it's the latter, you could try taking it to ATI maybe they might fix it if it's that much of an issue.

If it was me, I'd try test firing the rifle and make sure the handguards don't pop out from the recoil and if they don't i'd just keep it as is.

[Ashgrove07]

Thanks alot, I really appreciate the valuable info!

[hoozaru]

I'm gonna get in on this , I was just shopping around last night for my first ak.
What about building one. What parts kits and how hard is it to build a solid quality rifle?

depends on which caliber, 7.62 or 5.45??

For 7.62, these days most available kits are Romanian Demilled, Hungarian AMD and Polish demilled. Russian, Romanian G, Bulgarian, Yugo, egyptian can still be found.

for 5.45, bulgarian period

It's pretty hard not to build a solid quality AK, only I.O, Lancaster and some U-drive lovers have such "advanced skills".

[ETD1010]

I have a WASR, but it seems to be one of the good ones. Super smooth actions for an AK, and it's accurate enough as far as AKs go. Hasn't jammed on me yet!