Last year, I built a stripped-down Khyber Pass style AK 47 under the tutelage of the Dead Goose Society (DGS). I had a great time and learned a lot about gun manufacturing. The resulting rifle has become my constant companion in my truck — much to the despair of the wild game and feral hogs the area. As so often happens with firearms, after I got comfortable with the Kalashnikov, I wanted another. So I reached out to DGS with a simple request: show me what you can do.
I headed down to the Houston DGS headquarters for a little show and tell with one of their in-house builds. Lee handed me a seriously tricked out AK47 SBR. Although still an AK, it was about as far away from my home build as you can get.
I stared at it for a minute. It looked like an AK. Kinda like my AK? No, not like my AK. Enough gawking. Time to put Dead Goose Society’s firearm to the test.
The AK47 SBR’s action is butter smooth. The real surprise: the recoil impulse. It’s not a snap. It’s not a push. It’s a kind of a delayed bump, and a small one at that. I’m not an AK recoil expert. But the DGS AK47 SBR feels nothing like my AK. The recoil reminds me of the STI Edge I reviewed last year.
The DGS AK47 SBR wasn’t made for the bench. It was built for moving and shooting, and shooting fast. And so I did, pouring rounds out of this gun, long after I’d shot the requisite 500 rounds to complete the review. (It was well over 600, but I don’t know how far over.) Mags were dumped, brass was made, giggles were had. I was smitten.
As with all reviews, I sprayed some RemOil into the DGS AK47 SBR at the start. At no point did I perform any cleaning or maintenance. There were no failures of any type using surplus hollow points and FMJs, as well as 190 different hand loaded rounds with both 129 and 150 grain soft points. I shot standing, kneeling, seated on the bench, stock folded and unfolded. Not so much as a hiccup no matter what I did.
Although I’d never raised the DGS AK47 SBR before, it took zero learning time to get the gun up and the sight on target. Or more appropriately, the bore on target. I shot my first magazine through the red dot — without a battery. So there was no red dot. At 50 yards, 100 percent of my rounds made it into the 19” silhouette. Proof that the DGS AK47 SBR has a natural point of aim.
The DGS AK47 SBR provides a dramatic improvement on ye olde AK safety. Unlike the standard AK safety/selector lever, I could operate the switch one with just my right index finger. In combat, with my AK, I kept my safety on unless I could identify a threat. If I wanted to manipulate the safety, the rifle had to be out of position. Which meant I couldn’t keep it shouldered and pointed at the target, and still take the selector on and off.
With the DGS safety selector, I can be looking through the sights (or red dot) and easily go from safe to fire. I was a little concerned that I’d accidentally switch it off, but in a couple of days of beating it up on the range, that never happened. Bonus! The improved safety lets you hold the AK’s bolt open.
Anyone who’s ever thrown a lot of lead through an AK will tell you that front grip heats up awful quick. There’s no shame in wearing gloves if you are burning through the mags with Mr. Kalashnakov’s glory. The DGS AK47 SBR’s forward grip eliminates that challenge. It drops your supporting hand down and away from the source of all that heat, while keeping your hand in a good position to transition the rifle from target to target.
This AK47 SBR comes equipped with a collapsible stock, like my home build. But DGS’s SBR has a full stock, offering a real cheek weld with a much more comfortable nest into your shoulder. The collapsible stock is extremely useful for getting in and out of a truck, Polaris or other hunting vehicle. As an added bonus, with the short barrel and collapsible stock, the rifle fits in a backpack.
With the short barrel and muzzle break, the DGS AK47 SBR is some fierce kinda loud. Good ear protection for you — and anyone in the general vicinity — is a must.
The DGS AK47 SBR’s accuracy is less than stellar. With the red dot on, I couldn’t shoot anything better than 3” groups, using surplus or hand loaded ammunition. Hoping it was an optic problem, I swapped the red dot for a 4X scope. I shrunk my groups by half-an-inch. This particular version of the DGS lineup attaches the hand guard with a barrel band, which doesn’t help. (DGS says the gun is available without the barrel band.)
I take the accuracy of my bolt guns and AR’s seriously. None of them shoot greater than a minute of angle. But the M4s I took into combat rarely shot better than 2MOA. They were accurate enough well past the realistic performance capabilities of the round. That’s even more true for the 7.62X39. The DGS AK47 SBR is an AK, and 2 1/2″ MOA is plenty acceptable accuracy for an AK.
I have more guns in my truck right now that most gun owners have at all. And yet, 10 minutes into shooting this rifle, I wondered what had gone wrong in my life that I didn’t own this one already.
Specifications: Dead Goose Society AK47G SBR
Caliber: 7.62X39
Capacity: variable, this one came with a 40 round magazine
Weight: 7.8 lbs.
Length: 32.5” unfolded, 23.5” folded
Barrel: 12.5” black nitride barrel
Receiver: 1mm stamped side folding receiver, Hungarian (original) forged trunnions, AKM style
Internals:
ALG AKT trigger (custom shop polished)
Snake Hound Machine Enhanced internal spring kit (heavy springs)
Titanium firing pin
Black Jack Buffer Tech. extra thin internal buffer
Bolt carrier polished
Gas tube has been vented to reduce overgassing
Externals:
Lantac Drakon break
Venom 90deg gas block with FSP
Mid West Ind. Keymod standard length forend
Strike Ind slant grip
Attero sight block mounted low profile top cover rail
Hogue overmold pistol grip
Arsenal full stock side folding poly stock (4.5 pin)
V Project (Polish style) top cover
Krebs enhanced selector
(The Kreb enhanced selector must be matched with a safety catch top over)
Primary arms (Holosun) red dot
Price: $1,558.60 (plus applicable $200 tax stamp to our benevolent federal overlords)
Ratings (out of five stars):
Appearance * * *
It has no wood, nothing engraved, nothing polished. In short, it rates zero on the grace scale. But everyone I showed it to loved the way it looked.
Reliability * * * * *
Perfect with any round, and I was absolutely cooking that barrel.
Customization * * * * *
Stock, rails, optics, hand guards, trigger, sights, barrel and brake are all non-standard for this rifle. This is the gun that proves the “Barbie for Men” isn’t always an AR.
Accuracy * * * *
Like the STI Edge, I feel like this should be split into two categories. On the bench, it gets three stars. On the move in fast fire, five.
Ergonomics * * * * *
Five stars to an AK for ergos. I deleted one of those stars several times, because I can’t get over the fact that this is an AK. But fair is fair. The gun is fast to the shoulder, fast on target, and easy to move. In this version, you can hold the bolt open and easily manipulate the safety. Madness.
Overall * * * * 1/2
It’s fast fire, walk and talk, move and shoot, where this rifle absolutely shines, and it was just plain fun. I’m tempted to just give it another star because it’s not an AR, the latest GLOCK or yet another 1911. Half a star off for accuracy not hitting the 1 MOA mark. Something very similar to this, by DGS, will be my next AK.
“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Saint-Exupéry could flat *write*.
(If one has to die in a plane crash, do like he did, in a Lockheed P-38…)
Did not know that. Learn something new everyday. Thanks
Dead Goose Society is a refreshingly heterodox name for a modern arms company.
I can’t tell you the whole story about the name. Sworn to secrecy and all. But after hearing it, I thought, yup, these are the kind of people I want to work with.
How does that work with getting an SBR for review? Do you have to fill a Form 1(?) and pay the stamp or what? I’m in a difficult to get an SBR state and not intimate with the process at all, I am just curious to the borrowing/transferring procedure.
1. I am an FFL, so I can just transfer it to me.
2. Or you can just drive down to the dealer and head to the range a few times with them there.
$1,558.60 for an AK… plus the SBR tax stamp.
AK’s are supposed to be reliable and CHEAP. $1,558.60 ain’t cheap.
Don’t forget all the new 41F bullshit requirements for NFA toys. Executive Orders….the gift that keeps on giving.
Mosins are supposed to be under $100. Welcome to 2016.
I just dropped $2500 on a 7.62×39 Krink so it’s not THAT outrageous. I am not thrilled about the sight setup on this thing. Is it just me, or are the irons on this thing almost entirely absent?
No rear, but you could slide on one.
And also “I just dropped $2500 on a 7.62×39 Krink”
Sometimes I disagree with you on the political shit, but brother, you got your priorities strait.
There are benefits to having your financial house in order. One of those is that you don’t have to justify spending disposable income to anybody.
I’m just curious what makes a Krink worth $2500 in your mind?
Maybe the prices on all this have gone up since I last shopped AK pattern rifles but the last AK I bought ran me ~$750 after I upgraded it.
Granted, that was a few years back.
Arsenal factory SBR in 7.62×39 with the true Krink sight setup and barrel length. Then I paid the gunsmith to add a high quality railed gas block, pistol grip, and after market trigger. (The stock arsenal trigger sucks.) The $2500 is everything on the list including the tax stamp.
Ah. That makes sense.
At first I thought you meant you walked into a gun store and bought an off the shelf 16″ model for $2500.
One thing to keep in mind, in the world of factory SBRs, $1500 is a very reasonable price.
Mosins are supposed to be under $100. Welcome to 2016. But I hear you. This rifle is a lot of things better than what AKs are supposed to be. I was very surprised with how it shot.
I used to get MAK-90s for $129, if anyone forgot their gun, we’d just buy another one at the shop on the way to the range. Nostalgia for the ’90s – whoda thunk.
Sounds familiar. I bought 91/30s by the crate at $70 per rifle. I experimented on them and just gave them away to anyone who needed a rifle. They ended up being a lot of my friend’s first hunting rifle. Gone are the days. Pawn shop savage is about the best way to go now.
First pawn shop I worked at in the mid 80’s got SKSs in by the crate, and pallets of spam can ammo.
Like an idiot, I ignored it.
*mutter*
My buddy used to sell his “SKS package deal” at his little pa bunker gun shop. For just over $100, you got a Chinese SKS, 2 mags, and I think 1000 rounds of ammo. Like you said, if guys were hanging out and decided to go shooting, anyone who didn’the feel like running home to get their gun just picked up a new one off of him. I miss the old days man.
Pawn shops in my neck of the woods are more expensive than just waiting for something to go on sale, or Amazon. DeWalt tools of unknown provenance and with serious hours on them are 80% of regular retail. I think most are just in it for the payday loans – they couldn’t care less about moving merch.
The only pawn shop I get deals at, is one where I’ve known the owner for a decade outside the shop.
The only “inexpensive” guns I get these days are off Armslist, or somebody who is connected to some friend of mine, tight on cash that needs to unload their orphans in a hurry for more money than the gun shop will pay.
Oh well, nostalgia.
Nice that it runs well.
I guess I’m just more of a suppressors and glass type than an SBR type.
What coating is on there?
If you want a short, sub MOA 7.26×39 for less than a grand get yourself a CZ 527, it’s unreal how good that gun shoots
With the length of the muzzle brake it doesn’t look like an SBR…must be me?
Also, you lose a point for using Rem oil! Ha, ha.
In regards to the M4, how is 2 MOA “well past the realistic performance capabilities of the round”? Unlike 7.62×39 with its various roadblocks to achieving high accuracy and precision even in a decently accurate (non-AK) platform, .223 Remington/5.56×45 NATO is a great round with almost unlimited accuracy potential. I have a homebuilt AR with a Wilson Combat stainless match 1:7 5.56×45 barrel and Timney trigger that pretty easily puts 10 rounds in an inch or less at 100 yards, and I’m not a benchrest shooter by any means. In fact, one of those groups was over my pickup hood. The ammo is nothing fancy. I load 40-grain to 55-grain V-Maxes with powder from a standard volume measure and no tuning is involved at all. I trim “matched” PMC brass, clean it up good, throw in 8208XBR and slap in some bullets. 3100 fps from 55s and 3300 from 40s from an 18″ barrel. As for 3 MOA at best being acceptable from a $1600 rifle, all I can say is speak for yourself. I have a Hi-Point 4995 carbine that I literally “benchrested” just to see if it would outshoot AKs like I believed it would, and I ended up with a couple of 3-4″ groups with factory open sights at 100 yards. The largest was 6-7″ So I determined that yes, it will probably outshoot MOST AKs and damn sure humble the rest. My Remington Model 8 (the first autoloading (semi-auto) sporting rifle) made in 1914 and chambered in .35 Remington with 200-grain RNs loaded to 1800 fps will shoot with your $1600 AK. Congratulations.
Mr. Meyer, you have mistaken M4 to mean the same thing as AR15.
On a 19″ target, the average distance between the shoulders of an adult male, 2MOA means you will, under absolutely perfect conditions, possibly be able hit a man out to 950 yards. At that range, the round will be subsonic, and will have only 150ft lbs of energy. That’s if, and it’s a huge IF, you could make what is essentially an impossible wind call. That’s why the Army says the maximum effective distance of the M4 is 550 meters.
I love this AK but price looks very high for me.
Do you have any option similar this gun?
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