Our friends at Advanced Armament Corporation are happy to sell a silencer to owners of the legendary AK series Russian rifle, provided your state doesn’t have a thing about quiet[er] guns and you fill out the necessary paperwork and you send AAC money for the can. But the silencer maker doesn’t recommend it. “Looser tolerances” and all that: “Most AK type rifles have M14x1LH threads for the flash hider. However, many times there is not a straight line on an AK and these flash hider threads may not be concentric to the bore. With a Flash Hider, this is not going to be as big an issue. Add a silencer to off-center threads and you can get end cap or baffle strikes. For this reason we do not make a muzzle device for mounting silencers threaded M14x1LH.” But wait! There’s more! Or less. More or less . . .
The next thing about AK type rifles is they have an open gas system. They bleed gas straight off the barrel and allow supersonic gas to escape into the atmosphere. This supersonic gas causes additional noise. This means that a suppressed AK will not be as quiet as say a DI AR15 type rifle.
The last thing to know is that while suppressed AK type rifles is that while full sized rifles sound “OK”, Krink style AK type rifles are just LOUD, even with a silencer. Much like a 7.5” AR15 is never quiet.
Note to AAC: sometimes selling a product is more hassle than it’s worth, for all concerned.
RF,
There’s one situation where a silenced AK sounds OK, and that’s with .300 BLK.
Check out the video we got from when I went down there, about 8:30 in:
The Russians have been suppressing AKs for decades. They may not be as quiet as an AR, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the effort to suppress them. I just wish AAC would bring out a shorter 7.62mm suppressor for rounds like the 7.62×39 and .300 BLK. I really doubt either of those two need a suppressor built to suppress a .308 Winchester.
Just because somebody has been doing something for a long time doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good idea. You need to come up with a more intelligent argument than that.
your “intelligent argument” offered no intelligent fact laden rebuttal, just snarky and pedantic coffees shop level philosophizing.
you need to come up with a more intelligent argument to rebuttal his.
My ak is damn near as loud as my nagant.
A suppressed AK? I’d think about it, but only if suppressors were much cheaper and simpler to acquire. Why put an $800-$1200 can on a $450 rifle? (Or, in the case of Arsenals, ‘why spend $900 on a $450 rifle?’)
Please tell me where I can get a $450 Arsenal AK.
I will go buy 2 of them right now.
You don’t think Arsenals are worth the price? You are truly a delusional human being.
The beauty of the AK is in its simplicity. Start hanging doodads on it and it’s just not an AK. That’s fine, I guess. But why is it that when someone puts a $50 synthetic stock on a 91/30 they’ve “bubba-ed up” the gun, but if someone puts a $1000 can on an AK they’ve “improved” it?
Because a Mosin Nagant is a historical weapon and they’re not making any more of them. New AK’s are built every day.
Totenglocke, at least 20 MILLION 91/30s were made and there’s no shortage of them now, nor will there ever be. That’s why they cost less than $100 a pop. More are being imported every day, still in cosmo. I know the 91/30 is “historic,” I’ve said as much in all my posts, but get real.
Actually, there will be eventually. Why? Some of the ones existing now are in horrible condition, others are in decent condition but go to owners who won’t take proper care of them, and others still go to people who’ll hack them apart and change the stock, add rails, etc.
I have a 91/30 and an M44 that are both in amazing condition – now if I found a 91/30 with a stock that was totally FUBAR but the rest of the gun was in good shape, then sure I’d go ahead and get a synthetic stock because the original one is already trashed.
If you’re properly sighted in your target isn’t going to hear it anyway…
I’d rather have a laser for the slingshot accessory…
Serious lack of imagination. Your teammates have a far better chance of hearing what you’re communicating to them. The bad guys have a far lower chance of localizing your firing position from both a auditory (obviously) and visual standpoint (suppressors reduce muzzle flash to near zero). Suppressors are extremely useful for war fighting. Why do you think SOCOM is ordering them by the truck load?
There are far better guns to mount a silencer on, a few that can actually hit something at 300 yards.
Has to be one of the most ignorant things I’ve read online in a LONG time. I bet you are one of these conspiracy theory guys too aren’t you?
There’s a lot of unreasonable dogma in the comments.
First, if you can’t hit at 300 yards with a decently constructed AK then the problem is with you.
Second, a good AK is not a “$450 gun” in terms of its practical use-value and its correlated reliability. It used to be somewhat lower priced (but rarely $450 in the past decade for anything good) because of supply. It’s now higher priced because of supply. However, it was and remains perhaps the most practical battle carbine ever made for anyone who isn’t in the armed forces (or in many cases those for who are). Can you name another rifle that will reliably shoot full of mud and rarely breaks, whose ammunition can be reliably purchased in the range of .$30 per round or less, and whose ammunition doesn’t depend on high velocities to make it yaw to do its job most reliably?
I could stop here, because there is nothing else that compares given these constraints. Heck – even remove the rifle reliability constraint and you won’t find anything else. There are other points that could be made as well. However, to circle back to my primary point, the current $750-1000 for a decent AK-47 type rifle isn’t out of the value range considering that the carbine alternatives are either 5.56 DI ARs, which are apples and oranges in terms of rifle mechanics, rifle maintenance, and ballistics comparisons; or piston ARs at twice the price.
One more thing: the reduced velocity 7.62×39 out of your suppressed SBR makes for a much better projectile than the reduced velocity 5.56 does out of a suppressed SBR, mostly due to the reduced chance for 5.56 yaw at a reduced velocity. The third option is something like a suppressed 6.8 out of an AR or a suppressed .308 out of an AR or a SCAR, but both rounds are much more expensive, the former is difficult to get on-the-shelf, and the latter is overkill for CQB given the weight, expense, and concussion that a suppressor will, at best, make civil.
All that is needed to obtain a proper suppressor fit on your AK is to send it off to the suppressor company who will, in most cases, take care of all of the concerns mentioned in the article. Problem solved. If you are going to the trouble of obtaining a suppressor and, in many cases, an SBR stamp then the extra step of sending such a versatile rifle to be properly gunsmithed for suppressor fit isn’t such a big deal.
Most of the negative comments are AR freaks. They always seem to make their way over to AK articles and leave vitriol in the comments. I have no idea why they take so much time out of their lives when we all know the AK is a far superior platform to the AR. There is simply no comparison.
An added point: I concede that the point of a suppressed AK would not be silence. Essentially, the point is to have an SBR that shoots a relatively affordable round that is ballistically better than the 5.56 out of an equivalent short barrel, while making it tolerant to shoot and be around. Also, perhaps to better prevent your shots from giving your position away. If anyone is looking for silence, then they realistically shouldn’t be looking much further than a suppressed bolt action .22 lr rifle.
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