AK importer K-VAR has been running a contest asking owners of its Arsenal commie guns to tell them their stories, to paint a picture, as it were, explaining for all the world why they love their K-VAR AK. Well the academy has voted, Price Waterhouse has tabulated and the award for best Kalashnikov testimonial goes to…YouTube favorite son James Yeager. After demonstrating his tooling up process (and his lats), Yeager does an admirable job singing the praises of the rifle he calls his constant companion, the Arsenal AK-74. Good choice?
Silly man.
And entertaining.
Tool. The man or the gun?
“Because I can …. start shooting people, with my K-VAR!”
I dig it. Not because I can. Because I do.
I actually liked the video Yeager did on the k-var. Mostly because after his 80’s action star gearing up montage, the first appearance of the AK was it being tossed in a puddle of mud. Not sure why, it just cracked me up.
I really want a d@mn AK but I still have yet to see one at a reasonable price. I found one at a LGS for $700 with two mags, a sling and a couple hundred rounds of ammo. It seemed reasonable and looked to be in great condition. With their layaway I could have done it but passed :-\ Maybe I am becoming TOO responsible with age.
A local shop here in Leavenworth has 7.62×39 Saigas for $525. That is the best price I have seen in a long time. I have a Saiga and converted it before I even shot it. It runs flawlessly and was a lot of fun to build and shoot.
See if you can find a Saiga, spend a couple hundred more and make the gun your own. Also, you can spend the mod money over time to not hurt the wallet in one shot. I converted a Saiga .308 last winter. I spent a bit more on it so it will go over $1000 before I add the optics. I am building it over time and haven’t been in a hurry. The Saiga 12 is next in the chute and will be my next winter project.
Thanks Six. Ive heard of the Saigas but dont know a lot about AKs of any make. Ill definatley check them out.
7.62×39 is regularly in stock at my local Wally World and doesnt fly off the shelf. Id like to take advantage of that. Its mostly Tulammo and bulk Winchester White box but thats more in one store than I can find of 5.56/.223 anywhere else.
My son had the unconverted Saiga with 10 round mag(california). If I had not already had a Russian SKS I would have bought one in a heartbeat. They’re well made and functional guns.
http://www.atlanticfirearms.com/component/virtuemart/shipping-rifles/zastava-ak-47-m70-pap-7-62×39-rifle-detail.html?Itemid=0
o-pap, $659. That’s a pretty good deal.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this have non-chrome-lined barrel, like all the other Yugo guns? Given that a typical AK would probably mostly be used to shoot cheap berdan-primed Russian ammo, this sounds like a bad idea to me.
I’d love it. If I were a lonely 17 year old girl.
Good choice? Terrible choice! I would never hang out with James Yeager, even though he does carry a nice rifle.
That’s what you were asking, right?
The AK is tough, very tough, right up until you dent the sheet metal and it flies apart. Never seen that happen to an AR-15. The AR will run dirty too, most of the stuff out there about how much the AR jams is pure myth related to early versions of the rifle not seen since the late 60’s. It’s like saying all Fords guzzle gas you know someone who had one 50 years ago that did.
On the other hand, if you have to repair rifles with a stick and a rock, by all means, take the AK. Here in the developed world we order parts for rifles on line and have them delivered to our homes where we work on them with tools, in the air conditioning.
Can the AR take abuse? You bet, it will actually stand up to more beating than any non-milled receiver AK. What it doesn’t like is having gravel in its receiver and frankly if you’re pressing the gun into the mud you’re severely mistreating it. The AR sleek, it’s light, it’s more accurate and parts, mags and ammo are more available for it in the US than for an AK, which IMO handles like a dump truck with a flat tire. In the end, either rifle is very capable, but please don’t do these things to a rifle, it’s blasphemous, and it’s just silly, sort of like the man in the video.
Most of us got an AK because the ammo was a lot cheaper, simple as that.
And you base this on?
It’s the difference between ease of maintenance and ease of service. AKs are meant to be run until they are worn out then they are replaced. ARs are meant to be serviced (major components can be replaced and installed easily). What is more effective is debatable.
What kind of beating are you referring too? Can you be more specific?
You say both are capable yet an AK handles like a dump truck with a flat tire. Have you handled a modern polymer AK 74, with enhanced features and rails or was it a WASR?
Why do AR15 fanboys hate?
Lots of questions
I have an AR because it’s light, handy, is what I was trained with, and I’m fickle enough about keeping my rifle clean that the maintenance princess nature of the AR doesn’t bother me as much. If you want a Kalashnikov, though, go for it, they have better stock triggers, they’re bloody-mindedly reliable, and that can be a good tradeoff for less accuracy and a bit more weight. Inside 200 yards facing two legged predators, accuracy differences in the rifles aren’t THAT glaringly different anyway.
But if the so-called “developed world” and its economy crash and burn, along with the electrical grid and communications (think: ordering shit), which one would you want THEN?
A mosin with a bayo to launch from my ATLATL.
Nice.
Weapons that fire standard US Military (and DHS) caliber ammo. Dumb question.
Please explain what makes it a “dumb question”, other than that you didn’t like it?
Ardent, for the majority of the key board commandos that comment here you’re correct. I include myself in that statement. My military days are long past.
The reason for buying the commie guns in the past(and I still have a few) was simple economics. You got a very robust and functional gun with a never ending supply of ammo for pennies on the dollar compared to western made guns.
Nowadays the price differences aren’t so much there. Ammo is stillthe big selling point for the commie guns. 7.62x54r, 7.62×39 and 5.45×39 are still cheaper and easier to get for volume stocking than their wester counterparts.
Honestly, I don’t think you can go wrong with either. And if the grid does collapse, that’s why they made the Mosin Magant. There was no grid when it was put into production.
Comment deleted — and made into a separate post.
Eh? That’s weird. Not about to try and retype all that though.
CrazedJava, you’re now one of the chosen ones.
It’s not all that hard to dent AR receiver; aluminum is softer than steel, even stamped steel. And the notable difference here is that you can damage the AK receiver in many different ways without impeding the function of the gun, just because there’s so much empty space there, and bolt carrier itself rides on rails inside. In contrast, a dent in an AR receiver is more likely than not to be in the way of the bolt.
There are many good reasons to like ARs more than AKs, but sturdiness isn’t one of them.
Can’t say that I’ve ever seen a dented stamped AK receiver, except for when they’re lined up in a row and run over by a Cat D9 with the express intent of destroying them.
As far as accuracy goes, an AK and AR in the same caliber will have roughly the same effective accuracy out to the same ranges. Have you ever actually shot an AK in 5.45, 5.56, or .308, or are you one of those guys that automatically assumes all AKs must shoot crappy steel-cased 7.62×39?
I have a Saiga .223 that puts rounds in the same general pattern as a good AR out to 200yd. I’ve shot both side by side and seen it.
Take a look at the long-range accuracy that can be achieved with some of the heavier-barreled VEPR rifles when fed quality ammo.
I agree that the AR gets a bad rep on its reliability, but it does require more maintenance in general than an AK. Regardless, I keep my AKs shiny clean on the inside.
Haters, haters everywhere
Yes. But I’d point him to an AK 101. Same platform. 5.56×45 chambering.
He’d need to provide the booze as we debate the deciding factor (AK74 vs AK 101): touted superior 5.45×39 ballistics or better 5.56×45 availability.
What is superior about 5.45×39 ballistics? It is both slower and lighter bullet.
FPS per dollar
if you’re looking for blam per dollar, we’d all shoot Mosins.
That is a really bad edit in between pulling the rifle out of the muddy water and loading a round.
DAYUM! You ain’t kiddin’!
James wants po-po to take away his toys again
What you mean again, they didn’t take away any of his toys the first time, just his TN Cary Permit.
No the AR cannot take a beating like an AK, milled or not. Accuracy, sure. AK owners not interested so much over 200 yrds I would think. For me, urban SHTF, ill take the AK.
I’m in agreement with you. At combat ranges the better accuracy of the AR doesn’t matter that much.
If the SHTF tomorrow my AK is what I am pulling out of my safe. I own both an ARs and a AKs and I have more fun shooting the commie gun made by ба́бушка.
I think if I were K-VAR and I got an entry from James “I am going to start shooting people” Yeager, I probably would have conveniently lost it, lest I become somehow connected to the single most toxic name in the pro gun debate.
And yet they chose it. Did you enter?
I don’t have a grand to spend on a cold war commie gun. Sucks for me I guess.
In our private moments, shorn of all shame, awash in all honesty, I think most of us can admit that in an urban SHTF fan environment, most of us would expire long, long before our any given firearm would; AR, AK, you name it. So go with whatever works for you and rock it out, as the kids say.
After all, such debates are either an academic exercise, in which case it doesn’t matter anyway. Or it’s real life, in which case, as mentioned, it also wouldn’t matter anyway.
Most people are still going to be decent folks after SHTF. We’ll need our guns a little more, but the idea that everyone’s going to just start killing each other and not working together is silly.
Think? How about when the electricity has been out for a week and the family hasn’t eaten in four days?
I don’t know…. At about the minute mark, he’s yankin away at the trigger. Most of the time it goes bang. A couple 3 times, he hasn’t let the trigger reset, or? He yanks, the gun recoils, but no bang. So it’s either a defective shooter, or a gun that has recoil but doesn’t shoot…
Weird.
This was a Non-choice excuse to get a bunch of Free adverts on Utube by fan-boys
My GT gun is nobody’s business but my own but some narcissists cannot control their impulses
Mr. Yeager, keep fighting the good fight & pissing off the PC, chicken shit, pu$$y a$$holes who claim to be pro-2ndA!!! All you haters wish you had the sac of JY…yes, you do.
Personally, I got interested in guns originally so that I could effectively defend myself against the sort of person who would write something like that.
@ Ken Hagler, and you’re the EXACT compromising, jellyfish, so called “common sense”, FLAME DELETED that should be a member of groups run by Bloomberg, Brady, Giffords & Josh Horwitz. GFY a$$ douche.
Alright alright stop giving NoDak a bad name. Making the rest of us look like queyntes
@ Stephen M. I’m sure you’re one of the the chicken sh!ts who’d clean up his AK or AR before turning it in, all in the name of “common sense”…punk a$$ chump! It’s people like you who are gonna give ND a bad name. You must be one of the Heitkamp butt boys who live in fargo…errr western, Minnesta.
Keep talking from your armchair, lad. I’ve brawled and banged my way through the Turtles enough times to know an immature jackoff when I see one. When you’ve, say, ran a truckload or two of shine across the Canuck line or set a man on fire, you’re welcome to start talking sh!t. In the meantime grow a pair and start expressing your opinions like an adult.
After your nap, see if mom will let you come out of the basement and go talk to the girls in your 6th grade class. Show some class though, those ND ranch girls will kick your butt if you use that mouth.
And today’s not overly bright award goes to Jamie in ND.Way to give Bloomin idiot err Blomberg fuel. it only takes one, and you are it.
I question the edit between pulling it out of the water and pulling the charging handle…
I’d really be fine if Mr. Y would just drop out of the public eye altogether.
An AK-74 is accurate up to 500 yards, even 600 yards. If I could only pick one rifle to go into battle with, it would be an AK. Don’t get me the wrong I like AR’s too, and I just like that the AK is going to be more dependable and can run in tough conditions better than the AR can.
You’re far more likely to be able to scrounge up parts and accessories for an AR over an AK.
Optics are at least equal in importance to firepower in a lot of situations, and putting picatinny on an AK is still kind of an afterthought.
But I don’t get the Yeager hate. Hating Troy industries hiring of Government murderers? OK, sure, makes perfect sense. Hating some guy that’s a little self absorbed and shot his mouth off once or twice? Meh, get over it.
Yep. Learning to make room for those who may make us uncomfortable? I thought that was part of growing up.
You don’t really need to scrounge up parts for an AK… I’ve never heard of an AK bolt breaking at 5k rounds, only AR15s. Infact, the only thing I’ve heard of replacing on an AK was a barrel at 90k rounds.
Just another part of Yeager’s campaign to restore his public image. Phase one was co-opting favored YouTube personalities like fxhummel and PatriotNurse. If he is an actual human being in person, great, But I only know the internet douchebag side.
Patriot Nurse and James were friends long before the infamous “Pack your bags” video.
But Yeager never put her out front until he went full dickhead. And in the meantime he picked up fxhummel and absuperman. He even used a pastor as a human shield in one vid.
I met Patriot Nurse at a Tactical Response event long before the Pack Your Bags video. And checking his channel he uploaded a video with Patriot nurse on 12/27/2012, and based on a quick search the Pack Your Bags video was uploaded sometime in early January 2013. So unless he planned for what was obviously a pissed off, off the cuff video to be uploaded, and did some preemptive PR you are wrong.
The fact is that James Yeager is actually a good guy. Yes he is abrasive at times, but he truly cares about his students.
And he reminds me of the sort of stories people told about Col. Cooper. Where if you met Cooper at the range or other official event his was the large in and in charge instructor. But off the range he was much more personable person, he would invite you into his home show you his large gun collection and talk for hours. I don’t think James has the hard divide, but he is both the serious instructor and the caring friend to people that are willing to get to know him.
Wait for the attacks.
I tried real, real hard to have an opinion about this story, but I was just completely unable to.
–Sig556R, because it’s better.
Not a fan of the guy in the video either, however i’m an arsenal ak47 owner and i do love my ak. Always runs smooth, never had a hick up and it’s bug on accurate at 300 yards with irons. Money well spent.
Someone also mentioned about ak prices being high, they wont get better. Last time i talked with K-VAR they told me that the makers of the saiga line up (never can spell their name right) raised prices on their rifles twice this year and K-VAR and the others who bring them state side said we’re not renewing orders. So according to them what’s here or what’s already on order is it…
Military uses AR. AR is superior. AK would be a nice gun and fun to shoot if I owned one. Cant really have too many guns.