AK 103 - The last 7.62x39 by Mikhail Kalashnikov (Feat. Vladimir Onokoy)

this episode was brought to you by slate black industries for mlok grips and accessories visit [Music] slateblackindustries.com [Music] [Music] so in the early 90s the ak-74m rifle outlined the basis for the new ak-100 series of which the avtomat kalashnikova model 103 would be one of the most successful commercial variants welcome to nine hole reviews today we examine this kalashnikov manufacturing success story and hear directly from the russians on some details pertaining to this russian black rifle the rugged compact and easy to control ak-103 in caliber 7.62 by 39 was an answer to many middle eastern contracts that the kalashnikov had designed for an easy manufacturing layout the 103 is but a single model in the ak-100 line which in turn was a smart method of maximizing interchangeable parts to manufacture various configurations of different calibers on one single ak-100 assembly line to fully appreciate how this came about we should pull back and look at the development of the aftermath kalashnikova before the ak-100 series russian military rifle manufacturing had a litany of different models with different configurations mainly the akm the ak-74 fixed stock the aks-74 and the aks-74u folders muzzle devices different front sight block different gas block different hand guards different u-model gas tube different barrels different stock and rear trunnion different bolts and bolts carriers different nothing was interchangeable finally in the 90s the jeff's returned to the drawing board with oh yes mikhail kalashnikov himself and this series would be his final design the idea of the ak-100 revolved around the manufacturing process to have a single assembly line manufacturing all variations with minimal swapping of parts all new variations use the 5.5 millimeter trunnion and the folding fixed stock the same receiver same hand guards same bolts carrier and the same fire control group the only variations for caliber came down to the barrel bolt and rear sight base the only variations for long rifle or short carbine configurations came down to rear sight leaf gas block and front sights outside of the muzzle device and the variation components every major model of the ak-100 series could be manufactured on the same assembly line with few interchangeable parts and thus the ak-103 was born in short this was an updated ak-74 with a durable polymer furniture with a highly effective muzzle brake chambered in 7.62 by 39 today what we have here is a saiga to ak-103 conversion since we cannot obtain full ak-103s in the us sagas are made on the ak-103 lines with additional steps to make them hunting type rifles however i spared no expense in working with a gunsmith mike and sourced the original ak-100 series components to return the saga back to its original format mike took the saga and installed the ak-100 series stock and 5.5 millimeter trunnion re-welded the extra saiga trigger holes install the stock retaining hook military type safety selector replace the gas block and front sight block with proper ak-100 series components and milled a us muzzle device and marked it to spec mike also installed a pistol grip reinforcement plate that is a standard feature for russian folding stocks he retained the bolt holding device that comes with saiga rifles so here we have a russian factory built ak-100 series 7.62 rifle with all the intended ak-103 features restored for us to properly evaluate what we consider as one of the best factory rifles to work within a 7.62 by 39 rich environment we borrowed a romanian washer from small arms solutions as a stand-in for the akm to compare with the ak-103 first impressions most notably the ak-103 is putter smooth compared to the gritty washer machine work on the ak-103 is well executed the stock locks open solidly and is tight when folded shut the ak-103 actually uses a thin stemmed 5.45 style bolt instead of the usual akm thick stemmed bolt despite being the 7.62 caliber when compared side by side this is clear the ak-103 extractor is also visible from the bolt like a 5.45 ak-74 bolt rather than an akm bolt and an improved ak-100 push-button recoil spring is used the ak-100 series pistons also lack gas rings to speed up manufacturing and when compared to an ak-74 you can see the different length of the muzzle brake collar the pistol grip reinforcement plate is also a standard feature now since all rifles have folding stocks but how does a shoot we're glad you asked taking the rifle to 100 yards we did our standard nine shots group with bernal military type 7.6 2x39 ammunition [Music] with eight out of the nine shots the rifle printed a 3.1 moa dispersion while a ninth shot stretched it to 3.9 moa this is an above average but fairly average nonetheless group for the kalashnikov family so how does the ak-74 style muzzle break affect close range engagements with a 7.62 caliber [Music] what do you think pretty good i think a couple charlies but mostly everything center mass i don't see any others off so pretty good little string very smooth this one the gassing on it and everything it's come together really well feels clean smooth not like you know some sometimes you pick up aks in 762 and depending on which one you get it might feel like you're getting hit with the freight train even though it's only a 762x39 this one quite on the contrary very smooth and then with something like the two power acss stock from primary arms really easy to track so you just use two eyes open and you're still basically seeing everything through the reticle the other thing that i really like about running some sort of an optic in order to control recoil is it allows me to put my thumb over the top of the gun just get better control over what's going on getting that type of a grip means that i'm basically taking the same ergonomics that i have off of an ar platform and applying them to the ak even down to how i'm holding the grip of the gun makes it a lot easier to control recoil and get a nice center mass grouping going on on the target it's a little bit harder to do two times than just a pure one power dot at 15 yards like that but all things considered it's still way easier to track some sort of a reticle than it is trying to track iron sights when you're shooting at that speed at least for me and that's taking into account even things like uh that henry does where he stacks the front sight over the rear sight adjustment which he'll demonstrate here in a moment so the way the russians designed it they wanted the soldiers to put it on the p setting for battle sites that works if you're shooting at a point target but not really when you're shooting at a close-up reflex type of shooting so what i do i put it on one for the 100 meter so that clears my rear leaf to where i could see the two nups that hold the rear sights and i use the rear sight almost as the reference point and the front halo as the front sight and entirely neglect where the front sight post is and that turns into almost an eotech effect when i'm running up close is it faster than a red dot absolutely not but is it better than using the p setting if you don't have anything else on hand your mileage may vary but it is for me yes it up yep [Music] [Applause] [Music] ready [Music] [Applause] and so there you have it how to shoot kalashnikov iron sights a little closer than what they were designed for we found on the practical accuracy side that the ak-103 seems to score in the middle of the pack with iron sights but the ballistics of the 7.62x39 is likely the crux of its limited performance in winch once we put the 2x optic on the rifle we were able to much more effectively establish wind drift we consider this package as an effective rifle system for usage in the middle eastern or tropical climates that have ample 7.62 by 39 type rifles and on that note we spoke with the russians on the practical development of ak-103 introducing vladimir onokoi when we talk about this weapon i think it's important to talk about the name because unlike some other russian weapons it doesn't come from the year when it was inducted or went into mass production ak-10103 and the entire 100 series was named after the production facility 100 which is even now a primary uh small arms production facility in all of his another name for this particular weapon is 6p45 it's the official index given to every small arm in russia so sometimes you would hear about six b-45 uh it's not always ak-103 over the years there were many different versions of this particular weapon there was one with the triangle folding stock with a non-folding stock there was one with a picatinny rail on top of the receiver cover the picatinny rail was from uh modernization kit with some people called ratnik modernization kit which cannot be further from the truth but that's a story for another time but most of those modifications they didn't have their own name they were just developed for specific contracts and specific requirements so one modification that actually has its own name is an ak-103 with a three-shot burst mechanism it's called ak-103t one more thing you don't think about when you look at ak-103 is the muzzle device and i really never thought much of it until i started shooting the older aks from the 50s and 60s that didn't have any kind of muzzle device and frankly the first time i shot that older generation akm or i think it was a type 3 ak-4 47 or ak that's a story for another time how to properly call them i almost shot the ceiling i just didn't realize how much this muzzle device actually tains 762 by 39 and the first time i shot the untamed ak it was it was an interesting experience it took me some time to get used to it but the simple muzzle device actually was very difficult to develop because russian army always has a very strict uh limit on how loud your weapon can be in fact there is another muzzle device that is even written into documentation with ak-103 people don't see much of it it's atg which is a suppressor it was and it's still being used in many different units uh in the russian military and uh perhaps in some other places when it comes to accuracy i think the results that were achieved by henry are pretty typical i had some really good groups over the years with ak-103 i did a lot of accuracy testing and one thing to keep in mind when you're testing weapons outside of the us is that the magic great ammo isn't just unavailable it's not a thing so every time you're testing an ak you have to think you know how what kind of accuracy the ammo is capable of and then you know try uh try it with different types of ammo different types of bullet weight i remember um a really good gun rider in south africa told me a story when he shot a pretty famous european brand ammo wasn't rushed ammo he picked up the brass and he reloaded the same ammo and shot the group again and his group shrinked in half just because he well reloaded the ammo and made it to his quality standard not the factory quality standard so again ammo is something you should experiment with in a safe way and then you will be able to reach the full potential of your ak another thing that i really love about 103 and not many people actually talk about it is the life of a barrel over the years many tests were conducted and the exact life of the barrel was never really accurately determined uh i know a few documented cases where the shot count went over 50 000 rounds it was still shooting pretty well i mean it's so ridiculous people don't believe me and every time i say that i have to provide the sources and everything so uh to this date i don't really know what the uh actual life of the barrel of ak-103 is a lot of interesting tests were done uh the guys at kalashnikov media they shot over 1400 rounds for the ak-103 continuously in one take and the weapon was still functioning and it was still accurate enough so it is something that people don't really think about but you know if the world was ending and i had to pick a gun that would serve me for another 30 or 40 years i would probably pick something in 762 by 39 because the life of the barrel is well ridiculously long i was lucky to spend a lot of time with ak-103 in multiple countries primarily when we were participating in trials and testing this weapon in every conceivable way and it is a weapon that will never give up and the weapon that never personally let me down so in many ways it is remarkable and perhaps most obvious and the most striking feature is the reliability i know everybody talks about ak reliability and when you actually see that out of 15 weapons only one is capable of firing after a certain test and this weapon is ak-103 oh believe me it is it is incredible once after a test in the desert i literally had a line of guys who wanted to clean my gun because they were so excited they couldn't believe it actually worked obviously every weapon has a limit of reliability but frankly most tests i've seen all around the world ah they never got close to the limit of the ak-10 typically when i have to shoot 103 a lot to make it more comfortable i use the rubber butt pad from the underbarrel grenade launcher gp 25 gp 30 gb 34 it's like a five dollar fix for uh many people it would be a pretty good option can you retain the durability you retain the ability to fold it to the left side you're just making it slightly longer and a bit more comfortable so just something to think about for some shooters and obviously in this day and age you can't talk about the weapon and not talk about the accessories scopes and rails and everything so the standard 103 right now um almost always has a picture in your rail and the bottom of the handguard and one on the right side of the hangar when you're using forward grips lasers and lights it's not quite enough and that's exactly why the 200 series was developed that's exactly why ak-12 ak-15 was developed and uh i guess it's a story for another time thank you for your time and enjoy this nine hole review like i do when i watch them so as a last ak series rifles at general kalashnikov would design the ak-103 was an advancement not necessarily in terms of accuracy but more so an advancement with usability and more importantly manufacturing capacity at the end of the day if you design a perfect rifle but fail to mass produce it it is but a science project for others to copy however if you can manufacture an extremely effective rifle at a lower cost and a mass quantity you can influence nations and general kalashnikov indeed influence nations [Music] thanks for watching the ak-103 episode now i really enjoyed making it specifically because we had to focus a little more on the manufacturing procedure than just the rifle itself and precisely the manufacturing procedure is what makes the ak-100 series interesting and that's actually got a lot of relevance to 2020 when there's multiple american rifle companies rolling out their version of the ak-103 clone it's expensive to make a kalashnikov it's expensive to establish that type of assembly line and we don't have that type of assembly line in the u.s pre-established for the kalashnikov series rifles which is why it's interesting because while overseas there's a market for companies to stamp out these rifles in the us on the other hand we have a vibrant parts kit building type of market for companies to remanufacture rifles from parts kits what we just saw here this is not a factory build ak-103 this is rather a saiga that was from the ak-103 line built together with ak-103 parts now in the past in one of the early episodes of nine-hole reviews well actually the first practical accuracy episode you see us shoot what we labeled an ak-103 probably not nearly as close as the current one that we just saw uh that was actually a rifle that i personally put together a long time ago with a saiga 762 rifle and a lot of ak-74 parts now that particular rifle i traded off to william aka michiko at ozark bear arms who later filmed a video detailing the differences between my home build versus a an arsenal slg rifle which again is very similar to what i'm talking about a u.s company taking foreign parts kits or a foreign rifle a hunting version of the the 103 and returning it back into something like a 103. now if you're interested you could watch williams video on his channel michiko right now in 2020 as we progress towards the latter half of the year we've seen palmetto state armory and kalashnikov usa both show their new versions of the ak-103 clone now we don't have any experience on either one of those two ak-103 clones but if you're coming to this video from the future leave a comment down below to tell us how yours is we're very curious to finding out the most interesting thing i found from this is that the soviet well the russians took a soviet facility used an american idea of an assembly line and in fact decreasing the amount of interchangeable parts to make a pretty good product and sold it as capitalists through the world where us in america because we can't have it would find our way to buy these things and the funny thing is that outlines the best way of selling something to americans is to tell americans that you can't have it and therefore i'm out here today to tell you that slate black industries new single slot m-lok grip panels you cannot have because they are mine and so you cannot buy them cut cut cut henry what are you doing you can't say that why because we want people to buy them okay so i precisely find this interesting because the best way of selling something to americans is to tell them that they can't have it and that's why america any american out there you cannot have my saga converted to 103 the all original russian-made you cannot ever buy this even though my email is listed have you heard of youtube rules come on henry what problem is this six four vicks eight packs red con one green and green coffee over here this is [Applause] okay

Channel: 9-Hole Reviews

Views: 316,073

Rating: 4.9475169 out of 5

Keywords: Kalashnikov, AK47, AK103, AK102, AK101, AK74, PUBG, children of men, call of duty, battlefield, blood diamond, lord of war, russia, avtomat, long range, marksman, spetznaz, special forces, izhmash, saiga, 7.62x39, rainbow six, modern warfare, SWAT, red dawn, far cry, soviet, Россия, Кала́шникова, Автома́т, винтовка, армия, стрельба, сайга, ВМФ России, Морская пехота, Сухопутные войска, crimea, warsaw, НАТО, Варшавский договор, AKM, Dr Disrespect, Shroud, Escape from Tarkov, sobr, swat, Garand Thumb

Id: Gt8hl4mTOq8

Length: 24min 56sec (1496 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ProudStormTrumper]

When will Kalashnikov USA release this?

[u/rarrieta82]

Awesome vid. At 3:57, that’s the same ammo I got for .23/rd a while back. Can’t seem to find it anymore. Dammit.