Arsenal SLR106F & SLR106CR .223 AK Rifles: Talk, Concerns, & Worries

hi i'm misha here and on this channel we do a bit with a case you might say and this is one that we have definitely touched on and done some videos on but i thought why not go more in depth into the bulgarian arsenal SLR 106 series a couple of reasons for that as of mid 2019 these are starting to get kind of popular because you guessed it you can't get them easily anymore which always means people want things also 223 five five six caliber nato aks are a little more popular than they were in the past in general and also there's some talk concern worried hullabaloo about reliability and in bad feed Gramps and all that jazz which is pretty much BS at least today so in this video i thought i would kind of go over the history of this gun talk about the variations features and the pros cons and the reality versus the myth of the 106 f and 106 CR but to prove to you that this is actually quite a reliable gun let's jump over to the range and then we'll come back here to the table afterwards SOR 106 TR SLR 106 [Applause] SLR 106 CR yeah and that when I've polished a little bit and there you have it aside from Jay speedy trigger finger Gonzales there we had a hundred percent reliability and when he experienced is called hammer follow that happens when you are trying to very rapidly fire a Kalashnikov and the reason it happens on ours any any sim valley USA the military gun will have what is coughed in referred to as a rate reducer which is what the ITTF considers to be an auto sear in reality what that does it is a an out-of-battery safety it retards the hammer until the bolt is fully forward and fully locked to ensure that the hammer can't go forward and do what it does in theory it also prevents out-of-battery detonation of course but in practice it just prevents dead trigger so it's a safety feature and many guns have it the FAL has something very similar but of course in on the government's interest wisdom they require these I'll be removed from military style guns to make them somato civilian legal so thanks yeah we had 100% reliability which is what we usually experience with these guns they really are quite reliable so yeah let's jump over and talk about some features SLR 106 again this time I'm not gonna try boom firing it all SLR 106's are chambered for 223 and 5.56 nato they're built based on the russian aks-74 pattern not really the ak-74m believe it or not the receiver is 1.0 millimeter stamped steel they have a standard forged runyan and bolt the barrel is cold hammer-forged chrome lined with a one and seven twist rate and all of them at least all of the carbines come from the factory from arsenal incorporated with an aka a type side folding stock these two have the solid body so kind of the ak-74m type with the trapdoor for a cleaning kit they also have variants that have the more traditional kind of iconic Afghan or skeletonized stock they use the same four point five millimeter pin hinge so you can swap between but a more modern Russian stock will not fit they do have a standard pistol grip with the reinforcing plate here they come with a us-made trigger group and typically they come with polymer hand guards with the heat shield inside you can get them in black plum and tan I think they've even done some green in the past normally they come with the ak-74 ribbed or late AKM type ribs top of cover on mine here I've put a Russian smooth the receiver does have a dimpled mag well those have x/y stampings as you see standard these chip with a short v or sometimes ten round mag but usually v but they can accept without modification bulgarian military mags standard capacity is 30 rounds there is a compact version that does 20 you can get them in black or smoked so translucent these mags do you have metal reinforcement they were expensive relatively speaking you know 40 bucks but they are very good mags especially the black ones so what about the variations well the rear hand guards back on the SLR 106 F SLR 106 fr and SLA 106 CR are all virtually identical these will all have the side-folding stock pistol grip take standard mag stamped receiver same internal standard length cast system yada-yada-yada the difference between the 106 F and 106 fr is the F is the more classic aks-74 Stiles slab side smooth side receiver without the scope rim the fr as well as the CR will have the scope rail one thing to note when the stock is folded you'll have to remove your optic at least on most every single mountain I know of for it to completely latch it's just how it is so it's there but just know if you have a rail that's one limitation the 106 f-106 fr 106 C are all have standard length hand guards and a standard length gas tube the FN fr I'll have a 90 degree gas block with accessory lug and cleaning around underneath there will also be an ak74 type front side base with the bayonet lug there and in ak74 muzzle device on 24 millimeter threads these are removable the barrel is 16 and a quarter inches long it's a lightweight profile ak74 type the big difference when you go to the CR as you end up with a combination front sight gas block unit so kind of Allah aka 102 104 105 if you want to put in a cleaning rod like I've done the mind you have do a short one it will come threaded 24 mil and from the factory the burl was stuck out to 16 inches as well what I've done on mine is I've cut it down to 12 and I've permanently attached an extended four piece flash hider made by CNC warrior we've done a couple of videos on that so you can check those out for more details but basically I did it because Pawan looks neat it gives you a working flash hider also shortening the barrel sin and kind of make the recoil better it seemed to make the recoil much smoother and sharper because this pattern is meant to work with the shorter barrel so it just it just made the gun I think more reliable and I just felt better more fun to shoot and the nice thing about the four-piece style is that you can remove the inner cone while still having the outer shell pinned on for cleaning maintenance muzzle inspection it makes me happy and I think it's a neat thing and the thing is a regular Bulgarian four-piece would only be maybe an inch inch and a half maybe two inches shorter so you know this saves me from having to do an SBR and it really cost me very little and it's not a terribly heavy device so I like it again the 106 f-106 fr they're based on the aks-74 the final member of the family which I don't have out is the SLR 106 you are this has been done as both a pistol and a carbine the carbine is crank style still has the same rear section folding stock it has all your typical clean features hinge top cover l-type rear sight polymer hang guards it'll have the combination front sight gas block and will be a we already but it will have a 16-inch barrel for import reasons and for being a title one firearm so you can cut the barrel down on the 106 you are and go to town later they would also do 106 you so no rail in 106 you are rail pistol it had the correct short barrel about eight and a quarter inches it was even threaded which was nice and in the back it basically had an under ill doubt rear hinge mechanism that you could finish out to had a folding stock if you wanted to SBR it or it had a hole in the back you could use it the hole was originally for the sling swivel but you could pull it off and put on a bracelet Apter much like jfj and i have done with our SEM 7 k pistols if you've seen that video if not you might go see it so those are the members of the family there has never been an import milled 223 5 5 6 from arsenal years ago there was a US assembled one from Bulgarian parts that Arsenal did called the SA m5 but those have been out of production for well over a decade and today I think they're bumping to grandeur if you find one and even today these are starting to kind of get hard to find what happened Arsenal introduced their stamp line both in 223 and 76230 9 and 2006 I started to see them in stores around 2007 and it was considered to be a lower-cost alternative to the mill guns and these were the first guns early feature a factory solid-body left side folding stock so that was kind of a neat thing and it was also the first time we really saw the combination front sight gas block arrangement SBR ready cranks all that good stuff and those have been available ever since although they're getting harder and harder to find the day for various reasons years later they would be joined by the 104 fr and 104 you are which were the same basic guns but in five four or five that's kind of where we're at today the prices on these really haven't risen heck of a lot considering that they were introduced well over a decade ago and even then they were bumping you know nine to eleven hundred dollars depending on the model the cranks being the more expensive back then today you're looking well that's hard to say the markets really volatile but they haven't gone out exponentially in my opinion so that's a little bit of a rundown let's talk about some of the myths and realities of the 106 now so here's that dusty from the range black magazine this was the original pattern that Bulgaria developed further to 23 and it's always been a solid reliable mag but in the early 21st century they kind of followed the trend and went to smoke translucent clear type magazines and it's these magazines it had a bit of a dubious reputation spiderweb cracking could happen with those smoke 223 mags this is something that Arsenal copped up to quite quickly and offered to replace mags and that was ten years ago so pretty much the smoke mags made since a 2010 are good to go it's also worth pointing out that many other makers had problems with cracking mags FB radom comes to mind for their burrial mics they tried some clear ones that didn't work great then they went to their green translucent that worked a lot better so that was one issue but to be fair most of the spiderweb cracking stuff was cosmetic the mag still worked okay although I will say the black ones have always been the most reliable for me translucent have always been a little pickier here's our internals nothing special here bolt group this will be all Bulgarian including the gas piston we do have a spring-loaded firing pin standard recoil spring nothing there like I said a standard rib top cover but really where the naysayers come from with the 106 is this right in here the bullet guide you might be surprised to learn what this does has guide the bullet from the magazine into the chamber into the barrel and early on the geometry of this bullet guide was off which caused issues feeding issues mostly again this is when the 106 first went into production so it would have been 2006-2007 maybe into 2008 the problem was quickly realized because well people buying these kinds of guns aren't going to accept poor reliability in Arsenal made a change on at production going to a new bullet guide geometry and of course they offered to fix replace people's guns that had the defective one here's what needs to be stressed and remembered that was well over a decade ago they have fixed this issue a long long time ago have there been a few 106 is with issues since then of course I challenge you to find any single gun that is mass-produced let's say that's over a thousand exist that there aren't a couple of duds linens or factory mistakes I've even had a couple come through my shop over the years and that's what warranties are for but the major issue the major flaw was quickly addressed and fixed long before many of you were even buying a case so worrying about it is pretty dang silly 106 CRLs mag of the day [Applause] so what do you think yeah I gotta back together again so really the 106 is kind of received an unfair reputation it maybe kind of the lesser in its family the 107 and 104 but this not just says it's not a bad gun they actually are quite reliable they will work with steel cased and brass cased ammo and again the issues that they had in the past have long since been resolved that said this was the slowest seller in the last imports actually came in back in 2009-2010 at least that's the trunnion dates where our snow has done they don't just convert all that they have at once of course not for then they probably don't have enough compliance parts at one given time they'll convert a few hundred when they sell they'll convert a few hundred more and they've been working on their batches ever since then and it's only really this year that they finally kind of started to scrape the bottom of the of the barrel there and I don't mean that is in the bad guns but they're they're pretty much out of the raw imports that they use to make the ones we know today the ones with full features because because of the 89 import ban you can't bring over guns with bayonet lugs threaded barrels anyone that can take high-capacity magazines or folding stocks or pistol grips the guns have to be in a sport or compliant version so yeah you're kind of you have to bring them over in a neutered form and then once they're here you can modify them adding a few parts to satisfy the 922 our gods and then sell them to the public the way we actually want them so these are all Bulgarians still except for the US parts which are actually made in-house by Arsenal these include the trigger group parts of the furniture and centimes the muzzle device depending on the individual model and I think people have started to really get interested in 223 aks and the 106 this year because all the five four or five guns are gone and really all the other 223 s are gone we're pretty much just left with some 60 39 s and some people like the small caliber high velocity approach now there's a huge ongoing debate about five five six and an aka versus five four five that that's not for this video that that's too much to get into here but it is a thing I will say as far as magazines a lot of people like to try to make an aka take AR mags I say this is not the greatest idea the aka is meant to take its own rock and lonk curved pattern mag and to be fair the ar-15 well I think it's a good gun its magazine is not its best feature in fact it was kind of holding it back for years until finally they kind of got the mag design correct so why would you want to take one of the best mediocre parts of the AR and slap it into your a K you're only going to decrease reliability and what's the point of an aka if it's not reliable as I've said in past videos so I say if you're gonna get one of these just nut up and buy however many factory mags you feel you need me you know for pro gun this is fine but other people need 20 per gun if that's your hang-up just face the fact that your obsession your OCD is gonna cost you a little extra money but by the time you pay someone to convert one of these to take AR mags you could have already bought several factory mags so that's just my opinion but I'm I'm right but it's just my opinion I'm not right opinion I just thought we would kind of spotlight the 106 since people have asked about it and again people have kind of been more interested in it lately it really is a good gun it is a true import has all the same features of an ak74 which is because Bulgarians never made the ak-74m the last really they received from Russia official patterning was for the was for the aks-74 in a case aks-74u crink of that's why actually the 106 CR which is based on their own AR m to type guns is not really a 102 104 105 clone it has a lot of left over ak-74 features that's why I swapped out its dust cover with a smooth one because to me the ribbed top cover on a 102 104 carbine just looks weird it's front sight combo device is a little different but it looks very similar to Russian and they will mostly use the four piece Bulgarian flash hider although of course threaded 24 millimeter the Russian one would screw on there's a little mag that these come with speaking of come with they come in a very basic communist cardboard style box which is pretty much rubbish which I don't care because I don't keep my boxes anyway they come with the one small mag they do come with a military-style sling they do come with a cleaning kit to go on the buttstock they come with an oiler and they come with the paper manual so they come with a few extras not as many as some but more than others today Arsenal is consistent about this stuff and that's one thing I do like about them their prices are relatively stable and what they come with and their features are very consistent and predictable so you know there's more I could say but I think this has gone on long enough we can always revisit it we just felt like getting the 106 CR out again this is a gun I was considering moving along there are some things I'm going to be selling off just you know work up funding for my project but this gun was just 100% reliable a lot of fun and I don't have many you know 12-inch combo front sight type aks and I don't have mini 223 5 5 6 aks I just have this one I've got the SAR PK 5 which we also took out that day and of course I've got the archer so I figured yeah probably won't because one day five four five I think it'll always be available but I'm not sure of the cost and ease of access to 23 five five six will always be around and will probably always be reasonably priced so I think that's really the 106's biggest aspect biggest benefit is that it's shooting a cartridge that will always be available and that has a lot to recommend it when you're thinking into the deep future just food for thought well if you have a 106 or si m5 or any other 223 we'd love to hear about it in the comments if you could like share and subscribe and if you'd like to help support the channel so we can get up to the dusty range a little more often please check out the link to our patreon page this is Nisha and Jay and I will both catch you very soon next time

Channel: Mishaco

Views: 21,336

Keywords: Educational Historical Documentary Historic History Preservation Documentation, Misha, Mishaco, Ozark Bear Arms, OBA, plinking101, MishacoOBA, Arsenal, Bulgaria, Bulgarian, 5.56mm, 5.56x45, NATO, .223, Rem, caliber, AK, AK47, AK74, AKS74, AK101, AK102, import, test, reliability, feedramp, magazine, problem, problems, myth, myths, worries, review, SLR, SLR106, SLR-106, SLR106F, SLR106FR, SLR106CR, SLR106U, SLR106UR, pistol, rifle, carbine, FR, CR, UR, SAM5, SA M-5, stamped, milled, M90NP, M90, Archer, Beryl, VEPR, Saiga, WASR3, SAR3

Id: 6HDuJV21Zfk

Length: 28min 35sec (1715 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 04 2019