Is This the Best New AK For the $$$? The Zastava M70 Z-PAP AK-47 Review

everyone James with tfbtv I love aks hey doin 8k reviews this is such a storied platform with so many permutations so many minor details so many changes even across one line of guns like say the Serbian Zastava aks that it's really hard to get everything correct and so whenever you're doing a review then you'll say something if you know something about a case you'll say something about a particular a.k platform and then you'll get somebody in the comments being like well actually explain to you why you're totally wrong and you totally messed up so it's very difficult to do AKA reviews just because of how rich the history of the platform is that's why it's great that there are so many a case specific YouTube channels like my good buddy Misha Co who's gonna watch this video and be like James you are a bumbling idiot and you messed everything up in your review about the zastava m70 Zee PAP and that's gonna be reviewing today's Zastava just started importing their own ak's you've seen you go ak's you've seen Serbian aks in the United States before but finally Zastava started importing their own guns in the United States and doing all the nine to to our compliance work themselves and that means that this a que maybe the best Serbian a que that's ever come into this country so even though it's a little daunting I'm gonna go ahead and give this review a whack and we're gonna talk about whether or not this new I'm making air quotes it's hard to see because I'm holding an ak-47 but I'm making air quotes whether or not this is new a que is worth the asking price I said storied earlier the aka is a storied platform well perhaps none as much as the Zastava ak's ah stiva has been in business since I want to say 1853 and they've been making the m70 and derivatives therefrom and predecessors there too since the 1950s so they've been doing this for a bit and they know what they're doing over there really just go check out the Wikipedia article on sauced of a super interesting read they're a company that they know what they're doing and if you guys saw my a que myth-busting video that I did several years ago with Michiko who I mentioned great underrated channel michigo he is like a scholar when it comes to aks and Michiko makes a cameo in that video to discuss why a Ches aren't really cheap the factories that these aks are built in in Europe they're freaking massive like they're like towns it takes a lot of machinery to pump out the a.k I'm sure it's something like economy of scale or what have you once you have the equipment and you can just punch these things out but you're gonna have to start a GoFundMe for the startup cost to build your ache a factory slash City and the reason why I highlight that is that there are a lot of fly-by-night operations that you have in the aka industry you've got a lot of people who kind of crap on american-made ak's because they're not using the correct machinery we've seen businesses come we've seen them go like in the just in the past like 20 years of people who make a subpar product or take a good product and butcher it turn it into dog [ __ ] and then nobody wants to buy it in it earns a bad name what otherwise might be a good rifle a good example is the wasser everybody's buying washers now for like five six seven hundred bucks and everybody loves the wasser back when I was in college god I think you were buying washers for like 250 or 300 bucks and people wouldn't touch them because the importer and I'm not gonna name any names I'm sure it's gonna come with the comments but I don't want to sling mud here the company that was importing them did such a [ __ ] job with the conversions that they had canid sites out of spec mag wells they were unreliable garbage you also have us made a case right now that are experiencing growing pains or that are unproven so it's kind of a tricky world to get into right now the AKA industry especially with Russian aks being very hard to get the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that I would buy prior to watching this video might be say an Arsenal from Bulgaria because they've been doing it for a while too and there's some of the best at the game I don't own an arsenal well I do have an Arsenal imported Saiga SGL 21 that what absolutely loved it so you've got all these hazards you got all these hazards and the prior Yugoslavia everybody calls them you go aks and Yugoslavia and even though it's called Serbia now but you have Serbian aks they weren't immune to it either they were being imported and imported by a company or companies who did not have a good reputation in the a.k community essentially in order to import these guns they have to be imported to be 9/2 to compliant that usually means single-stack 10-round magazines and in a single stack mag well and I think the trunnions are different a few other components the bolts are made for like single stack aks and that used to be how the yugos were imported so that would mean you'd need some trained monkey with a dremel to you know go in there and like Dremel out the magwell and they were still using the the single stack bolts and you know they just ran like [ __ ] I already have a zastava m70 for anyone who has been watching tfbtv for any length of time guarantee you've seen the gun I use it all the time I've absolutely treated it terribly abused it and it still runs perfectly I've never had a failure with it it still shoots all right you know like 2.75 MOA not bad for an 8k the Serbs know how to make a good gun and that's why I've always loved the M 70 the problem comes in with that interceding importer and the conversion to make it 92 compliant so it can be sold in the United States is that gonna get botched interestingly Zastava they announced at shot show this past year I was there for it interviewed the guys they took their fate into their own hands and they said you know what screw it we're going to import the zastava m70 in the United States and do the conversion ourselves beside that we will not just import in these to go to firearms we can also build a brand support all our products with the parts and then I have all the parts here in United States available for our customers good customer service we're going to also educate our customers about the history of last of a factory because this year is a hundred sixty-six years in business so we know it's done right what a relief so now you have an ache a that comes from a European country with a reputation for making excellent aks and their handling business themselves in the United States so you can finally get a quality a.k without having to shell out a thousand bucks the zastava m70 uses a stamped steel basically a sheet metal receiver you can get the end pack which has a standard one millimeter thick receiver or you can get the OPEC which is what I have my m70 is an OPEC which means that it has like the RPK like like machine-gun receiver that's more rigid it's one and a half millimeters and it's got a more robust trunnion those are the two flavours you can get up into this point now you can get these hasta the CPAP which is kind of the next generation of the m70 that's being imported it reverted to a one millimeter stamp steel receiver which i think is all good I like the one or the one and a half you get the weight savings out of the one great news gun shoots great it really shoots very well I think we were getting about two two and a half inch groups out of it which is what you expect shooting cheap ammo cheap ammo I think it was like S&B 76039 or Fiocchi 76039 just rat grade like Academy bought ammo so it shot pretty well especially for an ache a better than some m4 Zeeman that I reviewed in the past you've got two options on furniture with the standard model you can either get wood furniture or you can get this Archangel polymer furniture I love the color jury's out on the Archangel furniture I think I like it I think it works pretty well I really like the Magpul the folding Magpul stock bear mine that Yugoslavian ak's take different furniture than other aks so don't just because here that this is a stamped receiver don't go out and buy stamp receiver regular a.k from do your homework make sure it'll work on a Yugo you guys tend to have extended hand guards they've got longer hand guards than their regular AKM brethren and the training for the stocks a little bit different as well one thing I always hated absolutely disgusted me about the N Papineau PAP was the high comb stock that came with it it was made because what's cool is you have an optics mounting rail you've got a side mountain here a side rail so you can install any form of optics mount that you'd like now they've done away with that that high comb furniture it wasn't great looking it wasn't bad looking either it had that high comb so you could see over the optic that would be on your top cover and give you a better cheek weld but for me and for a lot of guys that would shoot it it would just sting like you would get a zap in your cheek and I absolutely hated it so I'm glad to see that you can choose for the same price you need to go polymer or wood the wood option looks a lot better I'm liking the polymer furniture I went ahead and replaced the Archangel grip with a Magpul mo ESL this is just one of my favorite a kay grip so the Archangel furniture is pretty nice you can see you can extend it out you can even adjust the comb of the stock with this little button on the back and a luck in place so you can kind of get where you want your cheek weld to be it also has QD sockets for your sling on either side so that's a nice touch it's also got them in the back there and a nice rubber butt pad so like I said juries out just because you know snobbery but so far I've liked it fit and finish on the m7 ez is fantastic just like any other you go this is better than my other two you guys I've got an M 92 the short barrel version which I absolutely love and I've got the M 70 do Pat but the machining just looks a lot more crisp on this gun as compared to my other m7e my older one and maybe that's just because Zastava has had its hands on this thing from start to finish would they make it overseas in Serbia and when they send it to the United States do the finishing work it's all them so fit and finish is fantastic of course it being exhausted that a K for some reason and even me Oh doesn't know this because I called him and asked him the other day nobody knows why they don't chrome line their barrels there's never been like a good explanation for why they don't chrome line their barrels so in theory a non chrome-lined barrel should be more accurate than a chrome wine barrel however you don't get the same barrel life and there's also if you shoot corrosive ammo make sure that you clean the damn thing out whenever you get home otherwise you're gonna get corrosion speaking of corrosion the bolt and the bolt carrier are unfinished they're just in the white and that's like pretty much every Yugoslavian a.k what I did I actually got the Brownells black aluminide and I baked it onto my m92 maybe five or six years ago onto the bolt bolt carrier group even got a little bit on the gas piston rod and it works fine and it's just finally starting to wear off so it'll prevent it from rusting now again this one got rained on we've shot it a couple of times out of the range I'm not seeing any rust on it or anything so this is probably going to be a pretty rust resistant finish as is but I always kind of like taking it out spraying it down with some kind of coating in order to protect it from corrosion especially down here in the South another neat feature not totally unique but primarily unique to the Yugoslavian guns the Serbian guns magazines with a bolt hold-open so you got bolt hold up and with your magazine but what happens you take your magazine out it's slams shut anyways so it's really of limited use a lot of people say the theory is that the reason why they do that is so you can see that you're actually empty you didn't have a malfunction the guns actually empty and also one thing that is neat it's this little cutout here in the safety so if you want to you can make your RSO happy and you can walk your bolt open if you need to it's not exactly easy to do it won't fit if it's all the way back see so you've got to kind of let it forward a little bit and then it'll capture it so a little bit of a pain in the ass standard paddle mag release had no problems with the mag well the mag well looks like that it fits to spec the machining is very clean on it so I had no problems using a multitude of mags the trigger is pretty good it's pretty good I like the tap code G to trigger for the a K I think it's one of the best ones out there and a lot of people use it this doesn't feel like a tap code G to triggered nor is it labeled as a tap code G to let's check that trigger wait it's still a pretty good trigger whoo guys that was 4 pounds 4 ounces yeah 4 pounds 2 ounces that's pretty crazy as a whole the a K kind of gets overlooked at having pretty decent trigger something the aka platform as a whole especially the higher end ones so here I am I'm gushing on about this m7 easy that I bought again with my own money I do have one negative observation price on this son of a [ __ ] G's H they want like 800 bucks for him I think I'm seeing them street priced between seven and eight hundred bucks but holy smokes I bought my Oh Pat for like five hundred bucks I bought my m92 for like six or seven hundred bucks a long time ago so I don't understand why when they were importing him now granted the quality is better and I would be willing absolutely willing to pay more for a CPAP than like an imported and peppero PAP this is definitely the route that I would go but woof um you're tucking a $300 up charge from the Oh to the Z is it worth it probably you know that this thing's gonna be good you know that you can deal with Zastava directly in the United States if you have a problem with which you probably won't the machining is gonna be better it's gonna be reliable it's gonna work there's gonna be support behind it and this is the cleanest copy I mean this one is a lot cleaner than my older M 70 and m92 it's also cheaper than the Bulgarian Arsenal's now the Bulgarians are excellent guns and there are a lot of people out there who will shell out 900 a thousand bucks or so for one of the Bulgarians definitely better than the wah sirs so are they priced appropriately I would say so I think that maybe I would pay $300 to get this versus an N or an O but I mean it's one of those things where you can like hem and haw about it for days I mean arguably it might be a better investment to just get an N or an O and then two cases of 76039 and get a bunch of practice versus getting the Z I'm not saying it's overpriced I'm saying it's priced like right at the top threshold before too expensive you know it's it's fairly priced if these are like six hundred seven hundred dollars they would be wiping the floor with every a K on the market I don't know how feasible that is I haven't looked in their books I just bought this as a regular consumer I don't have any insider info on it or anything but man if they were selling these for like 650 bucks even 700 bucks they'd probably be wiping the floor with the competition hopefully once they get more of these in once business starts to pick up once there's a little bit more supply out there and less demand maybe that will see the the prices come down and I hope so I'm looking for Black Friday deals my m70 Z everybody wants an 8k for Christmas right so verdict two thumbs up great gun price is just up they were like right before it gets to be like not worth it dude not worth it dude but it is worth it it is worth it it's just at the very top level of the worth it scale guys thanks a ton for watching this video I really do appreciate it as usual please support us on patreon or subscribe star we'd prefer you support us on subscribed star because patreon is a little like they've got like an anti-gun flavor whereas subscribe star super pro-gun trying to get everybody to move over to subscribe star if they can instead of patreon and I want to say thank you as usual to our sponsor Ventura munitions and blue alpha gear Ventura munitions is the best ammo retailer in the world it's a known fact blue alpha gear my buddy Kurt creeps me out sometimes whoo that guys could be not kidding I love Kurt and fantastic belt you can fantastic that's you guys babe I love you all I will see you next week [Music]

Channel: TFB TV

Views: 521,391

Rating: 4.9186287 out of 5

Keywords: tfb, tfb tv, tfbtv, the firearm blog, firearm, 2A, gun, Zastava, zastava arms, rifle, serbia, ak-47, yugoslavia, ak 47, ak, npap, yugo, m70, opap, m85, akm, budget, zastava m70, review, james reeves, kalashnikov, 47, ak47, 7.62x39, century, best ak-47, cheapest, best, top, zastava, century arms, best ak, pap, pap m70, m70ab2, pistol, m70b1, npap vs opap, serbian, m92, magazine, o-pap, n-pap, 7.62, surplus, import, classic firearms, yugo m70, reeves, gun show, james tfb

Id: CkJ2VZ24BiE

Length: 17min 33sec (1053 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/CrnaStrela]

Niko Belic u GTA 4 fura M70

[u/Igoritza]

I dont know why these review dudes dont take into account real war experiences, from other sources other than their own

You may read that best versions are WASR10, or Bulgarian Arsenal SAM7R or those British super-expensive versions and so on, the actual best AK in the world is Zastava, but not M70 which is old design, but rather M21 (comes in all 3 modes, 7.62, Nato 5.56 and Russian 5.45)

Here's a story - Serbs have recent war experience, and when we arent at war, we act as if we are - or at least, our government smuggles weapons to other countries

There was a video on Liveleak (I cant find it but im hoping I will eventually) where US soldier in Iraq talks about a jammed M4 due to dust, and then pulls out Zastava M21 from a muddy puddle, rifle submerged a second ago, fires out entire magazine.

They are held by many private security teams (you can read about private teams rocking M21 from 11-14 in Afghanistan sightings), and rifle even got a nickname - "life saver". mostly on how reliable it is

Note that technically, there isnt much improvement from a regular AK (AK-74) but rather the rifle quality is in great build, and materials used.

Check out official Zastava Page

[u/[deleted]]

I think an Adidas track suit should be required dress for AK reviews