What To Look For When Buying an AK

so you're looking to buy an aka and you're trying to find one that won't explode well sit the [ __ ] down what is up you sexy jutsu mother lovers today we're going over something that has probably hit my DMS at least one to two times a day so I figured I'd go over here what to look for in buying an ache a specially your first ache a there are plenty of resources out there already about what to look for in basic ache a starter a case stuff like that but I still get this question probably at least at least multiple times a day and comments in direct messages on pretty much every social social media platform that I have so it's something I figured it would be good to address in a video that way I have a resource to share with you guys and if you see the video then you know maybe hopefully this clear some stuff up for you because there is no shortage of new guys the a.k platform whether they're AR guys coming over there are guys that are just now of a K buying age that are going out looking for their first firearm there's a lot of guys out there that are looking for this information and we don't want them to end up with basically if we don't want them to end up with a really badly built a K or an aka that was built bad parts or fails headspace or something like that so this is more or less a guide on how to avoid aks and where to buy them now I'm not gonna be talking about brands in this video I figure that's a really great way to attract the attention of certain lawyers at certain companies that really look to litigate as well as I have a conflict of interest obviously you know we sell our own a case here so I don't want to get into brands which brands are good which brands are bad instead I'm just gonna go over general concepts and if you fit the bill you fit the bill the one we will be using today is kind of hailed as the king of lower end aks kind of on the budget end this is an old-school loss or 10 I just haven't had one of the shops so this is what we're going to be using when I'm talking about different things and demonstrating a couple of points so I think I've rambled enough let's get right into the video the first thing we're gonna be talking about in today's video is cast trunnions yes the boogieman of every ache a form they're cast trunnions I have a whole video about this that the Lance is going to be putting up in the corner of the screen that was a video that was a lot of fun but it's kind of an introduction into what cast Ron Ian's are this is a trunnion so this is the area of the a.k that holds the barrel to the receiver it's riveted in place and it also houses the locking lugs so it's going to be this piece of the ek you can barely see it so you open up the action but very important piece because this is the as made famous by the 3d print video that we did this houses the splode II bits so this contains the explosion of the cartridge when the bullets flying out the barrel there's a lot of pressure between the bolt and the trunnion because that is where the lockout happens so if this is made out of poorly cast metal it's not so good for the integrity of the firearm or for the safety of your fingers and or other appendages I don't know how you operate guns a lot of the us-made aks have cast Runyon's the reason for this is that it is infinitesimally cheaper there's your scrap board for the day infinitesimally cheaper to do it that way especially compared to the way that the surplus the con black factories used to do it which was high-quality forgings those are a lot more expensive it's not something that we do as much here in the States for the aks I'm afraid but a lot of the surplus stuff will be forged front trunnions the rear Trinian's don't matter nearly as much that's really just to take the recoil [ __ ] to house the recoil spring and to hold the stock those things are all super important but not quite as important as holding up to the pressure of a 7.62 39 while it's going off kind of a big deal that that stays intact so what you're really going to be looking for is if the trunnions are cast or are they forged a lot of the surplus guns are going to be forged Runyon's a lot of the newer like the new PSA guns for example just an example those are all forged now you're going to be wanting to look for forged trunnion that's not the only thing you should be looking for but that's pretty damn important and if you are looking for an example of a gun that has gone pretty badly just look up cast trunnion catastrophic failure a que on Google and I go to images and you will find some nice examples of why you should not be buying some of the lower end guns that are being pushed pretty hard in gun stores so like I said not talking about brand name right now but the answers are there if you have the will to google them second thing this one is more about the build quality Ribbit's Ribbit's are important they are these little beady beauties on the side of an ache a hold the whole gun together so the receivers on a neikei and lower receiver there is just the receiver the receiver is a stamped piece of usually one millimeter thick sheet metal that is held to all the important components of the gun like the trigger guard the front running the rear trunnion by rivets six in the front trunnion and anywhere between two long rivets and one long rivet two short rivets in the rear front so when we're judging the quality of rivets we were looking for a nice even press we are looking for flat rivets that don't have any air gap between them if you can fit a fingernail up under the rivet or if you can hold it up and see look daylight under the rivet that is a poorly pressed rivet you just want to make sure that if you're buying something even if it's a surplus kit let's say you've identified okay we have a surplus ak74 with a nodaks bud receiver that could have been a homebuilder that is building his first a.k and doesn't really know how to rivet super well and slaps the kit together and you see that it's surplus on a nodaks bud you're like oh great great it's a good quality okay you might want to double check because if it is one of those the rivets could be cockeyed it could be kind of slanted I've seen some pretty fucked-up rivets in my time and just go on go on Google Images again Google Images can be your friend it also be even worse than me you're not careful but this one should be fairly basic just don't get suckered into a k' that has some pretty wonky looking rivets because I can for obvious reasons on the front trunnion that's pretty bad considering like said that's what's floaty bits are on the rear trunnion it could be a dead giveaway that the gun is horrific Lee over gasped if it's beating the rear trunnion out and that's obviously bad for the integrity of the gun and the safety of the shooter long term so that's something to look out for third on the third on the list is the canted sight problem that is so common in a lot of complaints about aks especially people that were buying a case a long time ago early import washers and a couple other things were particularly well known for their canted sight problem thankfully with better tooling and things it's not so much of an issue these days but it can still happen so what a candid sight is it's where you have three barrel components on the a Kay you have the rear sight block more or less though the Preston pin once you have the rear sight block you have the gas block and you have the front sight block now these are pressed on to the barrel if they're not pressed on a hundred percent straight you can have a rear sight block that's sitting this way slightly in a front sight block that is sitting this way or whatever and you know you can correct that to some degree with the front sight block drum the drum sight here that can be pressed you know left to right and kind of adjusted for but some of those got really bad I mean like they got really bad so that's a pretty easy one to look for just look down the gun and kind of especially hold it back a bit and you can see I can actually see on this gun the front sight block is canted a little bit to the left this is an older Wasser so that's not ultimately surprising it is canted very slightly to the left that's not really a huge deal honestly especially for a lot of guys they want to run optics on the Ray case now they won't want to run an Alta Mac or an RS regulate on the on the side mount not a huge deal it can be corrected on but if you have especially if you have really bad OCD it is something to look out now another tip that's pretty pertinent for guys that are especially buying their first a que and want to have a good experience with it for aftermarket parts is knowing how interchangeable things like the stock and hand guards are a lot of the Yugo guns are pushed pretty hard because they're you know they're still made in this estaba factory and they're they're fairly they're well-made guns and they're a pretty low price point for what you get however a lot of guys get bamboozled by the Yugo pattern stocks with the Yugo stock bolts and the very particular way that they have set up their hand guards there's not as much interchangeability with normal a kei aftermarket parts as a risk on pretty much anything else same goes for a lot of milled guns a lot of milled guns have that double tang in the rear and people get kind of off put when they're normal a K style stock won't fit on there's the a K is kind of known for needing a lot of custom fitment I think that's probably a reputation that it doesn't deserve I think a lot of people just buy certain brands of a K and they get really irritated when standard aftermarket parts don't work this is a problem that's really easily avoidable if you just know what you're buying ahead of time and ask the whole be afraid of asking or don't be afraid of googling what the interchangeability is on the parts so if you want to be able to take I think most standard a case the the a cave you should be buying for your first rifle should be able to take any aftermarket a a pistol grip any aftermarket for our control group aftermarket stock and aftermarket hand guards that should be a basic that way you can kind of play around with some of the parts that you want some of the parts that you're maybe interested in and you could see what fits you see what you like and then you can make up your own mind especially when you're buying your second third fourth fifth or 90 second 8k pro tip pro tip this is a bullet a 7.62 by 39 caliber bullet this is the same gun that I've been holding this whole video so that shouldn't be surprising this is what's called the bullet test and local gun store will allow you to carry live ammunition in to their store what you can do to check the bore on these guns make sure you take the muzzle brake off make sure you take you know a flash hider or whatever is on the front end of the gun at the time you can actually test the quality of the rifling that is still left in the bore of the barrel you know what I mean you can test how much rifling is left and how basically burned out your barrel may or may not be especially in a lot of the old surplus guns that have had God knows how many rounds through that barrel so because the bullet is still protruding a good bit this is still a pretty good barrel this barrel is okay if the cartridge sinks all the way down or most of the way down then that means that that barrel has seen better days and probably quite a few thousands of rounds and if you're going to buy it at least get a good deal on it because there's a pretty good chance that if you want decent groupings at decent ranges you're going to have to replace it at some point another side note that would probably benefit you is to invest in a pair of headspace engages especially if this whole a kay thing is something that you really think you're going to be interested in headspace engages are a godsend if you're trying to figure out if you're just basically trying to get a read on the quality of a neikei build it can be extremely useful to know if it's in and out of headspace now for those just a basic thing on headspace headspace is referring to the distance between the barrel the chamber of the barrel rather and the trunnion the locking lugs and where the bolt sits and interfaces with those basically just making sure that it's not too tight meaning that there's not enough space for the bolt to freely rotate and lock the round into battery and there's not too little space and there's not so much space that when it does lock up it can freely travel back and forth and basically you have a lot of unsupported cartridge all the way in the rear position which can cause a catastrophic malfunction and blow out the front of your gun it's a lot of problem that those past running case kind of have because they can work themselves out of headspace because the metal performs you may see headspace gauges as an unnecessary expense if you don't want to buy them at least borrow them from a friend or a gunsmith or something just check your guns out there is nothing wrong with finding out what the headspace situation is under guns because you can accidentally find out that you really have a problem that you need to fix not running headspace engages on a gun that you intend to shoot is kind of like not buying a pregnancy test because you're afraid to know the actual answer if there is a problem you're going to find out eventually it's just better to know in advance and that just about wraps up all the tips I have for you today if there is something in this video that you think I missed please leave a comment down in the comment section and who knows maybe we might do a follow-up we might do another video like this so if you guys would go ahead and leave those tips for new buyers in the comments section and probably the pin comment of this video I might do a little bit of a list of things that people in the comments have suggested that maybe I missed so with that I'm going to plug the new March real quick get the shades of the way on third pin threats calm we do have a new style of shirt I think it's pretty cool Tony did a good job with picking out the good colors I I don't I have no fashion sense at all if you guys haven't figured that out by now he did a good job with the dark the navy blue and the orange kind of distressed look I like him a lot I'll probably be wearing a more so if you want to pick up one of these bad boys third pin threads calm Tony's a good dude no export your stuff so anyway that is just about all I have for today as far as the buyer guide for the a Kay again leave your comments below hashtag a kg notification squad is still alive and well so don't forget about that and I will see you sexy [ __ ] in the next video thanks guys I got nothing there's a lot of brands that I am NOT talking about in this video that are complete and you should never buy from them but thankfully I can avoid lawsuit by just telling the comment section you know which ones and I don't have to say it because you guys will you will preach it to the heavens and good on you for it that's why you'll get into heaven so this is another tip that's going to be especially useful I almost went this whole time with off loving a single tape you actually think about what I'm gonna say before I to start lunging into it infinitesimally means by a tiny amount infinitesimally I don't really exponentially infinitely [ __ ] but did I really just use that it's intentionally by by only a negligible amount damn it

Channel: Brandon Herrera

Views: 455,824

Rating: 4.9461622 out of 5

Keywords: Brandon Herrera, The AK Guy, ak-47, guns, gun, AK, Ak buyers guide, AKG, Gun store, How to buy, AKG-47, Wasr, Review, PSAK, PSA, Century arms, IO, Cast trunnions, Arsenal, M10, Lee armory, Riley defense, Rifle dynamics, Krebs custom

Id: 7E2rx2kLPyA

Length: 15min 51sec (951 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 29 2019