Brevard maker of American-style AK-47 rifles seeks to expand

Orlando Sentinel ^ | March 19, 2017 | Associated Press

[Farmer Dean]

What's up with the Century head space problems?Is the trunnion stretching or the bolt lugs wearing fast?

[Azeem]

“What’s up with the Century head space problems?Is the trunnion stretching or the bolt lugs wearing fast?”

The RAS-47 has issues with heat treatment and hardening. I would say a few or some rifles only, but Century won’t say which rifles are affected. The locking lug on the bolt are deforming and creating enough of a gap to make some rifles go boom the wrong direction. I’ve counted six over over the last year and a half. Rob Ski from AKOU could give you the accurate numbers.

[Farmer Dean]

What’s your opinion of the Zastava built AK’s?I bought one and have had zero issues so far.

[Redcitizen]

OK you’ve said what was the worst. What’s your opinion on what is the best AK and who makes it?

[jbrown7.62x39]

Each thousand rounds look CLOSELY. at the bolt face look for cracks, look for cracked lugs or a dovetail getting mushroomed all to hell like a lot of them. I watch a lot of AKOU stuff. I like their thousand round incremental test and some do NOT hold up. Like, at all.

[Azeem]

"What’s your opinion of the Zastava built AK’s?I bought one and have had zero issues so far."

The NPaps have generally been pretty good. The OPaps also had some heat treating issues that AKOU found but I haven't heard of any major issues with them.

I don't really like building or working on Yugo guns because they are oddballs. The rivets are in weird places and the standard AK equipment doesn't fit. If you don't plan on swapping things out, it should be a good rifle. They would be my second choice for the more budget rifle after the Romanian WASR.

----

For the person who mentioned the RPK, they are a blast to shoot but a pain to build (and carry for a long time). Unfortunately I only grabbed 1 kit before the prices went stupid high. I don't really want to build a Yugo RPK because it looks more like an AKM than RPK.

[Farmer Dean]

I bought the N-PAP,I must confess that I knew very little about the guns before I bought one.I just wanted an AK to plink with.I’m more of an HK and M1A kind of guy,but I’m satisfied with the N-PAP for what it is.

[Freemeorkillme]

Another fella and I got ours ~2009. They’ve been nothing but flawless. I had an FA malfunction at the range once. Dislodged a bar in the receiver when cleaning and didn’t notice it on assembly. Felt great, but left shortly thereafter while feigning anger at the shady beast.

The other 7.62s are quite the value as well. Love the Mosin Nagat.

[jbrown7.62x39]

I wanna like mosins but they’re only cool if they have a good bore, and most haven’t aged well. My first 91/30 was Hormel can at 300-level stuff. We ended up getting 5 more that were maybe beer bottle at 100. The sticky bolt is easy to fix, but the bad part about it is I don’t think there are NOT any rounds for it here that aren’t coated in glue or lacquer or whatever that crap is, and then you get sticky again after your chamber heats up and cools off 20-30 times

[nerdwithamachinegun]

Less my opinion and more what I and others have observed.
Every AK maker including the russians builds rifles that are sometimes crooked and have canted sights or minor fit and finish problems so understand that you can buy “the best” and it CAN still be slightly flawed.

That being said, the “best” or least-worst you can buy lately is Arsenal. There is a stamped SLR107 that bears consideration if you’re not looking for the authentic classic aesthetic of a 45 degree gas system and small front sight. It has a wider front sight like a yugo/chinese or milled receiver Arsenal.
Shockingly the Romanian rifles like the WASR and RH-10 aren’t too far behind in terms of reliability and durability. Century imports them and puts what seems to be balsa wood US furniture on them.

Guns built from kits like offerings from Atlantic Firearms can be good too. Atlantic has pretty good customer service too. They are real-deal AK guys (and presumably gals).

Anyone can cite one or two anecdotes of “my buddy’s rifle works great” or “mine was a turd and I flushed it” and yes there are Arsenals with crappy finishes and Romanian rifles with loose rivets.
I’ve seen a Python with boogered screws straight out of the box from Colt. No company is perfect.

Look up AK Operators Union on the you tubes. It might be the only union you will every willingly support. Robski has a brutal methodology based on his own experience and input from others.

[nerdwithamachinegun]

From what I’m reading and being told, it’s the soft steel in the bolt. The lugs are both wearing quickly and bending. In some cases it’s the front trunion doing the same thing along with the bolt, being soft and wearing quickly.
Several have verifiably grenaded.

The Century apologists and those suffering from cognitive dissonance will steadfastly refuse to believe the overwhelming evidence that Century is cutting corners on the quality and heat treating of those parts. They will cite guys like James Yeager claiming to let students fire the RAS-47 and have 10,000 rounds on a dozen rifles, no problem. That’s cool but it doesn’t actually refute the documented kabooms nor address Century’s response to individuals with kaboomed rifles.

If Century Arms had succeed initially, I would own several of them. Their C39V2 (in english that’s a milled receiver ak variant) seems to be slightly better but not enough that I would shell out for one and fire it up next to my face. Others obviously see things differently.

Without getting into the cast vs forged nonsense, the long and short of it is that Century Arms metallurgy apparently isn’t up to the job.
They might be better than IO though...