From observation of AK pattern rifles in NMC matches the Norinco AK rifles and the Romanian WASR were the very worst in terms of aiming point moving as the rifles heated up. With such rifles the concept of a “zero” is more or less a chimera.
Of course I hear about all the accurate AK rifles, it just seems no one who ever actually goes to a rifle match has found one.
Kind of like accurate M1 carbines, every one knows someone who has one, yet somehow less than 2 percent of them in the hands of CMP shooters seem to be able to put in a 10 shot group of less that 4 inches at a fixed aiming point 100 yards away.
Not sure what year they were built. More modern generally means more accurate, but again, that depends on the plant. I don’t purport to “know a guy” with an accurate AK. I own 4, one of which is competition grade and WILL wreck a stock ARs afternoon in competition. Perhaps it’s the fault of the shooters? Not many Americans are used to a 14 inch sight radius. If your barrel is installed perfectly pencil straight, you will have good accuracy. No one on this thread can refute that fact. The problem is finding a build of sufficient quality, of which I only know of a few plants capable without being a Definitive Arms (or similar) custom build.
Agreed on the WASR. All are garbage before 2008 and afterward, while an improvement, are still not great. At 3” groups at 100, I start pulling out squares and checking important angles and almost always find them to be off just a bit. My second was a WASR made in the 80s and shot 4”. I got rid of that out of spec piece of junk. It was so bad that if you rested the mag on the ground while shooting, it wouldn’t feed properly and give you problems