Basically one of these but in 7.62x39, peep sight on dust cover, RSB picatinny flat top for optic mount, no side rail, and with handguards that run all the way to the gas block like the Wieger 940 below it, with some M-lok slots for mounting whatever. And just a good double-hook trigger without all the overtravel and long pull.

Seriously, the perfect AK, i'd probably sell half the ones I own to buy one like that. Don't know why in this day and age of everyone experimenting with parts and mutant AK's that somebody can't just build them with these simple perfect mods, rather than try to re-engineer the whole rifle or make expensive funky new bolt-on parts trying to make up for some simple shortcomings in the original design.

ETA: Maybe make the combo gas block also into a built-in light/laser mount on the bottom side, oh yeah. And make a grip that corrects angle to 10-12 degrees.

@PalmettoStateArmory
@ATLANTIC-FIREARMS

Could just throw a Magpul Zhukov extended HG on that rifle to get your extended HG with MLOK slots.

Well dang I like that 556 one

I know right? First time I saw that, with the rear peep site (better sight +longer sight radius) and the KOP style block instead of a regular RSB for mounting a red-dot I thought dang why don't they make all of them like that, solves several issues right there.

I've got a Zhukov-U on my Vepr, it still doesn't solve the issue of the upper handguard being short. Plus it's bulky as hell.

The place where I and probably a lot of long-armed guys want to put their thumb up on the side, would put my thumb right on a hot gas tube.

Just re-did my 10/63 with a lower rail, but used an M70 tube with it's longer handguard portion for the upper (had to cut and reflare tube as they are longer than standard AKM tubes). And with that extra length my thumb is now up against handguard instead of hot tube, resting on the lower rail slightly, VERY much more comfortable and solid.

So, handguards all the way to the gas tube, would work great, solves issues, and does anybody not like the way that Wieger looks? I think they're damn sexy, wish I had one.

I wish I had more Photoshop/GIMP/Inkscape/CAD skills, i'd draw up a prototype...I wonder if one of these online AI picture-making machines could do it if I described it?

PSA should make this, y'all know me, i'm a cheap bastard, but i'd double my rifle budget to get a pair of these. I'd contribute to a fund just for R&D of it. And I don't know if this is trademarked or not, but if not you should call it the CR-47, the Carolina Reaper.

I'm calling my machinist/gunsmith buddy to see what it would take to do at least a one-off of this design.

Needs a longer handguard, but something like this would be ideal IMO.

The perfect AK IMO….. no BS just simple and effective.

Years ago, Wieger clones were available for <$400. The handguards are indeed very comfortable, but the sights are still shitty AK sights.

for me, it's the DAKM 4150 with the wood furniture

No question.

Just a Galil Ace and be done with it.

I'd like a Zastava M21 in 7.62x39

Needs rails, lots and lots of rail! And MLOK, need lots of that too for three optics! LARPers united! And orange Cheeto dust and Hot Pockets made by mom!

*sigh*

Thread is not about which AK you think is the perfect AK, it's about building the perfect AK from the ground up with some simple deviations from the original design, instead of ridiculous mutants. Sheesh guys, please don't be dense or snarky about this, if you have something constructive to add or a comment on one of the mods I proposed then please post that.

Attached File

For sure, but it's not so much the front sight that's the issue (though I do mod mine to be pointed, the unmodded post covers a lot of turf at 200 yards). The rear sight is another matter, simple peep sight like an AR would make for much better shooting.

And moving it back to the dustcover gives a longer sight radius. Various attempts at dustcover rails have existed for decades, most shitty, some better like the Beryl rail and the TWS system, but still not an optimum way to mount the optic, it's always gonna be somewhat sketchy. The KOP style RSB in contrast is rock solid, and perfect for a red-dot or other similar sight, which IMO is perfect for an AK, I don't need a magnified optic for a rifle that will always be shot at 300 yards or less. I'm not sniping at stuff with my AK, I have other rifles much more suited to that.

When doing fast paced shooting at varying distances and multiple targets, even moving ones, quickly and efficiently, lighter weight and better balance really work well to up your scores.

Metal rails help some, until the rifle gets hot, you shouldn't have to wear gloves to shoot, good heat-shielded handguards that extend all the way to the gas block would offer much better options for hand placement without worrying about getting burned, simple Mlok slots so you can easily bolt-on your choice of foregrip or handstop, a simple turnkey solution of a rifle that didn't require you to go out and buy so many add-ons.

The man himself holding ol' #1. This is how long AK handguards were meant to be.

And there were iterations of the design before that too, like the AK46. Really, the final lower handguard was only shortened slightly to line up with the end of the upper handguard.



It was all a compromise that fit their requirements to a tee. The AK, IMO, was never meant to be an accurate rifle like the M-16. The whole idea was just to make them quickly, easily and cheaply. Mass production. Above all, they had to work regardless of the weather conditions and maintenance they might receive. I seriously doubt the conscripts were trained to any imagined level of marksmanship with the though being they'd just spray the area they were assaulting and hope they hit something. Given more time, Mikhail could have probably come up with a better sighting system, who knows, but there was a push to get the gun out

Attached File


I love simple AKs with just a few modern upgrades.  Disregard cat toy.

They shortened the upper too, look at the upper on #1, that's like a yugo length upper handguard, with just tiny bit of the tube itself sticking out. If they would have just shortened the lower to match that original upper, it would have looked right and still been an inch longer than modern ones.

Not everyone is built the same, modern standard handguards seem like they were made for guys all about 5'8" tall with medium to short arms. Just a little bit longer makes it far more comfortable for larger guys while retaining that same comfort for smaller shooters. And added space/choice of where to mount your foreward grip or handstop if you so desire.

A sight mounted on a standard dust cover is about the crummiest rear sight possible.  Sights need to be solid, not wiggling around.  One of the weaknesses on an AK is having to mount the sights pretty far forward for rigidity on the rear sight base due to the dust cover.  Lose quite a bit of sight length as a result.

And yet multiple AK's are made with a hinged rear cover and sights. And multiple companies make dust-cover replacements to mount optics.

There are ways to make the dustcover more sturdy in a slight re-design of the AK which is what i'm proposing, sturdy enough for some simple ghost-ring/peep sights. And it rectifies the issue you just identified, which is having a short sight radius.

Myself the rear sight is just a lightning quick way to verify that i've mounted the rifle to my shoulder properly. The front sight is far more important, but I don't even bother with that as much now that i've been shooting for 50 years. I know where the rifle is going to shoot for the most part by the way it is mounted to my shoulder.

But a good solid micro-dot optic, I will use, as will most folks, they are hugely popular with good reason. And having a good solid lightweight integral mount amidships where it belongs for proper balance, would be a godsend for most shooters.

Sorry, didn’t realize you were a such a good shooter, someone who doesn’t even need to use your sights!

Ok done laughing….but it certainly has me wondering how much training and shooting you have done at intermediate distances…as plenty of us can say that we don’t need the sights at CQB distances.  Tell me more about 50-200 yds though…

Anyhow- You didn’t propose a hinged top cover, but a regular one.  They are quite different, as a hinged cover has minimal front and back motion, and only a little side to side (at the hinge).  It is fairly locked down at one point, at least better than a standard cover.  Not great, not terrible.

I mean if you were to make your ghost ring large enough on a standard top cover, I am certain nobody could tell the difference…. But in real life people get tighter hits when using smaller sized peeps that don’t move around.  

Also- Just because a company makes a piece of junk part does not make it any good…  China made the majority of all those shitty railed top covers, and sold their junk scopes with them.  Hell some even have tensioning screws on the back!  Probably work pretty well for hitting a pop bottle at 25 yards…. Not exactly what I have in mind for “good enough” though.  And you have to take them off to field strip the gun….

If you want to actually figure it out, you would need to make the receiver a milled design, made wider, machined for an internal slot mounted top cover like an FAL.  And even with the FAL, only one design is really commonly considered to be decent.  

And don’t forget that with an FAL, you can clean it without actually removing the top cover, so you are not loosening the mount all the time.  

Basically- there is good reason the Soviets did a side mount, and that better aftermarket mounts tie into something fairly solid like the rear sight base or even the gas tube.  

There was a guy who had kind of similar ideas about slapping a rail onto the FAL top cover (a more locked down design). Pretty sure he sold literally dozens of them…..  (the SUIT mounts have a tensioning lever, so they are not just a top cover with a sight on them either, and that is a pretty basic sight).

TLDR- a regular top cover with a peep sight on it is still the worst possible way to mount a sight on an AK.  Come up with some better idea.  

No need to be snarky friend. I know it's the internet and you don't know me, and even if I explain you won't know if it's true.

But by way of explanation, i'm 60 years old, and have been shooting since I was 9 and my farmer Grandpa bought me a Daisy Red Ryder down at the feed store, and gave me free reign to shoot mice, rats, and huge masses of crop-eating shitbirds that descended on his fields in the summer and fall. And after that the standard progression as the years went by, bigger pellet gun, .22, shotgun, bigger shotgun, even bigger shotgun, centerfire rifle, semi-auto rifle etc.

Not having to use the sights at distances out to as much as 60-70 yards, comes from decades of shotgunning, fast moving small birds by the tens of thousands, shoulder-point-shoot in tenths of a second before your target is gone. But also from all those many years with a BB gun, learning how to shoot birds on the fly with a single pellet. (Not saying I hit 'em every time). I still practice shoulder-point-shoot with a BB gun 3-4 days a week for a few hundred rounds with soup cans on strings tied to trees with some slack where they can start moving around when I first hit 'em, usually 25-50 yards or so. Soulder-point-shoot the instant it touches shoulder-drop rifle down to waist level-reload and repeat as fast as you possibly can.

I shot my first competition in 1991, did some IPSC/USPSA, some bullseye matches, some bowling pin matches etc.

Those skills still work well on a centerfire rifle out to 100 yards, past that I have to use the sights , a red-dot serves that purpose well but I can do it with irons standing up.

Shooting without really using the sights is not as bizarre as it sounds, think about it for a second, when you release a bowling ball or a baseball or a football, you aren't staring down the barrel of your arm like a pool cue or a rifle on a benchrest, you aren't even looking at your arm/hand when you release, you are looking at the target, and you know where the ball is going by the muscle memory and the feel of what your body is doing.

So in the end, it really doesn't matter if the irons are perfect, many people use the hinged dustcover irons just fine at short distances, and for longer there is the solid mount red-dot I proposed. Magnified optics are just not necessary IMO in a 300 yard or less rifle, so I don't need or want the clunky side-rail afterthought.

ETA: One last thought, as an older guy, my eyes have started to fail slowly, so I wear prescription glasses or things past about 30 yards start to get blurry the farther out they are. So when I shoulder a rifle without glasses, the sights are clear but target is blurry, if I wear the glasses the sights are blurry but the target is clear. Much better to see the target clearly IMO and worry less about the sights than the direction i'm pointing the rifle. It's compensation for a small handicap.

and there is the rub. Too many bench shooters who do not have real world muscle memory. I'm actually quite quilty of the bench shooting in the last decade. I've gotten lazy, same with iron site fundamentals. You get all these fancy toys and end relying on them.

Nothing beats good, hard won skills and muscle memory. Train, and then train some more. hell, you can have you sites more crooked than a politician and if you know your weapon, you'll know your Kentucky windage.

ETA: even though I think that AK in the OP is hideous and I DO NOT agree about its perfection.

Well i'm not saying either of those rifles in the OP is perfect like they are, but conglomerated together with the mods I suggested, good furniture, a pistol grip that corrects angle to more like 12-14 degrees, with a micro-dot mounted on the dedicated mount, and it would start to look better, MUCH better IMO.

I wish I had some serious CAD/Inkscape/GIMP/Photoshop skills so I could show you what I mean, I can see it so clearly in my head.

Snark added on my part, but you are using words that I don't think you understand in relation to the AK


What do all these have in common? A dust cover that holds zero













Another thing you may not be aware of (if we're talking about OG AKs) is that the soviets completely understood sight radius and the difference between peep and pistol sights. The AK and the M4 have nearly the same sight radius. Why do you think that is? Because they didn't understand how it works? Or because having the sight radius as long as something like the M16 was not important for the AK? Now why would we go and mess than up for the M4, if the long sight radius was that important to a combat rifle?

Snark off. Some of your other comments make plenty of sense, but the top cover and sight radius I quoted doesn't at all, to me

(And since I just got done calling Dragyn dumb in another thread, I figure I need to back him up here )

Didn't you guys sell the the Tactical Jack rifle in the first post at one point? It's kinda weird in that it has the gas block farther out and a lot of barrel, but it's the pic rail and the dustcover sight that were my main point in posting that pic.

The whole basic point is longer handguards, and the optic mount in place of the RSB, and move rear iron to the dustcover.  Plus a better angle on the grip, and better trigger of course.

But while i'm at it, wouldn't mind having a way to make the stock adjustable for drop as well as LOP. I think designing the rear trunnion from the get go to use AR tubes is the way to go. But some shooters need some drop to it, some like it inline, might be nice to figure out a way to make that adjustable as long as we are talking re-design.

So what is the perfect 7.62x39 semi auto platform??

what's the perfect mate? All depends on the person. I just like to give drag crap for his tastes.

For me the 102/104/105 is the perfect AK, then you can affix any additions you "need".

Perfect now. Brand and model. Best made..

Me too. I'd rather have it in x39, though.

Legit question, and good for it's own separate thread. But again, this thread is about a slight re-engineer of the AK from the ground up to address some issues.

Ditto. And without the extra long barrel, but plus the other mods I mentioned.

The perfect AK doesn't have a shiny bolt carrier. The perfect AK is one that is simple, durable and reliable and most are not.

I don't even know why people post derp like this

Haha, thats fair. Maybe I am getty snarky in my old age. I've probably just heard too many of these comments over the years

Good to see you

So you want 7.62x39? What barrel length?

My votes go to the Galil ACE Gen 1 SBR (8.3” barrel) and the Sig 553R 11.9” barrel.

If it ever comes out, Marc Krebs M23 fits your criteria. The PSA JAKL is another, but I would like to see the platform get “vetted” more, include a CHF CL FN barrel, etc.

Of course, you can take a well made stamped AK and slap on a Midwest Industries dust cover/handguard system or a Sureshot handguard system. I still haven’t sent my KR-103 for work yet. Too many projects.

16" barrel length, CHF and chrome-lined. I'm not actually asking for much to change about the platform really, it's all very simple.

And I don't want just a customized regular AK, I have several already.

I'm suggesting a short run by somebody, that can be made available to lots of shooters, a rifle that doesn't need $500.00 in upgrades to be useable, but in fact has longer handguards already with common M-lok slots to accommodate a wide range of accessories if the shooter desires, the midship KOP-style optic mount, better iron sights, better trigger, better grip, maybe the integral WML mount on the bottom of the FSB, adjustable stock without having to use adapters, maybe even a folding adjustable as folders seem pretty popular.

I think you build it, people will buy it, and then when they actually start to use them the reviewers and customers will freak out at how well they work, and will think why wasn't this done sooner?

PSA essentially sells what you want. I would just buy this and install what you want, like the Midwest Industries rail and handguard: https://palmettostatearmory.com/ak-103-side-folding-barrel-assembly-furniture-ready.html

That's not even close to what I want. And missing the whole point of this thread.

My response to this would be the perfect AK, being in the states and all, has to be practical, tactical, modular, and proven. I'd say build out an AK102 or an AK104. Ammo is plentiful and available, both calibers have their perks depending how you ultimately want it set up. there are plenty of aftermarket parts aside from what they offer stock. I would have loved to say 105 as its my favorite rifle, but because of the availability of 545x39, I'm sticking with 102 and 104 builds

i like psas american bastard.  

-1/2-28 barrel threading
-triangle trunion
-pistol length gun

profit?

This part of your post is perfect and undeniable.

But you're still missing the point.

I see people in this very thread and all over this section of arfcom and other forums, that will go out and buy an extended length handguard as one of their first mods when they buy an AK, yet still question me in this thread as to why I advocate a longer set of handguards from the factory.

Multitudes that will go out and buy an expensive side-mount or an Attero like me which isn't cheap, yet question the idea of making the current RSB a dedicated mount for a red-dot or other optic.

People who will pay good money for a dustcover rear sight/optic mount, yet question building it from the get-go to be like that.

I say it's time to re-engineer the basic AK platform, without going pyscho like mutants and other goofy stuff, with just a very few basic changes, that will make it more practical, tactical, modular, and proven.

You shouldn't have to pay an extra $500-$1000 just to make it so, let's use that USA common-sense and tech savvy to make a BETTER AK from the ground up.

I think the reason we do not see those Romanian rifles anymore and no one is making something similar is standardization.

The market makes accessories, makes a ton of $ on them for us to play dress up. Some of us enjoy it, I'm guilty. Some people (like me) go through multiple iterations to get what they want exactly put together, then change their minds again.

As I stated above, perfection is in the eye of the beholder. I honestly think the Valmet is near perfect, just needs a pic rail welded in front of the rear site and new HG I can hang a flashlight and maybe a laser on.

ETA: Hope I was able to get my point across as I sip my coffee this morning.