Ok you guys. I certainly am no expert on AK drums. However, I do know that my Chinese /36\ has been 100% reliable. Also, that Romanian drums have been considered a good choice as well. And also that the Romanian drums have been rumored to have been made by the Chinese. Who knows for sure? A post above claims that the Romanian drums have "thinner guage steel" according to his "observation". Now, that got me curious since I have both. This is not intended to prove anyone wrong. I just wanted to post what my measurements came out to be for both sheet metal thickness as well as weight. I used a set of Starrett micrometers with ball attachments for the thickness measurements, and a cheap digital kitchen scale for the weight measurements. Here are my results:
CHINESE: nominal thickness 0.028" Weight: 959 grams
ROMANIAN: nominal thickness 0.032" Weight: 1008 grams
Sure, there will be variances on which one might be more oily, but they are both very lightly oiled and look pretty much the same.
Other variances could be the spindle inside, or tower construction. But they look the same to me too.
Conclusion? I'd say the Romanian drums are built on par, quality wise as the Chinese drums. But, to me anyway, differ enough that I doubt they were made by the Chinese. But that's just my opinion.