If you go off of what Larry Vickers said then you have to deduct that the company making parts has military contract experience .
I believe  he said belt fed machine gun .  FN produces the m249 if that is in fact the company he spoke of we may have something.
   I am a huge fan of the AK but I'd be pretty excited about a made in SC one that was built right.
I suppose if it ended up with a CHF barrel available that would be a reason to have one.

    I've been around the whole PSA deal longer than most here and I will say this.
CS sucks
Shipping usually sucks sometimes you get lucky
In store is getting better now that they will match online prices
AR15 rifles are way better than they get credit for if you look at the volume then objectively look at the problems
A $600 AR isn't going to be perfect however
  Look at the parts you get some company's wanted half of what the whole rifle cost for "their" CHF barrel

The company has it's issues but they have delivered some really crazy good prices on some premium parts (FN for the guys that never leave this side )

  The whole made in the USA AK I understand everyone has so far F--ked them hard
On the other side of the fence when WASRs stopped being $225 the AK was no longer attractive.Arsenal's at $1200 plus is a joke a bad one at that.
   Anyway PSA might be the best chance at a domestically made quality AK that is affordable

 For me I'm good I was lucky enough to buy when a Mac90 was $175 and a case of Wolf was $99 shipped I feel old now cause I just realized I owned my first AK before my first cell phone

Would be cool if one, just one US manufacturer took a page out of the Molot factory's book (Vyatskie Polyany) in Russia. Applied current RPK-74M/RPKM(Vepr)-standards to US manufactured AK's (or well, really RPK's).

Then made sure to pay ATTENTION TO DETAIL, make them to the current 'RPKM' evolution. Then just add some 'American' accessories, and offer it in 3 barrel-lengths:

Pistol: 8.1"
Standard-Rifle: 16.3"
RPK: 23.2"

Then of course offer it in the 3 current calibers: 5.56x45, 5.45x39, 7.62x39

Finally, if they are really fucking awesome! 7.62x51 (.308)

^Recipe for a pure victory over communism^

Rather than screwing around with Type-4 AKM's mixed/matched/bedazzled/re-branded/blah/dah... I mean, hell, even just opt for a US made AK-100 series/spec-rifle would be stepping into a new-category at this point.

You left out

6) Traditionalists .Only want the real thing straight from a commie country.Would you buy a Russian made AR? I sure wouldnt

The collector in me likes to own Russian AKs 1st, other commie countries second.  The shooter in me wants straight, tight, quality, with great fit and finish.  My Arsenal and Molot rifles satisfy both of these.  However, the collector in me knows that I will eventually shoot the barrel out of my VEPR, and then it will be worthless.

I would be very happy to put my Russian AKs back in the safe and mostly leave them there.  I was just thinking earlier, if this PSA AK lives up to the hype this would be a good rifle to get and slap the Magpul furniture all over.  Then I could take it out and shoot the crap out of it, with all the things the shooter in me wants.  And when it's dead, it's dead.  I have not killed a Russian rifle with limited availability.

-J

Any idea if it will come with a side scope mount?

The production models are supposed to.

If Im reading LAV right, the parts, barrels at least? would be coming from FN.

Hey PSA, how about getting your builder to make some SVDs?  Might as ell since these AKs are made from scratch anyways.

I really don't see FN having anything to do with this. For one, the barrel is apparently nitride treated. If FN were making them, I'd expect a CHF CL barrel, or CL at least. To my knowledge, nitride barrels really aren't FN's thing. My guess is that the barrel is an ESS part.

I also cannot see FN making AKs. They have plenty of government contracts to keep them busy and as it is, they took forever to even enter the civilian AR market. There are plenty of small shops out there that have done belt-fed builds over the years that could be working with PSA to make these AKMs.

I still like the fact that they actually look like a combloc AKM, as opposed to the C39/RAS 47 that just look "off".

+1

These will most likely be ESS or Green mountain barrels.

And IF and its a big IF, i bought a US made AK it would be this one.

Other US companies (cough, century,cough)need to pay attention,the PSA AK looks like a true commie built rifle.Cleaning rod intact and looks clean with nice lines,etc at an excellent price

Wouldn't that be great? One of the CHF "machine-gun steel" barrels with the double-thick chrome lining, pure awesome and exactly what an AK deserves.

But as others have said, don't see that happening.  Shame that, I would pay a premium to have the better barrel.

 

an FN CHF barrel is about the only competitive advantage PSA could hope to leverage, in order to change people's opinions about American Made AK's.  Well, I guess price could also work, but from a product standpoint, I'd totally pay $600 for an AK with an FN CHF barrel.  I wouldn't pay more than $400-450 for an American made AK without it.

Here's a short video from Shot.  Nothing that hasn't already been said before.  But, there is a hot chick and a Freudian slip.  Interestingly, they do say "some" of the parts are imported.  I wonder which ones.

http://youtu.be/cqucfs0wqHs?t=11m12s

I believe only the furniture will be imported. Someone should check me on that but I think I remember hearing or reading that somewhere.

Theyve said a number of times that the furniture on the rifle isn't domestic, but they've been vague enough to question whether that's just for the show gun or for the production guns as well. Probably the latter.

Here's a good video:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS3SuJQR0fg[/youtube]

I guess I'm doing that wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS3SuJQR0fg

 

All com-bloc ak's already have double thick chrome lining, america is one of the only countries that uses such thin chrome on barrels because of our environmental hazard laws. The steyr barrels from izhmash are probably better actually then the fn ones from a durability standpoint. They are very hardcore.

Me too. I have had nothing but full satisfaction with PSA products. I can't say the same for some of the other fanboi fueled names in the marketplace.

Im excited about this... I hope it comes to be a reality.

Well that's good info, learn something new here all the time, thanks!

I for 1 WILL pick one of these up if it's offered in a Kalifornastan compliant form , here's hoping!

I've wanted an AKM for quite awhile but just about every one available isn't quite what I'm looking for.

It takes the same chemicals to put on a thin layer of chrome as it does a thick one.

Steyr does not make barrels for Izhmash, Izhmash does.  Steyr pioneered the hammer forging process to construct rifled barrels.  As the Nazi war machine fell, the technology and machinery were either sold, licensed, or stolen and the Soviets were no exclusion.  That said, they are not Steyr barrels.  If I had to guess, FN and DD both most likely use Steyr manufactured machinery to produce their barrels.  I can't speak for the thickness in chome ining between combloc and US weapons, but EPA laws for sure drive cost when it comes to chrome plating.  Chrome has mostly been phased out of the auto industry and it will die out of the firearms industry too.  Nitrocarburizing is greener and therefore, cheaper for manufactures to use...especially smaller manufactures that don't have to adhere to old DoD TDP's.

I hope these PSA rifles are quality...if it's anything like the upper I just got from them though I'm out.  They use quality parts but the FSB was canted, the front of the receiver was dinged up under the barrel nut , and no grease or antiseize was used whatsoever to assemble it.  I'm just saying...ALOT more can go wrong putting an AK together!

When I hear US made AK, I usually think of receivers, barrels, furniture, etc.  Are US manufacturers actually casting and machining bolts, bolt carriers, trunnions, rear sight blocks, etc now?  I don't know of anyone who has done that before except maybe Century but that has always been unclear as well.

Purportedly, all of the parts on Century's new RAS47 and C39v2 are manufactured here, including bolts, carriers, trunnions, etc. PSA has specified what they're doing for all their parts, except to say they're made in the US.