One way to mount a magnified optic on an AK is to put a small red dot on the sight block, and a magnifier on a rail on the top cover.

I can bang a 12” steel gong at 200 with mine with irons.

Acceptable

My recollection is that my WASR10 would shoot 4 MOA groups at 100 with wolf back when I had a red dot. Maybe even better.

I'm hoping to get it below 3 MOA when I finish my communist deer rifle (suppressed 12.5'' Saiga conversion in 7.62x39).

I bought a new SA85M in 1996 and kept it until about 4 years ago. One reason I sold it was I never could hit shit with it. I also had bought an AMD65 that I had to work on quite a while for various reasons including the stupid 2-piece 'barrel extension' broke loose and was drooping. I replaced that with the great Tapco one-piece extension. The sights were canted on the damn thing too which didn't help. Eventually I took off the rear sight blade, installed a cantilevered rail that extends back over the action cover and a small SIG red-dot sight. The object of the cantilevered rail and small sight is to allow sighting while keeping one's head down. Might be on a 2-way some day, you never know.
Anyway, I took it to the 25 yd range and centered it 1" low, which should be a 50 yd zero. Then I went to the 50 yd range and took my first shot. Checking it with the binoculars, I saw that it was in the 3" bull I had prepared, on the horizontal centerline but about 1/2" right. I unloaded the gun and left. I use GT FMJ and HP.
So with the AK, assuming a genuine military chrome-lined barrel in excellent condition, I think you're getting 'barrel whip' with the 16" but much less with the 10" to 12". You can clearly see it in slo-mo movies all over You Tube. Also, as you mentioned, on a traditional AK there is no place to mount a scope or dot sight. I improved my AR shooting the same way, taking off the carry handles and putting on good dot sights. I guess with my old eyes, the dot sight allows for more accuracy.

Here is a good video that is relevant to this subject (not mine).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wod9PvfaSEE

They use Barnaul 123gr FMJ, the ammo that many people claim is the best. I have 100 rounds on order so hopefully I can add my 2c.

Why you no click the embed button?  Like this:

I finally found some current production Barnaul 123gr FMJ ammo to test.

Rifle is a current production Arsenal SAM7SF. Optic is a Nightforce NX8 mounted in an MI Gen1 30mm mount.

5 shots from a sandbag rest at 100 yards.

Barnaul 123gr FMJ
3.6"
3.95"
4.1"
4.5"
3.15"
3.8"
4.8"
3.00"
4.00"
3.75"

For comparison, Belom Brass cased from Serbia (new 2021 production)
4.5"
5.3"
2.45"

I believe that the Barnaul 123gr FMJ shot consistently fairly accurate in my gun.  It averaged under 4moa (3.8" combined average for all Barnaul groups) which for this gun and X39 ammo is pretty good.

I saw that vid. It's very good. I guess me and my rifle would be maybe 8th or 9th place

Minute of cargo ship is adequate.

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