I posted this up over on the Bulgarian section a few days ago, but for those that may be interested here, I am reposting it here:

My questioning sometimes brings out a lot of hmmmmmm. After asking some more questions, I start reading between the lines, and my gut feelings get stronger about certain things.

Anyhows, after a little bit more questioning over on the KVAR forums (feels nice to be free to say that now), I received this response from the very kind ADMIN over on their forums:

I talked to Arsenal inc's Factory Manager. He told me they have considered building stamped receivers rifles in 5.45X39.5, 7.62X39 and 5.56X45 calibers.

They do have the dies and tooling necessary to build those rifles.

But when? Nobody knows yet.


Sincerely

Admin

That would be the sweet!  

Maybe we should all write to them so they can get a feel for the demand for such rifles?

If they offered them at good prices they could seriously change the current AK market.  Practically everyone would be buying them, even as first AKs.

I am sure we will be seeing these out in the market in about "a year".


Brick

So far, Arsenal Inc has come through on their projected projects. Their SA M-7, SA M-7S, the SA M-7 Classic, their 7.62x39 RPK's, and their newest SA M-5 series, were all mentioned well ahead of them actually coming out, and they came through with their promise. They are not saying they "will" make stamped receivered AK's, they are saying they are "considering" to make them. The key thing would be tooling and other set up costs (because knowledgable manpower they have), and this quote from above sounds promising:

"They do have the dies and tooling necessary to build those rifles."

On this one there are no guarantees, just possibilities, but the possibility alone of having these guns become a reality, is good news to me :)

After the SAM-7 and SAM-5 rifles ride out for a little longer, and after (and if) the asw ban sunsets, you can bet that will be the perfect time for introducing new, stamped reciever Kalishnikovs onto the market.

Imagine that, stamped-steel, super high quality kalishnikovs with folding stocks and bayonet lugs, as well as all the high caps you could want, just in time for November-December 2004!

Even if they were released right now, there aren't a whole lot of choices in the Kalishnikov market. They would most certainly do exceedingly well. The only problem is that they would prove to be too popular for the good of the rest of Arsenal Inc's products that are currently in production.

Quoted:I talked to Arsenal inc's Factory Manager. He told me they have considered building stamped receivers rifles in 5.45X39.5, 7.62X39 and 5.56X45 calibers. They do have the dies and tooling necessary to build those rifles.

Funny, we still can't prove that Bulgaria EVER made they're own stamped receivers for military use, as all indications show that all the sheet metal came out of you guessed it...Russia! I used to own a post sample factory RPK-74 that was "bulgarian", but you could see where the Russian markings were milled off and Bulgaria's stamped in.... if that's not proof enough, the selector markings were in Russian, not Bulgarian!
Look in the Tokoi book, half of all the stamped Bulgarian guns in there are Russian marked, and there is no reason not to believe they got their raw stampings from Russia on the ones that are stamped with Bulgarian markings...Even when they started to come out with their own "Krinkov" deseigns they were all on Milled Receivers!  
I wonder if Arsenal is buying equipment from the motherland, or importing receivers from Bulgaria via...ehem.....or are going to punch them out in the states?  Hopefully they get the right dies from the right place and quality metal to go with....or better yet, just import them as shells! I still can't believe any american company hasn't been able to make a decent AKM/AK-74 receiver, we can't see to copy a simple design that has been around for over 40 years...and no I am not impressed with the OOW or Krinks or Bwest or etc... Anyways, heres to hoping for a decent shell to work with....lets hope they ask us what features we want vs. assmuing one is good for all.
-C

Yup on all accounts Campy-
My Air Force buddy said he saw tons of Bulgarian AK-74s in Afghanistan when he was there last year... funny, he also said that the Afghanis thought they were junk as compared to the Russian AK-74! heheheh jokes on them it appears!
-C