My WASR 10 has jammed on me several times now. When I used to say "Nothing beats the Ak for reliability." I now use terms like "Not as good as an AR" or "Jammed up on me a few times". I hold my Ak and feel weak. I feel as if I am holding a machine which may fail me when I need it most. I do not look at my Ak as my go-to gun. I now grudgingly accept the M4 and it's inferior .223 caliber as my superior. The little WASR that could is now that rattiling menace from hell more likely to jam when clean than a dirty AR15. I need anecdotal evidence of reliability, I need something to revitalize my faith that my $380 piece of sheet metal and wood is the best thing since sliced bread. But before the healing begins we must revist the traumatic events.....

1.Failure to feed. No bigie, just pull the bolt back and voila. I mistakenly believe my troubles are over.
2.Another FtF, In the same day.
3. Later on a different occasion, the bolt will not travel completly forward. I personaly believe this was due to the crappy Century FCG. Still, my confidence is now near the breaking point.
4.Stovepipe.... A failure once limited to hanguns has now afflicted my commie battle rifle.Thankfully, it is easily cleared.

These malfunctions occured in under 1600 rounds. (Shot over a 5 month span) There have been other failures, mostly FtF's that I cannot clearly remember.

Now, I have admitted I have a problem, onto the road to recovery and ultimately, reliability....

Is this happening with the same Mag ?

Or the same type mags ? .... Romanian ?

I had the same experience with my first SAR-1 .... All of them a bad (bent feed lips) magazine !!!

Ok you mentioned you have an M4 I have to wonder how fair it is to compare the cheapest currently available Ak varient to an M4.   I know the WASRS are reported top have a great track record for reialbility, but with the rough parts and canted gas blocks and front sights you have to guess that at some point slipshod workmanship is bound to affect something that is more detrimental to the guns function.  

I have two of them and they have not jammed and I have done no modifications.  I did however have some garbage mags that caused some jams.  Try new mags.  

Max

The mags are the stock romanian 30rds that the rifle came with. The M4 is very expensive but I really want to my Ak to become that uber-reliable go-to gun I thought it was when I first got it. The Ak may be cheap, but any wepon should be reliable. I admire every feature of the Ak of mine, except that reliability issue. I am willing to accept loss of accuracy and high speed low drag in exchange for power and hopefully, reliablity. That's really all the rifle has going for it. And to see the myth fall in under 1600 rounds is simply shocking. In addition to this, I have noticed some small cuts and holes on the bolt face. I hope this isn't anything too serious.

Well, you got a lemon... it happens once in a while. For example... I was told that VW Jetta's were great, reliable cars... the one I got however, wasn't. Its a real POS.

AK's, for the most part, are extrememly reliable and some how, work regardless of what the owner/user does to them...like add after market crap to them like we love to do here inthe US. Some times they are just junk and we need to un-ass them and get rid of them and start anew.

The later, I think is your case... it sounds like it was just not meant to be a reliable rifle. Get rid of it, get something else along the Kalashnikov line and move on.

You can get past this.

Y-

Don't give in ... Don't give up ...

Try a different magazine and some different ammo .... You may have a couple of mags that are lemons ... I'd bet there is not anything wrong with the weapon !!!

Listen to lightning_P38 .... I know he's smart ... I left Georgia and came to Alabama ... Not Smart

Buy a better quality AK and then you can compare it to an M4. My bulgarians AND my WASR's have had no problems whatsoever, I guess i'm just lucky. Wait, I did have to FTE's on my '74, but it was some shitty ammo.

I don't think comparing your M4 to your WASR is right to begin with. Think of it this way if you owned a Colt M4 you would expect it to be a cut above all other ARs right? Now if you owned a Russian or Bulgarian AK you would expect it to be a better AK than some of the others made out there today.
Some times you find out just how  much the little things matter when producing a product, that's why Colt has such high Quality Control on their rifles. As I'm sure Russian and Bulgarian AK manufactures have.
You have a Romanian Wasr not exactly held in the highest reguards to AK collectors and shooters, but a great rifle in it's own right. And and even better AK to get you introduced to the world of AKs.

While the WASR rifle I own has lived up to every since of the word I'm sure there is probably some minor defect in your rifle.

You mentioned FTF, that can be helped by new mags I like the chinese myself, bulgarian polymer mags are great too.

But it seems like you're having alot more messed up shit happening to your rifle.  
I would say try to replace any part you feel is not working properly. But when you think about it, since it is a WASR you may just be pouring more money into it than you should be.

I would agree with the others you got a lemon. If you want to you could sell it at a gun show probably, if you wanted. I would be honest in telling buyers the problems you had with it.
Or you could consider it a nice little project to work on. Get to the know the AK better.

My money try it again handpick your next AK, I think you just got a bad one. You know "Shit happens" . Best of luck to ya.h.gif

Mags are often times the culprit because I had just purchased 6 30rd Used E. German mags from Centerfire, and when I shot them all of the mags except one would jam my rifle.  In this rifle, I had never had a jam until yesterday.  The gun that I was using is a Arsenal Sam-7 which has had about 2000rds through since I bought it and until yesterday has not ever jammed.  It surely was not the ammo because I usually use Wolf HP and now I am using Barnaul HP.

LOL, get an ARSENAL AK and then make the comparison. Right now your comparing a Chrysler K car to a Porsche ...

I've got a WASR and SAM-7 with thousands and thousands of rounds through them with zero hiccups.  I clean my WASR around every 3000 rounds.

I would bet a lot of dough that if you were to buy 3 more WASRs you would have zero problems with them. You just got a lemon.

When I get an AK, I look it over for obvious stuff. Then I take it out and shoot the hell out of it. If it will run through 10 mags without failure, then again some time later, it gets to go on the rack for possible duty. If not, it is in the pile with the problem children. The thing with AKs is what you see is usually what you get. If it works, it will probably work when you need it. If it's broke, fix it. If you can't fix it, sell it and get one that does.

I really can't say that about an AR platform. The ones I had would work one day and not the next. Too picky.

   

It's the magazine .......... ;0)

dupe oops

Just keep tweeking it. Check your bolt guide where the bolt locks into the slide notch. Sometimes there will be an abraision that will cause the bolt not to gear properly. Small dent or jagged metal in the bolt cam lock.

Failure to close may happen due to the receiver becomming squished. Take a piece of 1X3 board and twist it between the top rails close the the front trunnion. Spread them just a bit.

Also check for a damaged shell extractor or left lower rail. May not have been hardened well enuff and it's throwing the case too high and hitting the top cover.

The bolt only hung up slightly. I could just barly push it to get it to close, but it was odd it had stopped so close to chambering instead of the usual hangup area. It has since stopped completly.

We don't know enough about this to diagnose his problem. Same or different mags? Same or different ammo? Is the weapon clean? are there any obvious dings or dents in the receiver? any burrs on the bolt carrier, or on the guide rails?

Im not replying on the aks reliablility, but on VW.  Dont buy a VW pos.  I was a VW mechanic for 2 years.  
They are the biggest pile of crap, 10 recalls apiece cars on the market.  There electronics are as fast as a 1986 oldsmobile.  The delay you feel in your throttle on your jetta, esp on a turbo, is the electronic throttle, its like 2 seconds.  Big pos.  At my old dealership in lincoln we had to buy back 3 of them in 2 years because of lemon laws.  Who ever told you they were reliable is full of sheiit.  Just look to conusmer reports.  VW is the most towed car in america, also most check engine lights, and highest out of warrenty repair bills.  The VW toureg needs to have the engine removed to change the alternaor, and even for a battery cable.  This is no crap, steer clear of VW.  Sorry for being off topic, and sorry you were misinformed about there product, and by the way, audi is also VW.

Quoted: We don't know enough about this to diagnose his problem. Same or different mags? Same or different ammo? Is the weapon clean? are there any obvious dings or dents in the receiver? any burrs on the bolt carrier, or on the guide rails?

I have been using the same stock mags that came with it. (2 of em) The ammo I use is brass cased FMJ Cheetah. The weapon is kept extremely clean, once after every range visit where I expend only 120rnds most of the time. No obvious problems with the guide rails or receiver. The bolt carrier looks poorly machined, but nothing that looks like a problem. As I said earlier, the bolt face appears damaged.

My WASR-10 jammed when it was new.  It would try to double-feed the rounds.  As the top round in the mag was stripped off by the bolt and fed into the chamber, the next round was being hit by the bolt carrier and pushed forward into the feed ramp.  Very frustrating.  Where's all this reliability I keep hearing about?  Anyway, to try and repair ther problem, I polished the feed ramp and the magazine feed lips.  This helped some, but the problem persisted.  But, when I lightly ground and then polished the underside of the bolt carrier, the problem went away.  Now I have a reliable rifle.  The part that I polished is the area where the bolt enters the bolt carrier.  It had a little too much of a face on it.  I ground it back to a sharp edge and polished the area.  Seems to work.

Quoted: I have been using the same stock mags that came with it. (2 of em) The ammo I use is brass cased FMJ Cheetah. The weapon is kept extremely clean, once after every range visit where I expend only 120rnds most of the time. No obvious problems with the guide rails or receiver. The bolt carrier looks poorly machined, but nothing that looks like a problem. As I said earlier, the bolt face appears damaged.

You could have one,or more,of a few problems.The first thing I would do is switch from the African made Cheetah ammo to any Russian ammo.
Do your mags fit tight?I've seen the same type of problems with AKs that have a little too tight mag releases.
Next,as HeavyMetal stated earlier,your reciever may be a bit mis-aligned or slightly out of spec,Troy at In Range is the best I've seen at fixing this type of problem.

I currently have seven AKs and Four M4s,with a few FALs and a G3 in the mix,they're all my "go to gun",but I'll have to admit,I tend to grab the ACOG mounted M4 first.

Quoted: Quoted: I have been using the same stock mags that came with it. (2 of em) The ammo I use is brass cased FMJ Cheetah. The weapon is kept extremely clean, once after every range visit where I expend only 120rnds most of the time. No obvious problems with the guide rails or receiver. The bolt carrier looks poorly machined, but nothing that looks like a problem. As I said earlier, the bolt face appears damaged. You could have one,or more,of a few problems.The first thing I would do is switch from the African made Cheetah ammo to any Russian ammo. Do your mags fit tight?I've seen the same type of problems with AKs that have a little too tight mag releases. Next,as HeavyMetal stated earlier,your reciever may be a bit mis-aligned or slightly out of spec,Troy at In Range is the best I've seen at fixing this type of problem. I currently have seven AKs and Four M4s,with a few FALs and a G3 in the mix,they're all my "go to gun",but I'll have to admit,I tend to grab the ACOG mounted M4 first.

I have to use the cheetah ammunition as my range steals brass from users and does not permit steel cases.

Try the Yugoslavian ammo,brass cased but possibly corrosive.Shoots great and has a great record.

5-6,000 rds countless manufacturers and no failures of any kind in my SAR1.  Every problem I have heard about the WASR involves the magwell and the mod's that allow it to accept hi-caps.