For those who say "AK's are unstoppable," etc.
here's my two cents...
I heard so much about the incredible reliability of AK's that I decided to try them out several years ago back when they were cheap. I tried a new Maadi, which had the front sight base welded on so crooked that it COULD NOT BE ZEROED on a standard silhouette target at 100 yards. Even with the front sight drifted all the way over to correct it, it still shot 6" off the left edge of the paper of a standard full size silhouette!!! Luckily the dealer took that one back. So then I tried a NHM-91 (longer, heavier-barrelled AK clone.) This one shot decent groups for an AK variant, and worked fine... with 5-round mags. I tried several different new 30 round mags (that had worked fine in the Maadi) and it jammed with every one of them!! No ammo preference -- it jammed with several types of surplus military ammo! I then said "to heck with this" and went back to AR's. There's no doubt in my mind that there are plenty of decent, reliable AK clones out there, but many of them look like they were built by Mr. McGoo when he was blind running drunk. [puke] If you get one, be sure to check it thoroughly if possible, as there seems to be significant variation between individual specimens. Mine was admittedly a sample of two, but my getting two BAD ones back to back suggest there might just be more rejects out there than people think. If I had to guess, I wouldn't be surprised if the Egyptians used a big stack of reject military barrels on the Maadi's just to make money; I've since looked at several and frequently saw crooked front sights. John