AK-103K

AK-103K Review

(Written by Trent Harris)

Manufactured by AK-USA

3/19/03

I've done a poor job of updating this page and for that I apologize. I few people have asked me what my satisfaction level is my AK-103K after owning and firing my work of art for some time now. Well, I would estimated that I've put somewhere around 800 rounds through it at this point and I have yet to have ANY malfunction of any kind. Accuracy, fit and function are still superb. Whenever I pull it out of my safe to show it off to a friend they always ask me if it is new because it still looks just like it did the day I got it. The powder coat finish has proved to be even more durable than a couple of other guns I have that I had gunkoted.

Also, I received back an SAR-1 back that I sent off to another notable AK gunsmith to have it basically converted to an 103K copy. It is a disappointment to me to even look at it after owning an AK done by Chris @ AK-USA. I actually sent this gun off about 6 months before I even knew Chris otherwise it would have went to him as well. I've been really surprised by the number of emails that I have received from potential customers of AK-USA after reading my review. Keep 'em coming! If I can help in your decision in any way please let me know. Also, if there is a particular picture of my rifle that you would like to see added to this page just let me know and I'll see what I can do. Suggestions and comments are always welcome.

4/13/02 (Range Report w/pics at bottom of Page)

This is a very basic web page and is intended to inform rather than to impress anyone so don't laugh.

The opinions expressed in this article are exactly that. I in no way claim to be an AK weapon or history expert. I do however own three AK's ranging from Polytech, SAR-1, and this new AK-103K and I've had a great deal of trigger time behind them along with various other weapons including HK's, AR's, FAL's, etc. I've had a far amount of custom work done from 1911's to AK's so I generally know what to expect. If you want to know more about what experience I have just send me an email.

This article is in no discernable order. I'm just typing as it comes to me. I came across a little extra money and decided I wanted another AK variant and the AK-103K's from Kreb's, and DGS have fascinated me for some time now so I began to explore my options. Most people have good things to say about Kreb's work, but the asking price and the lead time combined to make this an unwise choice for me for my intended purposes. DGS opinions seemed to ranged from bad, to OK, to good, but nothing really stood out except for the price, nevertheless I called to check into their service. I left a voicemail and in the meantime I called the new kid on the block AK-USA. I spoke immediately with Chris Butler who is the owner and operator of AK-USA and he informed me at that time that DGS had gotten out of that line of work and he had bought out their equipment to take over the AK-103 manufacturing. Chris seemed like a really nice guy who answered all my questions promptly. The deal seemed exactly what I was looking for: a close to original Russian AK, fair price, and quick turnaround time. I had a couple of buddy's of mine who thought the same thing so we got together and sent Chris a certified check along with a copy of my dealer's FFL in order to purchase three of the AK-103K's. It did cost us a little more for the carbine's because he had to cut the barrels but nothing significant. To give you an idea of Chris' turnaround time, he actually received our check and FFL on March 16, 2002 and we received the completed rifles on March 29, 2002....that's fast.

Normally the AK-103's would come with white and red lettering on the sides of the receiver, plastic case, cleaning kit, oil bottle, 1 Bulgarian 30-round waffle mag and K-Var polymer stocks, but Chris allowed us to substitute a buffer instead of the case and we opted not to have the colored lettering on the receivers in the essence of time. He also allowed me to ship my own Krinkov style butt stock which by the way is made by FSE. At that time he was using FSE FCG (although I've been told he has since switched over to Gordon Tech), but I could have sent him any FCG I wanting him to use. He had the rifles powder coated and I must say that I am impressed. I've never seen it before this, and so far I think it's pretty dang good. Chris does not weld up the trigger pin holes, but I knew this up front and it's really just a cost issue. Which brings up one of the best points I can tell you about AK-USA: They remind me of Burger King.....you can have it your way. If you want something done different just discuss it with Chris and see if it can be done and for how much. He actually does use the original threaded front sight base and they manufacturer their own 74-style brake. His rivet job on the old holes is very good and YES the front sight base is straight.

I haven't had a chance to actually fire mine yet, but hopefully I will either Friday or Saturday and I'll post a follow-up range report at that time. The only problem I have had so far in my function tests and inspections was a minor one. Let me explain. Chris attaches the feed ramp (or bullet guide as some people have suggested) via a rivet to the trunion and he just switched to a more advanced rivet design that holds the feed ramp tighter. When I actually loaded a live round into the chamber a had some resistance when I tried to pull the bolt back to extract the loaded round. After I visually inspected the bottom of the bolt and I concluded that the bolt was dragging across something and I felt it had to be the rivet. Sure enough, the was a small ridge on the front of the rivet. I called my other two buds to see if they had experienced a similar problem and they had not. Even though I knew this was a very easy fix for even the most mechanically challenged I called Chris anyway just to see what his response would be. Chris told me that he would be happy to issue a call tag for UPS or FedEx to pick up my gun and he would take care of it ASAP. As a matter of fact, Chris has expressed to me that he wants me to be extremely happy with my purchase and if I have any problems or complaints whatsoever just let him know and he'll take care of it. I can't say enough about his customer service so far. I don't know if he would want me to tell this or not, but he even gave me his cell phone number and told me to contact him 24/7 with anything. To be fair to Chris, we rushed him pretty good in order to make a weekend range session. As it turns out it poured down rain and we didn't make it anyway. I told him I thought I could handle it with a little dremel work, but I wanted to hear from him on how far I could smooth out the rivet. He informed me that I could actually smooth the rivet completely flush if I wanted to and it would retain it's function perfectly. I didn't go that far, but I did take out my dremel, felt tip, and little polishing compound and had it cycling smoothly with a loaded round in about 3 minutes.

I haven't had a chance to completely refinish the bullet guide yet, just a little cold blue so far. Chris told me that with the powder coating there is a small break-in period, but after some rounds through them the gun will begin to matte with it's new finish to create ultra smooth operation. It's smooth now, so I can't hardly wait until I put a few hundred rounds through it to see how much smoother it can get. Trigger pull was a little rough with the FSE FCG, but after dry firing some it's already beginning to smooth out nicely. Of course, I'm used to my Polytech trigger and I don't really think I've ever seen anything that compares to that yet. My other two friends who went in with me on this purchase are extremely happy with their purchase and I swear their mouths dropped when they saw them for the first time.

Chris also is very close to finishing an AK-104 prototype and he will also be producing some 5.56x45 variants soon. I've seen a picture of his AK-104 and it looks SWEET. I first stated he was going to produce a 5.45x39 variant and that was an error. Call it wishful thinking I guess. It was late when I wrote this so please forgive me.

Overall, I believe that for the price you can't hardly beat AK-USA's work. I'm sure there are indeed other gunsmiths out there who create a closer and more refined AK-103 variant than Chris, but the overall value that I perceived when comparing price, lead-time, and service from AK-USA fit the bill for me perfectly.

RANGE REPORT:

For those of you who have been waiting on this I sincerely apologize. OK, for my range session I used Barnaul 124gr HP. I started out at the 50 yard line and with the iron sights point of impact was slightly off to the right about 5 inches. I didn't bring my sight adjustment tool so I just left it as is for now. I switched over to my Kobra and after sighting it in on my AK-103K I was able to shoot the following group.

I was very pleased with this seeing how the Kobra is not exactly a precision shooting device. Plus, I'm not exactly a guy anyone would mistake for a 'marksman'. The gun was shooting more accurately than I am capable of shooting. BTW, for scale reasons, that is an 8 1/2" x 11" paper target.

I moved on over to the 100 yard line and was even more impressed. The Kobra's dot almost covered the entire target, but I still did well. Same ammo ,same size target and same sighting device..

I almost hesitate to say this because it is so commonplace with an AK, but I did not have any failures of any kind through 200 rounds. The two things that I was really impressed with during my range session was that buy the time I got through with the 200 rounds downrange the action did indeed get smoother just as Chris said it would. Apparently, the powder coating does indeed smooth out once broken in. The other thing was the effectiveness of Chris' 74-style brake. I took my Polytech AK-47 out to the range with me since it has a 47-style slant brake to see if I could really notice any difference between recoil between the two brakes. Scenario, the Polytech has an Ace non-folding stock with rubber butt pad and the standard 16" barrel and the AK-103K has an aluminum 'krinkov' style stock with no butt pad with overall barrel profile of 16.75". I would shoot 3 rounds through each and then switch to the other. Even though it would seem that one would perceive that the Polytech with the longer barrel and rubber butt pad would have less felt recoil, but that was not the case of all. The AK-103K blew it away. It was like shooting my M4 (.223). I kid you not I was very quick to get back on target during rapid fire. I've heard it said that the 74-style brake is much louder than an AK with either a 47-style slant brake or no brake at all, but honestly, if it was I couldn't tell a difference. Of course I was wearing my ear muffs so maybe it was.

My satisfaction with this gun gets better every day and I didn't think that was possible, but it continues to do so. I highly recommend this gun from AK-USA if your criteria is anywhere close to mine.

If you want to ask me any questions please feel free to email me at trentmh@bellsouth.net.