AK in .223 or 5.45?

[N3rday]

Ok, so my first buy (besides a 10/22 or similar) will be an AK. I probably won't hunt, so I was wondering about AKs chambered for .223 and 5.45

How do these rounds compare, pricewise?
overall opinions on both rounds wanted

Also...
What brands sell AKs chambered in .223/5.45?
Finally...anyone have experience in AKs of these lower calibers vs. 7.62 AKs? Opinions?

 

[Gary G23]

If you are buying Wolf ammo the price is about the same. The big difference pricewise is the cost of magazines. Prepare to pay three times as much for 223 mags compared to 5.45 mags. If I were going to get a 223 AK I would get an Arsenal Inc SA M-5. I wish Arsenal made a 5.45 AK. I would love to have one.

 

[c_yeager]

Ak-74 mags (5.45) can be readily converted to feed .223 with the addition of a follower from Robinson Armament so the mag price isnt all THAT different. I would go with 223 for much more variety and the option of reloading should you want to.

 

[N3rday]

Ok, so just buying quality 5.45 mags and replacing the follower would be cheaper?
Also, can I get a link to that follower?
I will be one of the 'assault rifle' types from the get go, not much for bolt actions although lever actions look appealing.

This is what worries me- How much longer will the 5.45 cartridge last? Isn't Russia using the 5.56 AKs now? Maybe I'm mistaken, I hope so.

Someone posted a really cool looking pic of an AK type rifle in .223 with green front stocks next to a handgun, a Steyr M series if I remember right. Looked awesome. Anyway, I figured since I'm new to the world of rifles I'd get a .22 semi first, then a .223, and work my way up to that CETME .308

Maybe I'll get an AR on the way, probably Olympic Arms or the like. Anyway, 5.45 or .223 seem like they would work fine for me, I just wanna invest in a round that is cheap and low in recoil.

 

[Dave R]

The Russian company Saiga is building a .223 AK, but Russia doesn't use it in their military. They use the 5.45 round. There are so many 5.45 AKs out there that I don't think the ammo could dry up. If imports stopped, I have to believe some US company would take it up. My opinion, anyway.

I have a .223 AK (SAR-3). Would not hesitate to get a .223 Saiga. The only weakness they have is no mags over 10 rounds.

But I would not hesitate to get a 5.45 AK, either.

Oh yeah, mags. To convert a 5.45 round to fire .223, you have to BOTH change the follower AND open up the feed lips a little. The shoulder geometry of the 5.45 is much different than the .223. Century Arms sent over a bunch of paritally-converted 5.45 (bakelite) mags. They had the feed lips modified, but did not have the Robinson followers. The mags that came with my SAR-3 did not have the feed lips altered, and I had to do both the feed lip surgery and the followers to get them to feed right.

And its getting harder to get those followers. Used to be you could order them direct from Robinson Arms in Salt Lake City, UT. The manufacturer. But I believe they raised their minimum order and that's not an option, now. You have to go through one of their dealers.

 

[Preacherman]

I'd like to recommend the Saiga in .223. Retail around here is $169 - half the cost of even a lowball AK. Sure, it uses 10-round mags, but the conversion to take full-capacity mags is easy and routine, and with the money you save on the gun, you could buy half-a-dozen mags and pay for the conversion. However, don't even bother with the conversion if this is a gun for plinking and the range, or occasional varminting - the 10-rounders will be more than adequate.

For more details on the Saiga, see here.

 

[Kor]

I vote 5.45 - I've been having a lotta fun with a Romanian SAR-2 in 5.45 for the past few months now, and have come to really appreciate the gun and caliber as a system.

As far as the ammo goes, Wolf steel-cased .223 and 5.45 cost exactly the same, about $100/1K. The Russians are the only game in town for 5.45 ammo, but the Wolf 5.45 gives excellent accuracy in my SAR-2. If you want reloadable brass-cased .223 ammo, be prepared to spend $150+/1K. If you are looking to reload 1K of .223 from your fired cases, you're gonna be spending at retail about $45 for bullets, $18 for primers and $40 for powder - and that's BEFORE you take your 2-3 hrs of labor into account. You can cut the costs by maybe as much as $10-20/1K, but only if you buy bulk quantities of surplus components. I'd only reload .223 if I was gonna shoot highpower rifle competition with the ammo - and if I was, I sure wouldn't use an AK. For casual plinking and action-rifle/3-gun competition, I'd just buy Russian ammo and let it go at that.

Word around the campfire is that Wolf is selling more 5.45 than they can import, but I've seen Barnaul 5.45 ammo appearing recently to take up the slack(though I've never shot any of it, so I can't say if its any good), and I expect that Wolf will adapt to accomodate the demand for 5.45 ammo anyways. The 5.45X39 cartridge isn't gonna go away anytime soon - the newest-generation Russian assault rifle, the Nikonov AN-94, is chambered in 5.45X39, and the Russian government is still issuing AK-74s until they can accumulate enough cash to effect a service-wide transition to the AN-94. Plus, a lot of the "breakaway" republics like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are still using their 5.45 AK's.

AK's in 5.45 are almost shockingly controllable in rapid semi-auto fire, and are ludicrously easy to shoot as long as your rifle's trigger is a good one that doesn't slap your finger. A friend who has multiple AK's and shoots with me every month once fired a Norinco .223 AK, and didn't care for it - he said it had more felt recoil than even a 7.62X39 gun, although this would have been several years ago, so I can't really rely on his or my recollection. The 7.62 AK's aren't unpleasant to shoot by any means, but shooting a 5.45 AK feels kind of like shooting a really loud .22LR rifle. I used to own a Hungarian 7.62 AK, which was finished better than my SAR-2, but the Romanian gun won me over to the 5.45 side of the equation - the buttstock just nudges your shoulder gently, while the sights stay glued to your point of aim.

The 5.45 cartridge is much more sharply tapered than the .223 cartridge, and therefore is theoretically more reliable when feeding the round and ejecting the spent case(especially when the cases are lacquered steel). I just can't help but feel that re-chambering the gun and modifying the magazines to feed and fire a cartridge that the gun wasn't designed for is courting trouble. Granted, much R&D has been done to accomplish just that with AK's and .223, but the 5.45 cartridge was designed for the gun, and the mags were designed for the cartridge, and they all work perfectly together, so I see no reason to mess with the system. Besides, the stripper clips for 5.45 are much better and WAY cooler than either 7.62X39 clips or .223 clips, and work flawlessly with the 5.45 mags(natch).

Personally, I'd recommend a late-manufacture Romanian gun like my 2002-dated SAR-2 for around $400 if you can find one - earlier guns are more likely to have "trigger-slap" problems which would require you to spend time and/or money to fix. I don't like the Robinson Arms VEPR's because they're noticeably heavier and more sluggish-feeling than my SAR-2 - this is more important for fast close-range shooting at multiple targets in a 3-gun match, less important if you're just plinking at the local sandpit. I'd expect, though, that the VEPR's are probably more accurate off the bench than the SAR-2's. Once Arsenal starts shipping their 5.45 guns, they should be excellent rifles - they probably won't shoot any better than my SAR-2, but they'll definitely be finished more nicely.

 

[N3rday]

Ok, so how hard would it be for me to convert my Saiga to take hi-cap mags? this is legal right?
And then I would have to buy .223 mags...or convert the 5.45 mags...

Or I could get a 5.45 AK to begin with...AHH CHOICES!

Is there a website that describes how to do this stuff? My mom would probably be less frightened of a Saiga than a pistol grip metal and wood evil looking AK, but I always wanted said AK to get the high capacity mags. A converted Saiga would do well, and I guess I could replace the stocks with a pistol grip if I wanted (right?)


ugh...5.45....223....5.45....223....hard choice.
It seems like .223 would be cheaper, but I would have to get the Saiga converted and find some hi-cap .223 mags...ugh, really hard choice:banghead:

This is so cool. I'm glad I joined the Scouts.
Been a gun nut ever since

 

[mrapathy2000]

another vote for saiga in 223. $160-$200 and nother $100-$150 atleast to convert to pistol grip and hicap mags.

223 is plentifull. 5.45x39 is not real common though it is cheap, no load data availible.

 

[Kor]

N3rday, I'm gonna try to be blunt without being rude, and cut to the heart of the matter(apologies to all the .223/Saiga fans in advance).

The way I see it, the Saiga .223 is not what you REALLY want. There's nothing bad or wrong about it per se, it's an inexpensive, perfectly functional rifle, but it sounds to me like the rifle you REALLY want to get is not a Saiga.

You want an AK, but you're worried that your mom will get the vapors if you keep a pistol-gripped AK at home. Do you honestly think she'll be any less upset if the Saiga doesn't have the pistol grip? C'mon, it looks like what it is...an AK-47 without a pistol grip. If you want an effective rifle that looks innocuous, try something like a .357Mag lever-action, or an M1 Carbine.

Plus, if you want to put a pistol grip on the Saiga later on, it will require major surgery - compare the Saiga picture to a picture of a pistol-gripped AK, you'll see that the Saiga has had its trigger and trigger guard moved back as part of the re-design into a "sporting rifle." You'd have to send it to one of the custom AK-builders like www.ak103.com, who will probably charge you $200+.

Converting the Saiga to take regular mags requires some fairly involved grinding/filing on the gun, unless you did really well in shop class I'd pay to have it done professionally. The Saiga's 10-rd mags will work just fine for plinking or home defense, but what you WANT is an evil-looking gun that uses full-capacity mags, and no matter how well the Saiga shoots, I don't think you're gonna be 100% satisfied with the gun unless and until you can snap that 30-rd banana clip into it

The way I see it, the only practical advantage the Saiga has over even a SAR-2 or SAR-3(.223) is its low price. If you just gotta have something NOW and your budget is really limited, go ahead and buy it...but it won't look just the way you want, it won't feel and handle just the way it should, and even though you saved $$ on the gun's up-front cost, you're still spending more $$ to make the gun work with the magazines you want it to use. You're compromising on what you really want, for what I think are the wrong reasons.

Either get yourself a Romanian AK that you'll be pretty much happy with from the start...or compromise on a gun that will take more time and money to become what you want it to be.

 

[WonderNine]

If you want a nice AK in .223 with a decent barrel length. (over 20") that takes advantage of the .223 then get a VEPR. It'll take German 30 round mags....

 

[Tomac]

My $.02 Worth...

Veprs are excellent quality but (IMHO) 9 lbs is too heavy for intermediate cartridges like the 5.45/5.56/7.62x39.
If you want a .223 AK that won't require mods like the Saiga then my local gunshop (Wildman Sports 208-459-7705) has a NIB SAR-3 for $350 sitting in their rack. The SAR-3 works best w/the steel Weiger 5.56 mags.
My vote is for the 5.45 AK. Parts/mags are cheap and readily available. You can start w/a base SAR-2 then customize until it's just the way you want it.
My SAR-2 has the Tapco G2 FCG, K-Var polymer furniture, extended mag release, AA-OK AK-74 brake, Red Star Arms FCG retainer plate, Tapco M249 SAW pistol grip (not in this photo), PT Nightsights prototype tritium iron sights and the new PK-AS CQB red dot/black dot sight:

Tomac

 

[RustyHammer]

Nice looking piece, Tomac .....

 

[No4Mk1*]

If you convert a 5.45x39 magazine to work with .223 and it no longer works in an AK-74 you have just manufactured a "high capacity" magazine and I suggest you not advertise that fact until 9-15-04.

 

[762x51]

The mags will still work in a 5.45 gun. The modification simply requires removing a very small amount of material from the top front of the mag in order to clear the .223 trunion as well as installing a Robarm follower in order to improve the feeding of the .223 cartridge.

Nothing illegal going on here.

And as to N3rday's caliber dilema.....both are great. If accuracy, low recoil, and ammo availability is high on your list though, go for the .223. My Saiga conversion will shoot under 2 MOA all day long with XM193.





Edit to add: Yes...the conversion to standard AK mags can be done yourself if you are handy. Check out the Russian rifle, and build it yourself forums on ak-47.net for instructions. Good luck.

 

[N3rday]

See, something like the two pics posted here is what I would look for.
Those green stocks look NICE!

You hit the nail on the head, Kor! I can come up with $400 between now and Dec. 3, and the CETME .308 will take care of the higher-caliber rifle, so I guess no saiga! Still not sure between 5.45 and .223, but I'm leaning toward .223

edited to add: I'm worried about mag availability for .223. How hard would it be to find these?

 

[RustyHammer]

... a "tactical AK". Isn't that like an oxymoron or something?

 

[Beren]

762x51:

Please let us know how you went about converting your Saiga and what sources you used for parts?

 

[762x51]

Beren:

I personally didn't convert it, although it is possible to do yourself. All work was done by Chris at AK-USA. More info in this thread:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37689&highlight=AKUSA