How Much Longer Till Specialty AK-47 Manufacturers Arise?

[R127]

AK's are more popular than ever before in this country, I see that as a good thing. The basic design is solid and there's a lot more you can get out of the action than is encountered in most commonly available AK's. More and more AK parts are being manufactured domestically. It seems inevitable that barring some future ban eventually a revolution will occur in the AK market the same way it occurred in the AR market. That platform has evolved rather profoundly from the original M-16's. I can foresee a lot of potential improvements and variations... a "flat top" AK that replaces the standard rear sight block with a weaver rail block instead... rifles built with lightweight titanium or aluminum receivers... accurized rifles... new calibers and even multi-caliber rifles. Some private builders and gunsmiths are already doing some of these things. Has anybody heard any rumors of any manufacturers picking up the ball and running with it? You'd think a company like Arsenal would be well positioned to usher in the new era of the AK.

 

[crushbup]

Well, there's people like Krebs Custom and others who are basically specialty makers.

 

[HorseSoldier]

I think the big impediment on the AK is that the money just isn't there for a large scale custom market.

Companies who tweak, improve, or advance the AR design have the possibility of making significant money from government sales to .mil as well as (possibly) federal/state/local law enforcement. In some cases, the government pays the R&D costs in the first place, and if they'll buy a bunch of copies of whatever part, etc., it drives down production cost per unit for any they sell on the civilian side as well.

With the AK, there's just nearly none of that. The money in the AK market is mostly civilian shooters and possibly a bit from the SOF community or security contractors. Companies the size of Krebs or Rifle Dynamics or similar do fill a niche of those who want performance from an AK, but without what is effectively an (unintended) government subsidy, that market and the profits in it are limited.

Has anybody heard any rumors of any manufacturers picking up the ball and running with it? You'd think a company like Arsenal would be well positioned to usher in the new era of the AK.

I don't know that they really are -- neither Arsenal nor anybody else I'm aware of are actually making AKs from scratch here in the US. They're all working with foreign parts kits built to military designs (whether or not they're 100% mil-spec) that they're re-assembling on US made receivers and such. Their costs are kept relatively low because they're basically working with standard designs from over in Bulgaria (or where ever else their parts come from), and any kind of deviation from standard parts means higher costs (especially if R&D is involved), which a manufacturer may not care to mess with if they're not sure the return on their investment will be quickly realized.

 

[Auburn1992]

Well never if the big O man gets elected...

 

[R127]

That's an interesting point on AR's having the advantage of big potential customer in the US military. I have to wonder though, does it really work out that the military is a larger market than civilian gun owners? There's only a few million people between all the services and law enforcement combined. I don't think anybody has hard numbers on just how many gun owners are in America but I've heard fifty million or more. Granted, not all these people own AK's. Still I wouldn't doubt that there are more civilian AR-15's of whatever type than there are M-16's in the military. Does anybody have any data on how many M-16's are currently in our arsenal? I recall seeing some numbers on M-14's and while they had a shorter service life and these may have been the numbers for after retirement I thought it was well under 200,000.

 

[wyocarp]

I think the big impediment on the AK is that the money just isn't there for a large scale custom market.

I've heard that said before, but I'm not sure I believe it. Gun companies produce a lot of guns that have no use in the military and they justify the production of them. It seems like it would be an easy gun to copy.

 

[HorseSoldier]

The military market is much more lucrative for a whole slew of reasons, some of which I outlined in my previous post. The military will eat R&D costs. They'll also purchase things with an eye to service life and wear and tear, so they'll put money into spares and replacement parts up front that most civilian shooters won't worry about until something breaks. The military is also harder on weapons than the vast majority of civilian gun owners, so there's higher turn over on spares and replacements, etc.

I'm pretty sure if you were to survey the owners of companies known in the AR aftermarket, like LaRue, Knights Armament, Noveske, Daniel Defense, Yankee Hill or Lewis Machine and Tool they'd indicate government sales are their preferred market and where they do most of their business -- and if it isn't, I'd bet they're trying to fix that with new products.

It seems like it would be an easy gun to copy.

With the AK it's not a question of ease, it's a question of cost. With 100% American labor and 100% American parts going up against guns that are 90% Bulgarian or Romanian parts and labor the bottom line just isn't there. Some guys might want an extensively belled-and-whistled AK (like you can get from, say, Krebs), and be willing to pay the same sort of money you pay for a belled-and-whistled AR-15 to get it. But when your $1600 deluxe AK is competing with $400 WASRs, $600 Polish AKMs and Tantals and Yugo M70s you're going to be losing all kinds of market share to cheaper competition.

When it's all said and done, Krebs Custom already does a much nicer AK than the Romanians the monkeys at Century Arms convert . . . but I don't think Century is worried about Krebs putting them out of the AK business any time soon.

 

[elmerfudd]

I tend to doubt the military funding angle of things too. Sure Colt and FN get big military orders and there are a few small orders for things like the SR25, but most of the AR makers aren't making their money off of .mil. Olympic, Bushmaster, DPMS, Remington, etc... are selling almost exclusively to civilians and a lot of the development of the AR design came from the civilian market.

There are some military contracts for AK's too. I seem to recall that Arsenal got a big one not that long ago.

 

[HorseSoldier]

Some modest googling indicates that in 2007 Arsenal Inc had a government contract for $48K and change.

In 2007 LaRue Tactical had 26 government contracts totalling more than a million dollars. Daniel Defense had two contracts worth 2.5 million. Lewis Machine and Tool had 36 contracts worth 5.3 million. Knights Armament had close to ten million in contracts. Trijicon's ten contracts were worth 48 million dollars (down from 2006's 68.8 million), AimPoint had seven worth 26.5 million, and EOTech had eight worth 6.6 million. Black Hills ammo had contracts worth a bit over four million.

a lot of the development of the AR design came from the civilian market.

Such as?

I'd also note that any development relating to the use of the AR in service rifle competition is probably a bit of a gray area, since that money only gets spent because the AR is adopted by the military.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Doesn't matter how "lucrative" the military market is in reality..., there will be a big civilian market for any copy of a rifle adopted by any branch of our military.

The AK was of a different mind-set. It was to allow a country to produce a reliable, reasonably accurate rifle at low cost in a short amount of time. The M16A2 and it's clones, not so much.

I got an SKS because it was a cheaper rifle than the AK, shot the same "cheap" ammo as the AK (Ok it WAS cheap back then), and was more accurate than the AKMs on the market at the time.

LD

 

[RP88]

In the 'lesser countries', parts are bought and made bottom-line, and the labor is not exactly well-paying. because of how lower alot of the forging is on simple parts, and how easy it is to keep a labor-intensive process like assembling an AK cost less than slave wages - not to mention that the materials in general use are usually very minimal in cost - AKs can be made extremely cheap.

But, the re-tooling, US manufacturing and the American-standard labor costs on pounding in those stiff rivets with a hammer all day will put an AK up to about 700 bucks for an average one - if not more. That kind of kills the whole concept of having an affordable dirt-n-mud all-purpose rifle.

 

[elmerfudd]

My bad on the Arsenal contract, but you still only have about $19M in AR contracts there, (the others are optics). Companies like Bushmaster and Rock River Arms dwarf that and they're producing for civilians. Then there's DPMS, Stag, Olympic, etc...

Civilians might not have as much cash to spend on their rifles, but they buy many more of them than the military does and they also demand more features.

 

[HorseSoldier]

The original poster was not talking about basic production numbers (if he was the $215 million Colt made and whatever share of FN's $242 million was M16s would be relevant), he was talking about how "a revolution will occur in the AK market the same way it occurred in the AR market."

I simply listed companies that are involved in the tweaking, enhancing of capability, etc., that said revolution involves.

Companies like Bushmaster, DPMS and Rock River all produce good quality products, but none of them are moving the state of the art very far forward on the AR. If we're talking about moving the state of the art forward on the AK, not simply churning out copies of it, they're not a very relevant topic for consideration/comparison. Companies like those I listed the contract values for or, say, Alexander Arms do.

Civilians might not have as much cash to spend on their rifles, but they buy many more of them than the military does and they also demand more features.

That's simply not really true in my experience. For every guy with a tricked out M4gery or AK I know several who have bone stock weapons. But that's the problem -- however many more civilian shooters out there compared to military rifles doesn't mean a whole lot for the market when you can only get 1% of civilian gun owners to buy your widget but the military wants 20% of their rifles to include it.

 

[R127]

In my opinion AK's are doing fine in the widget category. You can get all kinds of rails for them already and a huge array of weaver rail accessories will work on the AK as well as the AR. There's all kinds of neat little add on parts like the shepherd's hook replacement to the adjustable trigger and lots of other little doodads. I'd just like to see the rifle taken to the next step on a large scale with things like beneficial integrated features, build quality, etc. Honestly I think the one accessory every 7.62x39 AK owner could benefit from the most is a good reloading press. The guys getting the best groups always seem to be shooting handloads and most of the commercial loads are admittedly not the most consistent. Still, it would be nice to see some development. As others have pointed out there always are the smaller specialized smiths out there and I might look into that at some point.

As far as the relative costs of manufacturing an AK versus an AR or any gun in general... well... metal work is actually something I know about. Truth be told guns are not difficult or complex to make, steel, aluminum, wood and plastic are all inexpensive. With the right tooling and processes the labor can be very minimal. Heck, as long as I could buy the barrels I could manufacture a couple AK's per day on my forge from raw steel. Where it gets sticky is complying with the millions of penny ante rules and regulations put on any manufacturing business in general and then doubled with special requirements for firearms manufacturers. Deregulation would help so much. Then again this kind of points out the futility of gun bans. A fellow with skill in working steel by any of a number of different methods could turn out guns very easily very quickly in the comfort of his own home. Milling and forging is a luxury, you can do a whole lot hogging out of steel on a cheap bench grinder and then hitting it with a file and maybe some sandpaper for final fit and finish.

Here's to hoping we don't see any more bans and the firearms industry continues to adapt to meet new markets.

 

[benzy2]

I don't see it really happening with the AK the way it did with the AR. While there are many companies today pumping out copies of various models of the AR for civilian only use most all of those models came from a change in design made for military contracts. Some of the smaller accessories have come from the civilian market but for the most part the government was funding the R&D. From A1 to A2 to the flattop to the M4 etc. None of the big steps were done for the civilians on the civilians dime.

Then we have the entire image of the rifle itself. It has a big following as being dirt cheap, reliable, and not so accurate. If you ask $800 for an AK you go against the cheap part people expect and you have to do a lot to prove you will give them consistent accuracy. It is possible but it is a big stereotype with that rifle that will need to be overcome. Hell some people still act like the AR can't shoot a mag full without having a dozen jams. I just don't see where the revolution is going to come from.

Who is stating they will pay the premium for a domestic made AK variant over what is coming in relatively cheap as an import. The design doesn't have a ton of extra fat where a solid flattop type rail could be added. There have been attempts in the past at fully US made AK variants if I recall correctly and they didn't last. Relatively few people, at least very few of the ones I shoot with, are willing to pay more than what they would cost if made domestically.

 

[IndianaBoy]

It's called the Sig 556. AK system, better ergos, more accurate, optic friendly, great trigger, more expensive.

 

[jeepmor]

It seems like it would be an easy gun to copy.

The ultimate precision vs ultimate reliability are the issues directly competing with each other here.

Stamped receivers don't lend themselves to process repeatability tolerances of the milling or grinding processes employed in making parts out of solid hunks of metal. As a metal guy, you know this. Look at the way they're put together. They stink of high volume, low cost manufacture. Whereas in the purely machined firearm manufacturing processes, things like MIM parts have come about to save manufacturing money. However, making machined rifles super accurate just means tighter tolerances and a few other physics items that apply equally to all precision lead tossers.

As a recently hired engineer into a purely manufacturing environment (solar), I can tell you first hand how these costs that seem like pennies per operation quickly add up to oodles and oodles of cash. I never believed it myself until I actually entered into engineering and had to start purchasing all of this stuff to keep production running.

And as others have mentioned, the fact that they come from mostly third world countries doesn't sit well in the quality department. It's almost like saying, dude, come look at my cherry '76 Mustang. Just not a lot of teeth in that statement for most of folks with some discretionary income.

I've babbled enough, jeepmor out.

 

[Brother in Arms]

this is an interesting thread! and I think it encompasses several angles two that have been touched on but not expounded upon are psychological and perceptual.

The originator of the thread noted that there have been many innovations for the AR platform and wonders if such a boom could happen for the AK platform.

while I would say to some extent this has already happened. But not to such an existent as the AR and so its worth looking why. Economics has already been discussed and has been covered quite well.

But I think it has more to do with the perception of the consumers of the product.

Clearly the AK and AR are two different rifles and while they have mass appeal they appeal to two different types of shooters.

AR's have pretty much always been "expensive".....one could argue they are cheaper to own now than ever before. (Could be related to market competition) But they are still in that $500-700 (I assembled my own for M16A1 type rifle for around $550) so there is the idea that AR's are intrinsically valuable. Also they have been our service rifle for 40+ years so they have a level of mystique that makes people want to own them. Also they have alway been more domestically produced than the AK. Most clone rifles have been made here in the US.

plain Jane Ak's on the other hand can still be had for around $400 or less I saw a MAK-90 a couple weeks ago in a shop for $300. And up until about 10 years ago where not at all domestically produced which allowed them to be inexpensive, Giving the rifles a persona of cheapness. Also it is foreign and has always been the weapon of our enemies. Though there have been some very high quality AK's produced however the Valmet being one of the best.

Both guns do certain things well the AK noted for its reliability the AR noted for its accuracy. I feel that people feel that AR is worth upgrading and improving where as the AK is considered less worthy by many. That being said one could improve it if they wanted to spend the money.

For many if you buy a rifle that cost $600 then its worth putting at a couple hundred more into it, to have it in the configuration you want. Because it costs more its worth putting more investment into it. As opposed to a less expensive rifle.

But most of the so called improvements are additional accessories. One could put an ACOG on an AK, or a fore end mounted rail system or an exspensive collapsing stock. But your not really changing the basic strength or weakness of the design. Making a different safety system that replaced the original and worked easily would be. But most people who own AKs have learned to live with the way AK's "un-ergonomic safety lever" and it doesn't really bother them. Are these the same fellows who are going to put a $1000 optic on the same rifle?

I do think that most of what has already been covered is true and there are many reasons why one has such a vast after market evolution and the other not so much. Cost is definitely a factor, but more because of perception than actual manufacturing cost. I think an all US made AK would be wonderful and but you have to ask yourself would you pay $1000 for a US AK? Even if it was made to exacting tolerances and very high quality. Would it be worth it to you. Many people have $1000 in there AR.

draw your own conclusion.
Brother in Arms

 

[Boats]

Even Valmet/Sako and the Finnish Army gave up on making product improved AK style rifles to buy off the rack from China. You can pretty much guarantee that if improved AKs have their cost feasibility limits, even for a small but wealthy government, that makes boutiquing for higher quality or more exotica a pretty daunting risk for smallish private companies.

The AK was meant to be churned out as fast as possible by barely competent communist laborers using what could charitably be called rudimentary equipment. The AR design, child of primitive 50s and 60s CNC equipment from the aerospace industry, lent itself well to future small semi-automated manufacture once CNC machines became vastly more common.

There's a certain amount of pig lipstick trying to take what was always supposed to be a stamped design back to the days of yesteryear's milled AK.

I don't think we'll ever see such widespread boutique manufacture of the AK as we have with the AR, short of a total import ban.

Then we would get into the serious question, assuming ARs were still readily available, of just how many domestic $800-1000.00 big spenders there are out there for the AK rifle when it reaches price parity with the black rifle.

For $800-1100.00 I'm buying a 20 inch AR and not looking back.

 

[Brother in Arms]

Boats
From what I read with Soumi Army they bought Chinese AK for reserve troops because they are cheaper and the same caliber as there domestic Ak's but regular troops are still armed with Valmet made rifles.

Brother in Arms