Russian surplus runs russian ammo and this design is meant to be compatible with AR-15 mags and ammo. Not to compete with AR-15s in performance.At this point, the AR is so mature that it's just really hard to compete with. Like others have said, I can jump on the internet right now and get a 16" carbine for 500 bucks. I can drive right down the road and get a $600 DPMS in half an hour. Both of those guns will shoot probably no worse than 3 inches at 100 yards, run with 99.9% reliability with any commercial ammo I feed them, mount any optic with Picatinny rails, and I wouldn't even worry about a round count unless my barrel is shot smooth.
I'm all for new ideas, and I'd be interested to see what you have planned. But man, with a field as technologically mature as small arms and a with product that's been polished for 50 years, it's really tough to see how a new design would beat out the $500 AR.
If you want a cheap beater to keep running through an apocalypse, rifles don't come much tougher than Russian surplus.
If the price was low enough then it was envisaged as a cheap cache weapon, semi-auto, compatible with your main AR-15 mags and ammo and looking like a deer rifle so that it could avoid bans on black rifles and reconfigurable to a pump action should semi autos be banned.