Arsenal discontinued the milled versions because they cost too much to manufacture and not enough people willing to pay the extra for a much heavier AK while stamped AKMs have been the norm worldwide since introduction.......
As far as the SAIGA low price......... amazing what ya can accomplish with extremally low wage sweatshop level labor, cheap materials and cut corners like presicion fitted components, base grade steel versus 4130/4140 steel all CNC Machined to much tighter specs.....
like they say ya get what ya pay for generally, Go visit Izhmash arsenal and checkout the Saiga factory as opposed to the military weapons factory (no they are not made side by side with the military guns the rest of the world can buy) its like buying your tools from Harbour freight or Buying em at Sears with the SAIGA line being the HF comparison....... much lower end now come back to the states and go visit Arsenal........ now ya just walked into the Snap on tools warehouse with all carefully hand fitted parts, all in house produced parts are minimum 4130 grade steel etc.......... with each rifle assembled by one builder, no mass produced assembly line production, one guy start to finish carefully fitting each component no belt sanders used to fit parts either as ya will see at SAIGA but instead CNC to start with and fine tuned with hones and quality machinist files
American made or Chinese swap meet special......... thats why the Century Yugos are such a good compromise if ya must buy a ready built AK rather than build your own..... the Yugo's used all milled components other than the reciever itself, the parts were fitted for each rifle originally so one built from an all matching kit will be a lil nicer, this compilation is then assembled by a pro AK builder who Century now farms their builds out to....... While not as nice as onea my custom hand fitted virgin kit built Yugo's they are also $1000 cheaper if cost is an issue for your budget..... mine ya get extreme quality Century ya get a great set of components assembled on the same NODAK reciever as the high dollar gun ya are just buying used parts as opposed to virgin new parts, assembled as opposed to precision hand fitted etc....
In Russia the SAIGA is ranked exactly the same way a WASR/STG2000 are ranked in Romania..... they got the real deal Military spec AKs sold to armies around the world (Romania supplies more AKM Pattern rifles globally since Yugoslavia went under than any other country for military grade rifles) on one side ya got the WASR/STG2000 Factory....... with the much lower paid workers (as is the case with SAIGA) that have little reason to do more than the bare minimum, ya have the lower end of the parts supply etc... result... cheap AKMs for American buyers who think they are all the same anyhow so..... just needs a conversion to "look" like a military spec gun......
