AK Range Report: Egypt vs. Romania

IUHoosier429

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I finally had a chance to try out that AK I forgot I bought a couple months ago on Gunbroker. Despite the non-matching safety selector, it's a pretty nice AKM - an early-90s PARS imported Maadi RML with the preferred Y-stamp receiver. It has seen some use and fit & finish reflect as such, but the internal parts that matter are all in great shape, and the gun appears to have a relatively low round count.

Besides the AR groupie whose voice was somehow louder than the gunshots around him and who kept calling my VEPR a "vesper," it was a decent day at the range. Hot. I saddled up and ran 10 rounds of lacquered 123-grain Wolf FMJ through the Maadi. You'll notice in the image only eight holes are visible. The first two shots hit far left of aim and required a quick windage adjustment. After that, it was minute-of-palm tree with about three-inch groups. All shots were at 50 yards, seated, with iron sights and no bench rests or bags. I ran a few more full mags through the Maadi, and am quite confident I can shrink the groups by an inch or two at 100 yards with a bit more practice. My 2014-production WASR-10 performed a bit better, but I've owned this one for three years and have a few thousand rounds through it at this point. The WASR is an awesome gun for the money, and this one also serves as ambassador when introducing non-AK shooters to the Kalashnikov family. There are some particularly good deals on them as of this posting, and I'm seriously trying to talk myself out of buying a second one. Replace the crappy balsa wood furniture and you're GTG.

On a side note, my Vesper FM took home the gold, as it always does (note - that stringer on the far right of the VEPR grouping isn't a stringer at all ... but rather from the WASR's group). However, I really just wanted to see how two no-frills, factory-built AKMs from different generations performed against each other. As pretty much expected, they performed pretty much as expected.

Overall, I'm happy with the Maadi. It definitely fits into that utilitarian niche I appreciate with most of these guns, and other than a correct selector switch and sling, I'll likely leave it as-is. Also, since it's the only Egyptian in my stable, it's most likely going to stay.

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Been on the fence about getting one. Maybe it's time.

I say go for it. Decent deals are out there, and new WASRs are hovering around $500 again. That's less than I paid for mine three years ago. Lots of other solid options as well depending on your style and budget.

And if you end up hating your AK, the secondhand market is fairly robust. Hell, I might even consider buying it from you!
 
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I've been surprised in the last few years how accurate the AK platform is, currently I'm caretaker for a Serb NPAP and an Arsenal SLR-107 and both are just as accurate out to two hundred yards as my 16 inch barreled AR's. That being said, I'm glad your WASR is more accurate than the one I had 12 or 13 years ago, you couldn't hit water with it if you were shooting from a boat..........
 
Haha agreed about most WASRs of old. I remember my first and second - and last, for the next decade - experiences with WASRs back around 2003. I was in college and just starting to build my collection. Had a Yugo SKS and several piles of cheap x39 ... wanted something that could shoot through them faster. I didn't know spit about AKs, their importers, or what constituted a quality rifle. Even so, I could tell the two WASRs I got my hands on were absolute rubbish.

They've come quite a long way since then, and besides the Styrofoam-like commercial furniture, today's WASRs are quite solid.
 
I love the Egyptian AKMs. They are all built on Russian tooling right? My buddy had one I got to shoot. His looked the same but he had ended up threading it. Will you be doing so?
 
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The Russian influence is much more evident with the original pre-ban Steyr builds, but the PARS and Intrac Maadis also sport Russian pedigree. The tooling marks are just more ... proletarian :confused:

I've considered threading the muzzle but don't know how much metal is left. It looks pretty thin. Do you know if your buddy was able to manage 14x1 on his?
 
Take some calipers to it and I can tell you if it's doable.
 
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