My first AK

Probably not going to find a lot of love around here from the diehard AK guys - Century has crapped the bed more than a few times with its domestic AKs - but get it out and run some rounds through it.

Keep a close eye on the internals - bolt face, carrier tail, lugs, rails, etc. - and invest in some quality CIP headspace gauges. Look for any unusual wear and tear on the gun, and share photos here if you're unsure about something. These things are typically sold to new guys or those folks who say they "want an AK," when they mean they want something that looks like an AK to hang out in their safe so they can tell their buddies they have an AK. Not saying the latter is you, but most AK fans favor the imports for plenty of good reasons.

So have fun. Invest in some mags and ammo. Check out Rob Ski/AKOU on YouTube and watch as many of his videos as you can. Blast away (with EyePro...). And come back here and let us know how things are going.

And welcome to the Kalash club!
 
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@IUHoosier429 thanks. Been wanting to try an ak for awhile now but never could make room in the budget, but at the local store today this showed up for less than $600 so I figured I'd take a shot and get a Christmas gift.
 
Pinky787 said:
@IUHoosier429 thanks. Been wanting to try an ak for awhile now but never could make room in the budget, but at the local store today this showed up for less than $600 so I figured I'd take a shot and get a Christmas gift.
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Makes total sense, and it's tough to beat that price!

This is such a weird time for AKs, what with high prices, low supply, and never-ending uncertainty. While the VSKA won't really hold any residual value like some of the more sought after factory imports do, it'll let you dip your toes in the game and help you figure out if this is a family of guns you want to invest more time and money into.

Keep us posted on how it shoots and any issues you may encounter. More data points are always helpful, and hopefully Century has made some strides with its domestic wares.

Happy shooting and happy Thanksgiving as well.
 
It's like you buying your first AR and buying a Delton. Good news is there's only one way to go and that's up. When buying Aks always buy foreign. If you're looking for a budget friendly second look at zastava. Hopefully you will like this platform I have several and they're as dependable as they get.
 
@Pinky787 I'd buy it at that price without thinking about it and then shoot the snot out of it. Here's AKOU VSKA 5000 round review. https://youtu.be/RgmYepQ48HQ Rob ski was not a fan of the rifle but it did make it through a hard 5000 rounds with minimal maintenance. The AKOU videos will also show you what wear to watch out for.
 
Put the first 20 rounds through it today, ran fine no issues. Runs hotter than typical AR, so gotta watch hand placement for sure. Recoil is a little worse than an AR it seems like, but not really a big deal. Look forward to shooting it some more. Just want to wait till I find ammo at a decent price, or at least a little cheaper than it was at the 3 stored visited today
 
More energy equals more recoil. WIth some practice it is easy to manage. If you are used to shooting an AR with a full handguard it is quite a change to move to the short handguard but give it some time and you'll get used to it. If the rifle doesn't have an enhanced safety lever I would recommend getting one for it.
 
Congrats on the first AK! You're sailing into dangerous seas here.. AKs in your safe seem to have a habit of.. multiplying.. over time.

But seriously congrats. Hope you enjoy it, it's definitely a fun platform and there's tons surplus stuff you can run into if you decide to go that route. Everything from rare mags, rigs, tons of different types of furniture from different countries, lots of neat stuff.
 
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Cool! Congrats on coming into the AK world; I hope you enjoy it! AKOU is a great resource for AK info as stated above.

For the VSKA... Yeah it's got mixed reviews. Some okay, some very bad. Watch anything AKOU has on them to see what's stated. Though I also trust another Youtuber named Paul Harrell, who did a video recently on the VSKA and found his to be of good quality. I'm not saying they're good, I'm not saying they're bad. But I am saying go shoot it! Run mags through it, check accuracy and barrel condition and how well the firing mechanism parts are holding up as the round count ticks up. Maybe you'll be lucky and yours will be one of the good ones. According to Paul the new ones seem to be okay, it's usually the older VSKAs that have the QC issues.

 
FarpinDar said:
If the rifle doesn't have an enhanced safety lever I would recommend getting one for it.
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So that is something I have looked into already, any suggestions? Wbp gen 2 and Krebs are the 2 I've looked at so far, with Krebs specifically saying
WILL NOT WORK ON CENTURY RIFLES WITHOUT MINOR GUNSMITHING******
 
I'm not sure what may need to be done to get those to fit. I did have DP modify one to fit a Zastava I have. The part of the safety lever that rested in the receiver was too wide. I will say if you go that route modify the safety to fit, not the gun to fit the safety.

Another option is to use a rivet on tab. Here are two options. Solar Tactical or Krebs . You will need to have a way to set the rivets or know someone who can do it though. This might be the easier way. It just depends on why the 'standard' enhanced safety won't work in your gun.
 
Pinky787 said:
So that is something I have looked into already, any suggestions? Wbp gen 2 and Krebs are the 2 I've looked at so far, with Krebs specifically saying
WILL NOT WORK ON CENTURY RIFLES WITHOUT MINOR GUNSMITHING******
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One thing you'll find about AK's is they aren't as standard as AR-15's, and "minor gunsmithing" is almost always necessary with almost everything, but Century is particularly bad about making proprietary stuff that doesn't play well with aftermarket AK parts.
 
So I went ahead and ordered the safety from PSA so that should be here soon. I got this rifle with the intent of not really adding anything to it as far as swapping furniture or adding optics or anything like that, at least for now. But I would like a sling for it. But from most I've seen it requires the little eyelet up near the gas block. Well my rifle doesn't have this. What are my options? Haven't found much trying to Google it

Screenshot_20221129-101556_Google.jpg

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Rowsdower said:
Loop some paracord through that hole in the gasblock and call it a day.
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In that case could I just use the sling in that 1st picture and loop it through that same hole?
 
Pinky787 said:
In that case could I just use the sling in that 1st picture and loop it through that same hole?
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I don't know for sure, probably too small but might be worth a try.
 
Rowsdower said:
😂
I am so willfully ignorant about Century AK's.
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If it makes you feel better I emailed century just to see what they said, and they were like just get the Blue force ak sling and run the wire piece through it, so apparently whoever replies to the emails at century didn't know it was a qd socket either
 
better than my first AK, mine was an ATI underfolder that blew up on me during the first magazine
That was also my last AK. I like them but I missed the days when they were affordable
 
1 last question I couldn't find a answer for on Google. As far as wolf steel cased ammo, is there much or any difference between the regular wolf black box, wolf polyformance and the wolf military classic? 1 was 122gr another 123gr and 124gr slightly different velocities. Is there a preference yall have?
 
Pinky787 said:
1 last question I couldn't find a answer for on Google. As far as wolf steel cased ammo, is there much or any difference between the regular wolf black box, wolf polyformance and the wolf military classic? 1 was 122gr another 123gr and 124gr slightly different velocities. Is there a preference yall have?
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Wolf can be one of a couple manufacturers. It probably wont make terribly much difference in your rifle. Buy whatever's cheap and try it out.
 
Ok thanks Dunhams sports had all of wolf on sale so I picked up a few of each
 
Pinky787 said:
Tried 2 different qd slings I have on ars and hole on the AK is too large
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Welp, that's a giant bummer. Maybe it's out of spec, which wouldn't be surprising considering who made it; or it's a Century-specific QD spec, which also wouldn't be surprising since they don't always play well in the sandbox with other AK stuff. You may want to reach out to one of the larger well-known Century distributors like Classic Firearms or Atlantic Firearms and see what their folks can recommend. But yeah either paracord or one of those universal wire loops would make for a perfect alternative.

Pinky787 said:
1 last question I couldn't find a answer for on Google. As far as wolf steel cased ammo, is there much or any difference between the regular wolf black box, wolf polyformance and the wolf military classic? 1 was 122gr another 123gr and 124gr slightly different velocities. Is there a preference yall have?
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Polyformance is polymer coated vs. lacquer coated for some of the other Wolf brands. As @Rowsdower pointed out though, Wolf is an importer and brought in stuff from basically all Russian ammo factories. I prefer 123gr lacquer coated and sealed primer/neck ammo, but that's more for long-term storage and reliability. 99.9% of AK shooters (myself included) aren't going to be able to tell the difference between Russian steel-cased ammo when it comes to accuracy. I'd buy a few boxes of each variant and see if your gun has a preference. But yeah, the general rule of thumb for AKs is buy whatever is cheapest, and then buy as much of it as you can afford.
 
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