AK-50: An Exclusive Sneak Peek at The AK Guy's New .50 BMG

I was researching Arsenal AKs the other day, and saw that they make a version of their AK74 chambered in 5.56x45 NATO. At first, I thought “why bother?” But then I realized that if I wanted a .22 caliber AK (I don’t), one of those would make a lot more sense than one of the AK74 pattern rifles in 5.45x39. I have thousands of rounds on hand of 5.56 NATO, and I wouldn’t want to have to go out and buy a whole bunch of com-bloc ammo that is very similar in capability - not to mention that there are import bans right now on 5.45x39, so there might be availability problems.

I currently own several AR15s and have owned AR pattern rifles for years, but I just recently acquired my first AK47, so I was curious and just surfing around to learn more about what I had. They are interesting guns - kind of the Allis Chalmers tractor of the gun world.

Chris Smith - Which AK (Russian, Chinese, Romania) did you get?

LTC (Join to see) - I got a cheap / expensive Romanian GP/WASR-10/63 imported by CAI. Cheap, because it probably sold brand new for around $500-$600, but expensive because I deliberately overpaid for it. Friends of mine from church were in deep financial trouble for reasons that don’t need to be discussed here, and they were selling everything they could to raise some money. I bought the rifle, 5 magazines, a case, and 440 rounds of imported 123 grain soft point ammo for $1,000. It was in a good cause and I have no regrets. Mine is built on a de-milled military trunion and barrel. I’m told by the guys at TheAKForum.net that I “got a good one”. But I have to rely on their expertise, because I’m a complete n00b when it comes to AKs. But this one is a strictly utilitarian version, and it has the WASR lower receiver with the welded in inserts, instead of the dimpled lower receiver of the nicer Russian/Chinese/Yugoslavian versions.

I was scouting out Arsenal AKs because they are “nicer”, and thinking of getting one for myself, and giving the WASR to my son ....... who also has too many guns to make a DC politician happy. ;)