Category: Bulgarian

Categories
Apex Gun Parts Atlantic Firearms BHO bolt hold open Bulgarian Croatian Gun Mag Warehouse KCI polymer Tapco

Do You Need AK mags?

I bought my AK mags from the following places.  I mention this because I see folks with new AKs always asking where to buy mags.

Atlantic Firearms

Apex Gun Parts

Gun Mag Warehouse

Each of those sites have reasonably priced magazines.  They also offer a variety of types (polymer, steel, new, or surplus) from different countries.

Check those sites often, as much of their stock tends to be sold out due to the pandemic.

Keep in mind that cheap doesn’t always mean good.  KCI mags tend to have reliability issues and are flimsy in build quality.  Croatian mags tend to be hit or miss when it comes to latching in place (see here for my experience with the Croatian mags).  The reason I wanted Croatian mags was for their bolt-hold-open (BHO) capability.  Croatian mags are also not surplus…they are new.

Good mags that are usually cheap are Bulgarian surplus mags.  I have not reviewed the Bulgarian mags I have but they just work and do not feel flimsy.

I also have 6 x Tapco polymer mags.  Folks LOVE to hate on those.  I didn’t buy them.  They came with the first AK I bought (the AMD-63).  They work, which is something the Croatian mags wouldn’t initially do.  They will also fit in every AK I have, which is, again, something the Croatian mags wouldn’t do.  They’re perfectly fine for range use and have yet to fail on me.

UPDATE (1/10/21):  PSA has a sale on Croatian mags right now, marked down from $19.99 to $12.99.  Also, if you order 10+, shipping is free (per the product page).  As well, Mrgunsngear stated that they’ve changed the mag tab (probably narrowed it slightly) so that there’s less of an issue with latching.

Categories
AK-V brake Bulgarian Faux muzzle PSA

I Bought A Faux Bulgarian 3-Pc Muzzle Device For The AK-V

I bought another modification for my AK-V.

I noticed that there’s a lot of carbon and copper jacket on the then-installed brake that was originally on the AK-V.  The carbon is normal.  The copper jacket is somewhat of an anomaly, though.  The jacket comes off the bullet due to excessive velocity.  9mm was primarily designed to be shot from handguns.  When shot from a rifle, due to longer barrels, muzzle velocity is high enough to where the copper jacket sheds as it’s exiting the barrel.  That copper spatters against the brake.  I’ve 570 rounds through the AK-V, which is enough to where I’m starting to see some build-up.  Cleaning it will be a pain.

I researched for alternatives and was about to put an AR-15 bird cage on the AK-V (I’d have had to drilled a larger diameter bore through it, or found one for 9mm).  I did find some others and was about to make the purchase when I saw that the PSA website had the Faux Bulgarian 4-piece muzzle brake back in stock.  They always sell out of them.

Now, this pistol doesn’t really need such a muzzle brake since the 9mm round isn’t throwing flash everywhere when the pistol is fired.  It’s not a 4-piece brake.  It’s only one piece and it’s more of a megaphone in internal shape.  I wanted it mainly because I didn’t want to have to clean out copper splatter.  There’s nothing to clean with this muzzle device…there are no nooks/cranies.  It’s more of a show piece than anything, as it does look good.