The cast trunion fiasco and other major quality issues of subpar American made ak's has driven the price of the WASR pretty high. Right now its the only thing worth buying for Under $800. All of Century's USA Builds are garbage and the issues are well documented. Folks for a while just wrote them off as budget range guns that should be ok for occasional use but even in that duty people started having them blow up or brake right on camera or eating a no go gauge right out of the box.
Century seemed to have focused on making their own in house and the importation of the wasr's seems to have slowed down because of it. There have been plenty of Companies that have tried to make them here in the states only to cut corners where you shouldn't and dropped time bombs on the Ak market. I.0 Inc's ak's were so bad they have dropped there ak line all together and have switched to just making AR's
PSA has recently released what seems to be a great entry level ak that is american made and looks to have Hammer forged everything where it is critical.
https://palmettostatearmory.com/psak-47-gf3-forged-classic-polymer-rifle-5165450218.html Check out Ak operators Union on youtube, They do 5000 round test's on all sorts of ak's and really go into break downs to show what is wearing and what isnt.
Right now if you want a Decent ak under $1k your best choices is to get the wasr . Or scour the pawn shops or Auction sites for a Norinco mak 90 preferably in a straight cut receiver so you can change the furniture out to a standard ak47 set.
Slant back mak90's are just as good, just a little harder to get traditional wood to fit. Iron wood designs has wood for them though. The Mak90 is all forged, chrome lined barrel, thicker receiver, butter smooth trigger and has become a sought after AKM. These used to be $189 all day long when I was younger and now they are $1k guns and are worth it. My Father has a bone stock mak 90 from the early 90's that is outfriggen standing. I got a deal on this last year for $350.
As much as I like american gun manufactures they really dropped the ball on getting a decent entry level ak to market. There are tons of private builders that build from surplus parts kits but you are way over 1k for any of them.
Hopefully PSA gets it right with the psak-47 gen 3. If it does, I think that may bring the price of the wasr back down a bit and cause other American manufactures to step up their game and put milspec parts into their builds.
I Like ar-15s as well but I love me a good budget ak.
