Uh, AK barrels (like receivers) have been verboten as components of the dismanteld AKs parts kits for a couple years now. If you hit AIM Surplus' website, you'll note all their Yugo and Lancaster builds utilize chrome-lined US manufactured barrels.
The idea that there are no US-made AK barrels is patently false.
And there are no whole-cloth US-made AK parts kits because no one can supply them for the price that distributors are getting for imported parts kits (even without the barrel), which come from rifles made years ago. That, by the way, has nothing to do with the price you pay. Places like Century charge what the market will bear. There's absolutely nothing from a manufacturing perspective that justifies a $400 price for AK parts. People charge that because they can. No more, no less.
Illiterate peasants were turning those things out by the truck load during the Cold War. They don't require oodles of skilled labor to manufacture. Even if you were to use unskilled labor to manufacture, you couldn't buy floor space and machine time and beat places like Century in a bidding war, since they're buying parts kits from cut rifles that were made decades ago (e.g. the Romanian GP-WASRs, which were demilled 1970s AKs). So, nobody tries. So, when the demand goes up, folks manufacturing rifles from imported parts kits get to name their price, since they have very little competition.
If/When the supply of imported parts kits dries up, there will be a US-made equivalent when it's profitable to offer one.
