A Polish Tantal 5.45 AK from Centerfire Systems.
I had a self converted (formerly) single stack WASR-10 that I had added a muzzle brake to, a full polymer furniture set, a stack of Russian steel 30 round mags, and I loved the gun, so fun to shoot, accurate and reliable. Tapco trigger I put in as well. Bad black AK47 with a modern AK-10x look and big tubby 7.62x39 rounds. I could wait to clean it, and it was easy to clean when I bothered. Decent 4 moa prone shooter too, and I was a bad shot then. After a good 8 months (it was my first rifle) my twin brother finally succeeded in convincing me I needed a 5.45 AK instead, for flatter ballistics and safer wall penetration properties, and pushed me towards this Polish Tantal, which was the best deal around.
I saved up, sold my beloved black WASR and mags for quite a lot of money, and got the Tantal. It was all messy from the beginning- I never got a shipping e-mail from Centerfire, and when I finally e-mailed them about it, it turns out it had been at my LGS for days, but my LGS wouldn't be open again for 3 days.
I had ordered 4 steel Tantal mags from Centerfire as well, and they were absolute trash. Rust, and every single one either wouldn't feed well, or would only take 5-10 rounds before the follower would bind. So I had to drop another hundred bucks on mags that worked.
My experience buying a case of 5.45 ammo from Buds was a-ok at least.
So I got the gun finally, and when I did my pre-shooting clean, I found a good 8" of chamber flag stick still lodged in the barrel. Thank the Lord I cleaned the gun before I shot it. I had a good afternoon installing a Bulgarian stock set I had bought off a guy on an Ohio CCW forum, and was excited to shoot! I had this nice, beautifully finished AK-74, with reddish wood. I thought things were shaping up for me.
Then I had a nightmare trying to get those steel mags to work. I borrowed a few of my twin bro's AK mags, which ran great. The trigger had a really really strong reset spring that felt funny when shooting, but I figured I would just make do. After a mag just shooting cardboard at close range and high speed to make sure it was the crummy mags and not the gun, I scootch back to 50 yards and settle into prone to try the accuracy. 2 shots, pretty close together and right where I wanted them, and I'm feeling pretty good. But with each additional shot I can see the group just getting exponentially worse and then I notice the handguard has been working its way loose! Sure enough, next shot it flies right off.
That explains the group sizes...
I am still trying to muster my courage, and tell myself that the Bulgarian wood handguard just didn't fit right and I carefully get the original bakelite back on. It's not as pretty but... Like a real trooper, I head back out there, only for the handguard to violently pop off after just 10 rounds. I try every spare AK handguard in the drawers in the basement, only to find the problem worse with every one. The Tapco handguard only made it through 3 shots before I had my support hand holding the handguard with the bare barreled rifle in my trigger hand alone and a miserable look on my face.
I tore the rifle apart (what little was left to be done) and after some experimenting, found that even when fully locked, it only took about 20 pounds of pressure, or some violent wiggling, to work the Tantal's front handguard retainer loose, without the lock key ever having budged. Bad news.
Have I mentioned yet that the safety had no detent hole, and would work itself up into "safe" position every 10 or 15 rounds?
Again taking the advice of my brother, I set out on a daring adventure that I don't think had ever been attempted before. I decided that the quickest and cheapest way to permanently fix the handguard problem would be to cut off the useless retainer, drill the proper screw hole into the front of the receiver, and put on my brother's old Saiga rifle handguard. After ammo, a whole new set of mags, and the food from the stress, I was pretty poor and did not, not want to pay to have the handguard fixed. I didn't even know how you could.
Crazy as the plan was (I have got to be the only guy ever to convert a Tantal into a Saiga. Or any "converted" AK into a Saiga handguard.) it actually worked great, with the gas tube held in place by a zip tie at the back of the handguard. High speed low drag, eh? It has to be the world's lightest standard barrel length AK. The Tantal has a thin barrel profile and light weight already.
So I finally had a pretty complete gun. I mean, the trigger reset was sharp and unreliable, the bolt loved to hang up in the receiver when being hand cycled (without fail you could pull the bolt back and it would stick at the rear until you gave the gun a smack. Kinda neat when you lock it back (with crappy gun friction alone
) and then it would release when you rocked a mag in... am I right, or am I missing something?
) and I was really getting into Appleseed shooting, but this gun had no sling mounts and though I was itching for a scope for my lousy eyes, the only way to mount one was to drop another few hundred bucks on an Ultimak and long eye relief scope. Oh and I couldn't run the bolt while my support arm was slung up while prone. Not very ambidextrous.
Also, I hated the corrosive ammo. I know this is petty, but I hated having to be so careful to clean the gun right after every single range trip, and unlike my WASR, which was a pleasure to work on, this gun took a lot of elbow grease to get the dust cover on and off. To take it off, you always got pinched with a blood blister, and to put it back on, you have to give it a full on smack. And try not to pinch yourself. Watch for blood. Smells funny mixed with gun oil and carbon slime.
I was hundreds of bucks in the hole with this gun, and still needed hundreds to make it what I wanted, and incredibly unhappy and just done with it. My brother had the money to finish it up, and he seemed to like it, so he paid me what I paid for the gun, and fair price for mags and ammo since he's a 5.45 AK guy. He didn't hate it like I did, and was willing to give it the TLC it needed. I still owe him for getting that thing out of my hands. And I still blew hundreds on the gun, and sold the 7.62x39 AK I had converted and refurbished with my own hands and had been totally happy with. I will never let another person convince me to make a purchase or change like that again!! At least I learned something, I hope.
Fast forward, and I have the S&W AR I wanted before I ever got the 7.62 AK, and it has been 100%, and it even has a scope, and I can charge the bolt left handed prone and slung up. It's accurate and works great for me. The ammo is noncorrosive to boot! I'm a happy boy and just glad the whole mess is over.
Didn't write this post to bash AKs, I loved my 7.62x39 and my brother's 5.45 Saiga has been the model of a hallmark fighting carbine for him, it just made me feel better to type all of this. I apologize to anyone who read through my whole rant!
