AK74 from palmetto state armoury, imagine a rifle like this as our standard issued one!!
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PSA make shit tier AKMs. Almost all American made AKMs are shit.
People often confuse the simplicity of AKM components with ease of manufacturing. AKMs require very high quality control to be good. Soviet states built very high quality plants for them with ToT from Russia.
Most American AKM manufacturers use cast parts to save cost, like the piston, the bolt and the trunnion. Making forged steel components for such small production numbers is cost prohibitive.
Former combloc countries do not have that problem as the machinery, tooling a d dies already exist.
Even the dimpling and heat treatment on stamped components is a feature of its own. A good quality stamped receiver with proper dimpling will hold the trunnion on it's own even with loose rivets.
For those unaware, here's the AKM hierchy (excluding AKM derivatives such as Valmets and Galils)
Top tier:
-Kalashnikov/Saiga/Vepr and other Russian made rifles made at Izhmash, Tula or Molot
- East German MPI.KM72 (closest to Russian specs with german quality and no longer in production)
- Bulagarian Arsenal SLR and SAM AKM family (milled and stamped)
- Hungarian AKK
- Chinese type 56
Mid tier
- Romanian PM Md family
- Yugo (now Serb) Zastava family
- Polish Tantal
- Egyptian maadi rifles
Bottom tier
- Everything else, especially American
If the factory was not setup by the Russians, then the AKM is probably shit with very few exceptions.