So essentially take a standard AKM and:

- have the upper handguard extend the full length of the gas tube. Push the front flange all the way forward and create a new upper HG to fit.
- have the lower handguard extended to match the upper; redrill and fit the LHG retainer somewhere up flush with the rear or the gasblock. Create new extended lower HG to fit.
- Remove RSB and replace with M1913 railed base. Install pistol/U notch sights on the rear, potentially something like a Krink flip that will at least give you a few elevation options. Could potentially just use the Vityaz type of RSB and railed top cover that hinges, cutting the need for a side rail mount while also keeping traditional sighting system.

Option above would still retain the ability to use any stock you wanted, including an underfolder.

Huzzah! Finally somebody gets it! Yes to the above, would love to see a couple of the smaller changes I mentioned too, but I reckon those can be left to the aftermarket. But at the same time since we are talking limited run of new style AK's and not replacement entirely, I seriously think a rear trunnion that's made for an AR tube would be best.



No, i'm okay with a dustcover mount for the rear sight, but not for an optic, the railed sight base would be rock solid, and the rear iron can be moved back for longer sight radius. Hinged dust cover would be fine with some re-inforcement to hold it steadier too.

There's a thread over in GD where someone asked what would be the perfect civilian defense weapon for issue to the public in case of invasion, and most are in favor of an AR because of availability and how common it is, and they're probably right.

But I could make good arguments for the AK, especially in the config I propose.

Sure you can use an AK for longer distances, some guys do it all the time, but to me it's a 300 yard or less rifle. Perfect for a red-dot within those ranges

Sure some guys deck 'em out with NV's and WML's and lasers and such for night shooting and hunting, but your average person isn't going to do that. And for basic civilian defense ops you probably don't want squads of inexperienced folks bumbling around in the dark, K.I.S.S. principle here.

Keep it simple and easy to use with well defined parameters, 300 yards or less pop the safety off, put that dot on target, pull trigger.

Have never understood why AK's have such short handguards anyway, i'm assuming it was to save material/cost. But it hampers it quite a bit for being an all-around comfortable shooter given people's different dimensions.

I'm a fan of just leaving the sporter handguard intact while converting the rest. Purists probably hate me though.

People go through the trouble of adding a Retainer, just to spend more money on an extended handguard.

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Not a fan of the stock/Mag, but this is what I was talking about.

Oh I absolutely get it, I like e'm too, only thing I don't like is that bare gas tube, the original stock on my Vepr was nice, but I have a tendency to put my thumb up alongside that gas tube and that's an owwie waiting to happen.

Nope! There will always be a place in my heart and my collection for the classic AK, if I ever manage to find an original pre-ban Kassnar FEG that I can afford, I will never change a thing about it.

I left my 10/63 for the last few years in a set of plain ol' plum furniture, I didn't shoot it much but it sure looked good hanging on the wall.

But now I want to shoot it more, and just had to change some things, plus i'm about half-worried there's gonna be some damn SHTF event these days, and I want everything to be optimal for me and the wife to shoot our best, tin-foil stuff I know.

But I feel my idea has a lot of merit, been pondering on this for a long time now, studying, shooting, trying different configs on the rifles, different shooting styles, and making note of what works best. And I really feel that if such a rifle were built and people tried it, they'd be absolutely blown away with the whole she-bang.

And the smaller stuff i'm asking for too, don't want that to get thrown out, a better grip with around a 10-14 degree grip angle would be huge (for reference Magpul's K2 which does have some correction, is still 17 degrees), i've worked on this stuff extensively and wrist pronation is a big deal. And the same goes for gripping the front with whatever style and forward grip or handstop or even neither that works best for you, less pronation of the wrist makes for better and more comfortable shooting, and thus better practical accuracy.

And of course a better trigger, it's so simple in the end the mods that need to happen to make the simple original double-hook AK trigger perform sooooo much better, and nobody thinks to do it, they either make a copy of original single or double hook with all the travel and overtravel, or they go completely the other direction and try and re-engineer the whole thing. I'd be happy to take pics, detailed measurements, and even mail a couple of mine to any manufacturer that was interested in the concept. If you make it from the ground-up with the mods it won't cost you anymore than a simple OEM trigger to make/manufacture, and it's a VAST improvement.

I don't know what recoil springs a PSA uses, if it's original factory spec, but in general every AK i've owned/shot benefits from a slightly heavier spring, +5% over factory, it improves recoil, stops slamming/peening, and shoots softer, and while they're at it, bring back the milled telescoping guide rod, it's a lot better period, makes for more linearity in the stroke and with the tiny bit of added weight in the moving section combined with higher power spring it's just smoooooove shooting, and bonus you'll never have to worry about carrier jump.

Right back atcha ol' buddy!

I'm sorry that when I lived in Idaho that I was never able to make time to come visit you over there and go shootin', I think maybe shooting some of my rifles might have swayed you at least a little bit to the dark tacticool side of AK's, lol. But wife and I had to work our tails off to make that cheese so we could buy a place, so we couldn't afford too much in the way of vacations.

But there's room for some wood furniture in my idea of perfect AK design, much more so than some other mutant designs, as for the most part we are just talking about massaging some dimensions in the basic design, longer handguards can still be wood as can the grip and even the stock if a modular type of trunnion design is done.