Same here. I've seen a ton of PSA guns. Nearly everything they make. But never a Kusa. And I notice whenever an AK is at the range.

Really wasn't my point - I'm not suggesting we're lost without KUSA, I'm simply saying now there is nobody left making clones of current issued Russian AKs. That definitely sucks (at least it does if you're an AK nerd like myself).

but they weren't exact clones on current Russian guns either. Closer than PSA, but not 100% either. tx-Zen did a nice writeup on them comparing them all.

Me too. I live 20 miles north of Kusa’s plant, & I have yet to see one anywhere, & I go to all the gun shows. But I’ve always thought they were way overpriced compared to other current offerings from Poland, or Serbia. GARY.

It's kind of a moot point though if nobody is buying them. Maybe KUSA never could deliver on what they promised.  Maybe there is a reason the PSA guns are close, but not perfect replicas.

Bonnie Rotten (porno stage name, real name Alaina Hicks-James) is married to Jessie James, who invested in K-USA and supposedly became a major shareholder of the company. Bonnie ended up being a sponsored shooter for K-USA as well as the head customer service/social media rep for the company.

When the company was pushing out garbage (poorly assembled, etc.), instead of bringing attention to management regarding the poorly produced products in order to get the company do better, she went to insulting the customer base and was pretty much representing K-USA in the poorest light possible. Jesse James played a role as well, insulting customers, telling them they knew nothing about building Kalashnikovs, etc.

It's pretty obvious when rivets weren't pressed in correctly or receivers or top covers weren't formed properly. Of course the interaction didn't sit well with customers that have obvious defective products, so people started tearing into the whole company. Mentioning Alaina Hick's career past on Instagram for example was a guaranteed blocked from the corporate page and all but guaranteed you'll never have a fixed and functional K-USA firearm. Post-Bonnie era, the new customer service/social media rep wiped all of the social media in an attempt to start fresh and erase everything Bonnie had done.

*Pre Bonnie Rotten era production - Good

*Bonnie Rotten era production - Terrible assembly, quality control, and even worse customer service etc.

*Post Bonnie Rotten era production - Most people have largely written K-USA off by now but the few people who did take a risk post-Bonnie, they received good products and good customer service. Sales still must've been bad, as evidenced by their inability to pay Indo-MIM and the company requiring restructuring.

Link to some of the many press releases by K-USA promoting Bonnie Rotten/Alaina Hicks-James.
https://kalashnikov-usa.com/press-releases/alaina-hicks-kalashni-con-2022/

https://kalashnikov-usa.com/press-releases/kalashnikov-usa-shooter-alaina-james-again-secures-first-place/

Edit - I think it's fair to say that Jesse James, Alaina Hicks-James and whoever else that is at the top of RWC Group LLC ran the company into the ground. Wings clipped just as it was taking off.

Edit 2 - Around the Bonnie Rotten era, Johnathon Mossberg (CEO) and Bill Gentry (VP of Sales and Marketing) leaves the company. Mossberg and Gentry are currently with PTR Industries. Rumors are that there is interest in "purchasing" the assets of K-USA by outside entities and PTR might be one of the interested parties. Mossberg is owed a fair bit in compensation and contract breach, so company assets could potentially be used to settle his lawsuit against K-USA. Other rumored interested parties are/were PSA and Meridian Defense.

All of that makes sense and rings true.  The high price of 7.62x39 sure didn’t help them.  Not as many people want AKs right now.  

When business conditions are bad, a company has to be at the top of their game.  KUSA was at the bottom of their game.

The KUSA 103 isn't a clone either and KUSA didn't end up cloning anything Russian as far as I can see. There was a lot of hype that they had the TDP's or blue prints and were going to make clone copies, but it turned out they didn't have them after all, so I kinda feel like that was marketing hype

The Vityaz is probably the closest but I'm not an expert on that one so I can't really say for sure. The 103 is definitely not a clone clone. Some of it is manufacturing differences because of the tooling differences used by KUSA manufacturers vs Izhmash (and thats a tough one to do anything about because many of the classic Izzy features are a by-product of the tooling they used to make the parts), but it does seem like KUSA made deliberate choices to make things cheaper instead of clone correct

It's fair to say they had to keep costs down obviously, but for me the net result is a rifle that is only marginally closer to the AK103 than the PSA 103 is...and thats not enough for me to justify it as a clone or collector grade or somehow being better than the PSA. It has a 5.5mm hinge which is nice but I have not been able to swap ZenitCo or other combloc aftermarket parts onto my KUSA 103 as reliably as I have my Russian guns. That seems really odd to me, but I only have a sample size of 1 KUSA, so maybe it's just my gun being out of spec somewhere

I wanted KUSA to succeed, but after getting my hands on the 103 I was pretty disappointed. Add in all the years of internet drama and people with inside info it seems like the trainwreck isn't over and maybe it has indeed gone off the rails. It sounds to me like they've always been cutting corners to some extent and then it got worse and worse because of bad leadership, bad QC and poor brand representation. The one shining example of awesomeness is the KP9, but it had it's own OOB issues and again isn't a clone of the Vityaz either, but it's such a damn awesome rifle that I don't really care about the clone-ness at all



Z

Welp, gone it looks like for now, got an e-mail from Atlantic advertising the stock they have left and saying that's the last of it.

Maybe PSA will buy what's left of the company after porn broad wiped 'em out with stupid.

An SBR'd KR-9 is the only KUSA product I own ..... and it's one of the firearms that gets taken to the range every time.

The OOB issue was blown out of proportion by a single guy on the AKfiles / instagram ..... and most of the folks who experienced issues were bumpfiring/etc ........

I never sent mine in for the refit .....because after 3K rounds, I've never had a single issue .... I did purchase a number of the new style firing pins, spare extractors, and any proprietary springs/pins/parts when they were available .

The New style firing pins are much shorter, require fitting to the bolt, and rely on inertia ...... totally unlike the original PP-19

Almost every original PP-19 part I've sourced is an identical match to the KP/KR 9 .......with the exception of the bbl thread pitch , the bolt, and the FP

What muzzle device is that ?

That's interesting to note, thank you

The OOB issue was brought up during the early days and I have heard from inside sources that at that time (3 years before the OOB errupted last year) that KUSA knew it was a design flaw and didn't remediate it. I was sent a photo of an employees hand that took the brunt of the force through the magwell on one of the first guns they made but leadership didn't have much interest in doing a deep fix on it. Good news is that 9x19 doesn't kaboom like rifle rounds do, and the KR9 is pretty well built, so if it happens it's less likely to be catastraphic. I'm sure not everyone would agree if their rifle blew up, but most things can be fixed with a bit of effort which is why it was less stress for me personally

I also have not had any issues with mine other than sending it for the OOB fix, and it's in my top 3 all time favorite rifles to shoot, plus puts down 1 to 1.5 inch groups at 50 yards. As expected it's ridiculously fun suppressed and I had a binary trigger that when it worked, gave the same effective control as a real giggle switch. Definitely a bad ass combo for suppressed subs

I've been told there are more differences with the Vityaz but the collector bug never hit me for the KR9 much anyway, so after I saw how well it shot and how great the AKE trigger was I quit carring about clone stuff altogether. It became a fantastic shooter and I couldn't be happier with it

That is a good point about spare parts - where does one find spare parts for the KP9 now? Particularly the firing pin and extractor?

Are you just SOL if one of those things goes?

I find it tiresome at this point to point out that a single user having issues mounting Zenitco parts doesn't establish that the KR series is a poor clone.

It's obvious to me that the Kusa rifles are much closer to the OG 103 rifles than the psa guns. Thin stem bolt, 103 style bolt head instead of akm, 5.5mm folder, etc.

As for quality issues, I haven't had any issues with mine at all and I was an early adopter on the KP9, the kr103 and the KP104. And I've been following this long enough to notice there were far more complaints about the psa rifles in this regard.

The people rejoicing about the demise of the company, i sometimes have wondered whether these are people who bought saiga conversions or arsenals and were concerned about the resale value of their boutique guns. Well, one less thing to worry about now, I guess.

Honestly I’m pretty sad about this. I don’t understand why anyone would involve has been celebrities or porn stars in gun businesses though. Jesse James is basically terrible at everything he touches. I just wish they’d have run their business responsibly and turned out a quality product like they did at the beginning. The industry suffers with the loss of them and what they had to offer.

It’s always frustrating when things like this happen.

Well seems like the lady can shoot pretty good.

I reckon if a person holds enough different guns in their hands over the course of many years, they probably get pretty good at pointing 'em in the right direction when they go off.

Do I have to panic buy a Vityaz now?

I haven't pulled the trigger on any KUSA guns, always been something else on the burner.

Wait until the KUSA stock gets pushed to a liquidator and buy one of the “old glory” or “Tiger stripe” models at a steep discount.

How's inventory now? I have the KR9/layaway saved in an open tab

Interesting and odd.

There is already someone at the AKfiles gearing up to make firing pins.

The extractors, and FP spring retainers wouldn't be terribly difficult either

I was just thinking about that. Association with Jesse James is a death sentence. I can't believe KUSA couldn't resist the urge to bring in Instagunz personalities into the fold on a business whose name sold itself from square one - seems like it was totally unnecessary and brought them nothing but negative attention.

I was hoping to SBR my KP9 pistol with a proper folding stock, but I guess that’s out of the question now.  Are there any other left-side folding stock options out there for the KP9 that will properly lock up when folded since the standard AK-74 stock will not lock up?  And!! Have a tradition AK74 style stock appearance?

I'm pretty sure if you go back and read that posters message you will read that he claimed it was a sample of 1, take it for what it is.

As for the clone part, that wasn't really argued to the detriment of the firearm, but stated that it wasn't a true clone. The company stated at the beginning they were bringing us a clone correct rifle, that never cam to fruition. So yeah, there may be some griping still going about that.

Also stated previously that the KUSA is a closer clone than the PSA.

I'm not sure anyone was celebrating the loss of KUSA, I for one was quite happy to see American companies branch out into this field and am sad we are loosing one.

I have bought PSA (no issues with mine btw) and would have bought KUSA if they would have delivered on their clone correct-ness. I'm ok with PSA because they never claimed their rifles to be anything other than what they are.  That's my stand on the issue.

One can always complain about the depth of correctness when it comes to "cloning". No matter how close it is to a Rembrandt, it wasn't made by him so it will never truly satisfy. People here complain about the *profile* of the rivet in the front trunnion not exactly matching their particular example from a parts kit or the gas block being pinned in place and not press fit.

The AK community has become frankly, silly and lost up its own ass about things like this. You're going to make a moral stand on it not being clone enough? Some of the people here were never going to be satisfied with anything that wasn't actually from Russia, from Kalashnikov Concern but couldn't pony up the bucks for an actual parts kit conversion. And then the absolutely childish nonsense about the porn star. Holy fuck.

I don't understand why you felt the need to comment on what I said but I'll close by saying you're welcome to take whatever stand you like on the matter, mine is that the AK community is its own worst enemy and we are looking at a world with fewer choices every day. I used to shoot milsurps a lot more than I do now. I feel like I got into that and AK's and FAL's at the perfect time when we had a glut of the stuff. But I've gradually watched the milsurp community turn into a bunch of balding middle age men handling their precious rifles with white gloves as they shuttle them occasionally out of the gun safe to show off before carefully lubing them and putting them back in their temperature controlled crypts. It absolutely takes the fun out of the game to think constantly about how you can never get parts for your gun if you damage it or can never replace it for anything like what you originally paid.

And that's where the AK community is heading. A bunch of dudes on reddit asking $3K dollars for import guns they get sick of staring at in the safe.

well I'm sorry you feel that way. I think a lot of us had high hopes for a product that certain company said they would deliver. Yes, to us collectors, we wanted a clone correct rifle, and did not get it. Yes, it's little things that in the end don't really matter.

Most of us were excited that American companies are filling a void, whether they're clone correct or not. Yes there's been a lot of griping on here about quality and correctness. Like I said above, PSA gets a pass on their rifles because they never claimed they were bringing a clone to the market. Go back and look at the original marketing hype for KUSA and their clone correct rifle they were bringing.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic towards you, but I think I replied to your specific reply because it seemed you were upset about certain posters above you, and I wanted to try and dial that back a bit. Certain posts about the correctness and some failures and certain furniture not fitting wasn't about shitting on the rifles, nor were they written that way, they were merely statements made that swayed opinions of certain people about the product. I for one am not happy about the 4 hours I spent trying to get Zentico to fit on KUSA and PSA rifles. My hands hurt after that tedious day, but we did it for all of you, so you would know. Its the whole point of this board as far as I'm concerned, to educate and help our brothers out.

I'm glad you like your rifle and that it works great for you. As for some porn star and some atrocious motorcycle manufacturer  (his guns too), I also do not give a hoot about any of that, but apparently many do.

Hope you have a good weekend brother, go shoot and have fun.

Well said brother.

Really gets tiresome when you get attacked for callin' 'em like you see 'em. People used to appreciate honesty back in the day.

These days lawd help ya if you find a flaw with something and some raving fanboi comes along and sees it, even if you post disclaimers and say "hey, i'm a sample size of one, just my experience and my humble opinion"...I guess it's a sign of our declining society which just wants to cancel and shut everyone up who don't agree with 'em.

Obviously not specific or limited to this case, but….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias

ETA: To be clear, the above is what limits honest discussions.

Yup, just like all the "I bought X for Y$, how did I do?"

They already made their mind up and just want confirmation of their decision.

Thanks for the resiliency brief, platoon daddy.

Man you're angry little shit today. I tried.

Lol. What did you try to do, exactly? You opened with the single most passive aggressive line in the English language "I'm sorry you feel that way."
Everything after that was going to be shit. Then you wanted me to "dial me back"?
This is a Friday fucking afternoon and it's been a long asss two weeks.

Let's start over, Sarge. How about "dang it sucks we lost another AK maker" and leave it at that? I'm willing to.

I been drinkin' vodka out of a commie oil bottle, about to go out to the shop and fuck some shit up with a dremel, who's with me?

I'm sorry the whole world is out to get you bro.


Drag, I got the beer

Shiner?

Whatever you want man

By people you probably mean me, and I'm one of the only people that bring up the bump rivet, so why don't you just say that

You do sound really bitchy like you're bringing in a bunch of garbage that has nothing to do with the KUSA rifle. I can't help you with the balding old man issues setting you off, or that you are unhappy with the AK community. That's not my problem and isn't related to my comments on the KUSA 103. KUSA said it was made from the blue prints, then it wasn't. They said it was going to be a near perfect clone, then it wasn't

If KUSA wasn't marketing to the clone buyer, then why did they say that? PSA doesn't call their AK103 a clone and it's not a 103 either, but I don't particularly care, it's a nice rifle. I have two of my own. I bought the KUSA to see what they were doing with the 100 series, not because I thought I was getting something superior to the PSA rifle. I gave them a fair shot to prove their claims on clone correctness, and to see if they made a decent rifle in any case

You can bitch about people bitching about the bump rivet if you like, but what is the point of a clone? Do details not matter? Is it not important to visually match the rifle you're trying to clone?

Is it ok to not match the original in looks but tell people its like the original, despite all the obvious differences? That's effectively what PSA did by using a Bulgarian 74 pattern rifle. Doesn't change if its a good rifle, it only changes what furniture or parts you can swap out, and who will buy it if you market it as a clone AK103

If details don't matter then why does the thin bolt stem matter? Would you care if the KUSA used a Molot folding mechanism instead of the 5.5mm Izzy? Still works the same right? Saying that people will never be happy because it's not russian is a lame argument too. I can't even put into words how happy I am with the KR9. It's one of my all time favorite weapons I've ever owned, and despite the OOB issue I have a considerable amount of confidence in the build quality of the gun. It doesn't matter to me they didn't get all the Vityaz stuff correct, it's a damn fine shooter and great weapon...but I will absolutely point out whatever I know is incorrect or not on an objective level, while at the same time being happy as hell with it for what it is

That's the point of my observations

If the manufacturer claims something it's on the community to hold them to that or not. I don't care if you don't like people bitching about the bump rivet and frankly couldn't give any less shits if 'bitching' bugs you. The rivet is flat out wrong, but I didn't set the bar there, KUSA did. They are the ones who said the 103 was clone correct, and right off the bat they obviously didn't get that right. What else is not clone correct? What else doesn't fit properly? That's why people bring these things up. To complain about people who point out what isn't correct on these rifles is weak sauce, and also lame

Why wouldn't you want people to know what isn't correct? Because you don't care about clone details, so you think no one else does? Because it's clone enough, and the rest of us bitch too much? Thanks for being a clone detail cop and setting us straight

You even jump on a forum member for spending time and effort to see if Russian made accessories fit on a gun sold to the community as a Russian pattern weapon...yeah, that's really helpful too. Let's just pretend details don't matter then, nor do manufacturer claims. Why even give a crap if a rifle is 100 series or not then? If it doesn't matter that Russian 100 series accessories don't fit on a rifle claimed to be a 100 series rifle, what exactly is the point of all the effort that KUSA went to, and the claims they made? (again, sample size of 1 in my case, but if I didn't say anything then how would we ever track these things?)

It sounds like you are upset about a bunch of other shit and are bringing it here to this thread, and it sounds like you don't like people 'bashing' on the KUSA 103. Again, I don't care about what's upsetting you, but to come to the forum and bitch that you are tired of people pointing out the obvious differences and issues with the KUSA because it upsets you is pretty dang lame, and jumping on forum members like you did in such a snippy way sounds exactly like the very thing you are complaining about...people ruining the AK forum with a crappy attitude

Maybe get off the high horse there amigo, and let people discuss the technical details of a rifle here in a technical forum

Oh for fuck's sake cheer up bro', wife downloaded an app which recognizes plants from their leaves, and we may or may not have one or more apple trees on our new place after all, and you know what that means!

For fact we got some rhubarb plants we didn't know about, yummy rhubarb pie.......

You misread me man, I meant that isn't a:

Whatever you're drinking brother! Tell me what to grab kind of way.


Eta, I'll be over next weekend for pie

Why should I say that? What does it bring to the conversation to say that?

Do you like confrontations? Do you think I should direct quote every random on reddit as well?

The reason I didn't say it was TX-Zen is because it's irrelevant to the conversation. And anyway, you knew it as soon as you saw it. So what?

As I respond to this, please keep in mind that I have no antagonism towards you or your boyfriend and I love what you've done for the AK community by keeping up your optics website. Its a great reference.

Near... and perfect. Is not perfect.  Like a Rembrandt is not a Rembrandt. And there will always be an argument as to what is close enough. K-USA, along with its bad management decisions, was IMO doomed because it was caught be the Charybdis of the perfectionists and the Scylla of the poor-fags.  You could never make a truly perfect clone correct AK-100 series rifles in the USA with US labor costs. Lets not even mention that Kalashnikov Concern has always been a government back enterprise that was never expected to actually turn a profit.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough and you were looking for perfect. I was just looking for something that was closer than what was commercially available on the market at the time and which didn't require to drop two mortgage payments for a kit built rifle. You're loaded so that isn't a problem.

I mean, as far as bitching goes it seems there's plenty here to go around. Details do matter, of course. But, I could mention here... and bear with me, that KC has varied its bump rivets as well as various other components over time. Hence the visual appearance would change. Can you imagine a more tedious exercise than going from parts kit to parts kit and photo to photo to try and match bump rivet profiles?

I had planned on going down line by line and responding to your whole angry diatribe but it really isnt worth it.

I wasn't responding to you specifically, but you decided to pretend as if I did. You took a general observation on my part, that incidentally included an observation of yours but decided to make it personal.

Ok.

Thats fine.
This is specious. The thin stem bolt and external extractor is one of the distinguishing characteristics from the AKM. Likewise, 5.5mm trunnion is something that is distinguished from the other manufactures of AK, with the exception of certain timeframes. Whats the point you're trying to make here?
I'm not so much complaining about people who complain about specific trivial details. Again, I was making a general observation informed by long exposure, over 25 years at this point of the evolution of the community. Charybdis and Scylla. The true cloners wont be satisfied and it will never be cheap enough for the poor fags.

I didn't jump on anyone, Francis. Calm down.

Let me help you. Here is what I said.
"I find it tiresome at this point to point out that a single user having issues mounting Zenitco parts doesn't establish that the KR series is a poor clone."
And then.
"One can always complain about the depth of correctness when it comes to "cloning". No matter how close it is to a Rembrandt, it wasn't made by him so it will never truly satisfy. People here complain about the *profile* of the rivet in the front trunnion not exactly matching their particular example from a parts kit or the gas block being pinned in place and not press fit.

Where is that "jumping" on anyone?

I didn't do that and stop pretending as if I did.
None of that shit is true, LOL. People aren't even discussing technical details in this thread. They're talking about porn stars and social media accounts and what kind of deals they can get on scavved parts from K-USA's non-existant inventory.

If I'm riding a high horse, then we are looking at each other from eye level, Hombre.
 

Hah! Just got started here, putting in 2600 sq. ft of garden in the next week, and that's just the start, will be a half acre before i'm done.

You and TX-Zen should consider rolling up here next year in the fall for some superb pheasant hunting, and homegrown goodies, within the next 3 years this place will look like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and i'll have talked the farmer out behind my place into letting us plink out to 1000 yards where there's a good back stop.

Dryflash3, you're invited too brother! Barbecue and beer, which is the currency of friendship in this hyar county!

That reminds me, I have a valve to put in tomorrow....


And im soooo in. Holding you to it.

I should have found a way to buy a KUSA, but that being said, I can't give away the PSA 103, can't imagine with KUSA how hard they will be.

No dibs, I'm giving it to my son for his birthday this June.

We agree on one thing

People like you do ruin forums with your snarky attitude and accusing everyone else of that crappy behavior. I don't have explain why. You already know it. The fact that you think I have a high horse attitude is evidence enough, and by the fact you need to rebut so many parts of my comment to discredit my points, all the while missing the main point, which is that you aren't adding anything to the discussion and are behaving like a douchenazzle. You sound like a GD snark bro throwing out personal attacks to diminish people's comments so that you come out on top in the argument. It speaks to your character, and not in a good way

I rarely engage with people like you, but sometimes the douchenazzle is so strong I have to say something

And I still don't want to get rid of my KUSA 103 because despite the shitty caliber I think it's a decent rifle and I'm still slowly putting rounds through it to help see how well it holds up, same as I'm doing for my PSA 103

Oh my God quit with this butt hurt stuff. It's embarrassing. You just don't want to let go of this because you self identified.

I don't care about what you think ruins these forums. I hardly even engage with them at all. I've been on this website for 20 years and I've got less posts than you autists make in 6 months. So I'm definitely not the one ruining this forum or any other.

And that's fine. But I've still got my opinion of what is and isn't a good AK and that's informed by my own experience. And I'm going to keep talking about it.

I don't think that's the problem, problem is you made a post insulting the entire AK community because some didn't agree with your preferences.

Everybody has different preferences about everything there is in life. How does other folks preferences hurt you? Why would you think yours are more valid and important than anyone else's?

Are you having issues that are pissing you off in your personal life right now that are causing you to lash out? Because lawd knows i've done the same shit, for 4 long years when I lived in the city up until a few months ago. If you are, just know you ain't alone, if you need to vent, PM me, I will at least listen even if I can't help. Srsly. What the fuck good are we if we ain't brothers?