so I've long admired AKs, and was looking at a Zastava (Serbian) model at Brownells. One night before I went to bed I refreshed that web browser tab and they were down from 2 in stock to their last one. I woke up the next morning and made the 2 1/2 drive to Brownells and took it home with me.
wanted the wood furniture because that was the AK I saw in my head, but the reality was lacking and this is how it looks today. First 1000 rounds down the pipe and zero malfunctions. Hits 6 inch steel plates with tedious consistency. I love this rifle so much.
Next, I wanted something that would pick up where the AK stops being reliable and take me from 200-1000 yards, not that my old eyes are going to make any 1000 yard shots. I found this Molot Vepr chambered in Grendel and really liked it. Russia has two historic armories, Izhmash, where the AK has always been made, and Molot Vepr, which is the home of the RPK. The RPK was the Soviet Union's squad based light machine gun. Thicker steel used for the receiver stamping, reinforced trunion, really heavy and nice 23" barrels. Vepr also made AKs using this receiver and a 16" version of this barrel, and they have a well deserved reputation for being the nicest AKs ever produced. Sell for a ton since the import ban, and the only reason these Molot Veprs are still around is because I think the sporting stocks put the AK guys off. They don't realize you can transform these into something more tactical if you want I guess, and once these are gone that is it. No more Russian rifles for us.
I shoot a rifle left handed, and I had reached out over and over to the importer who was selling through the last of these Veprs if they had any left handed butt stocks for these in some dusty box in the warehouse. Searching the web produced nothing. No go for me, that thumbhole was decidedly for a righty, not to mention the cheek riser being part of the stock. I gave up and started shopping ARs chambered for Grendel. After pouring over a bunch of ballistics tables and comparing Grendel to other rounds, and watching lots of Youtube videos measuring penetration I knew that Grendel was exactly what I wanted. Especially when cheap Russian steel cased ammo was available for it, making it much cheaper to shoot than this week's tactical trend.
They never did respond to me, but one day I came home from work and saw in a Facebook post from them that afternoon that they had answered my prayers. I had literally been within a day of special ordering a Grendel chambered AR15 when they posted this rifle.
Now this rifle is ambidextrous! I ordered one in a 20 1/2 inch barrel after sleeping on it. Picked up a stock that gave me more flexibility to get a perfect cheek weld using a scope, sorry for the bad pic
and finally ordered a scope from the Russian factory that produced the scopes the Soviet army put on their sniper and marksmen rifles. The cold war scopes were 4x24. Mine is updated to 6x42 and has a diopter and illumination, but otherwise looks just like the old scopes, besides being substantially longer. It's in the country now and I should have it in a couple of days. Sunday I'm headed to the range with my oldest son to zero in the scope. Haven't shot the Vepr yet, but it's a tank and I can't wait to see how it and Grendel perform. Itch scratched, I'm good on rifles.
