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I bought the infamous WASR 10/63

21K views 35 replies 30 participants last post by  DaBurna 
#1 · (Edited)
I live in Vegas so you'd think I would be biased towards Arsenals.

I had $1300 burning a hole in my pocket for an AK style rifle. Oddly enough, I handled and shot Arsenals and just couldnt justify spending the high price on a gun I want to beat up so I went the opposite direction and bought whats arguably the cheapest bottom of the barrel no fringes AKM.

I bought the infamous WASR 10/63 for $590 w/ two 30 rounders and a bayonet. Its a higher price than years past but hey its also 10 days before the election. (bad timing on my part for sure)



So what is the consensus here in the Kalashnikov Klub on the WASR?

I inspected it in the shop before I bought it as usual for Century AKM's. No canted sights, no mis-shapened magwell, no improperly riveted rivets. It has the triangle and arrow marking. Oh and all the serial numbers match and very little mag wobble with steel mags. Zero wobble with circle 10's.

Question? Is there an easy way to tell when it was built by Century? I have read that WASR's built after 2008 tend to have much better QC than WASR's of the ban era.

The first numbers say 1971 but thats just when the parts were made. Am I correct? I want to know when Century put the parts together.
 
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#6 ·
Welcome to the 90s. Most of us who actually possessed and used a WASR, found that they may have not been a perfect AKM, but very little stood in the way of making them an inexpensive and hardy bullet hose. If you can't straighten out a misbehaving WASR out at home with simple tools and instructions available on the web, you are going to have problems with firearms in general.
 
#8 ·
I don't see anything wrong with WASRs. If it was put together right, why not? Granted the fit and finish may not be great but will a high end AK really run that much better? Will a high end AK last you that much longer? I personally don't know. I do feel that if a WASR meets your needs and/or budget (and everthing is put together the way it is supposed to be), it won't let you down any sooner than a $1000 AK would doing what an AK is meant to do. No offense to the guys with the nice AKs.:wavey::wavey:
 
#10 ·
From what I understood the 10/63's were a post ban thing and usually a bit better than the regular WASR-10's during the ban. There's obviously been alot of advertised problems with them, but there's plenty of good ones out there too. I've had a ban era 10 and a post ban 10/63 and both functioned just fine. As you guessed 1971 is when the original rifle was made, and so far as I know there aren't any visual indications to tell what year Century imported (not built, they just open the magwell and make it 922r compliant) the rifle. You might be able to call them though and ask if they can tell you when they shipped it out.
 
#13 · (Edited)
I own 2. I don't know why i bought two except the first one i bought was single stack to save $100/. Then liked it so much i had to have a double stack WASR, so now i have two.


They are diamonds in the rough. Fit and finish is as you've noticed, not top notch but the critical dimensions are correct which is all that counts really. Mine had a huge burr on the hammer i had to file away. Other then that the double stack is a flawless shooter. over 1000 rounds and NO malfunctions, can't say that about ANY of my other guns (i have 5 others rifles and pistols).

I redid the wood with formby's tung oil and the metal with alumahyde. MUCH prettier! I don't regret buying a WASR, worth every cent, and for most purposes just about as good as an arsenal or anybody else's fancy AK at twice the price. It has a chrome lined barrel which some of the expensive Polish/Yugo AK's do not even have! In two or three years i can see them being priced at $800 - 1000 if you can even get them at all.
 
#15 · (Edited)
I live in Vegas so you'd think I would be biased towards Arsenals.

<snip>

So what is the consensus here in the Kalashnikov Klub on the WASR?

<snip>

Question? Is there an easy way to tell when it was built by Century? I have read that WASR's built after 2008 tend to have much better QC than WASR's of the ban era.

The first numbers say 1971 but thats just when the parts were made. Am I correct? I want to know when Century put the parts together.
Wasn't it true that Arsenal threw their support behind Harry Ried in his re-election to the Senate? Good for you that you avoided Arsenal...

I have had as many as 8 WASRs at one time, now down to 4, none were pretty but all were/are sweetly functional.

They are a great throw-back example of the Soviet 60's vintage AKMs, built in the "What's QC have to do with a gun?" Soviet tradition - functional. Like Stalin said of his nasty-T34 tanks when compared to Hitler's panzers; quantity has a quality of its own.

And - Century does not/never has built WASRs, SARs, WUMS, CURs, ROMAKs, M&M M-10s, etc - all are GENUINE Romy arsenal-built AKMs. Your arrow and triangle you see; the Soviet puppet-state Romanians slavishly derived their's from Russian Ismash/Ishvesk arsenal symbol.

Your WASR is Romy arsenal made with an arsenal marked barrel trunnion with a new arsenal-made chrome-lined cold hammer forged barrel on an arsenal-made recvr - a fully-foreign AKM that is imported by Century who in turn pays contracters at the customs ports to "convert to USA-legal 922 configs" for later sales in the USA. Same thing they do for the Serbian-made "Yugo Zastava PAPs". This explains the many TAPCO-marked parts you may find on a WASR or PAP.

See also for more Romy AK info...

http://www.novarata.net/Linx310/model.shtml
 
#17 ·
Wasn't it true that Arsenal threw their support behind Harry Ried in his re-election to the Senate? Good for you that you avoided Arsenal...

http://www.novarata.net/Linx310/model.shtml
Excerpt from a letter from K-Var owner of Arsenal:
Coming back to the issue of Senator Harry Reid, I would like to make clear that neither Arsenal Inc., K-Var Corp., nor I personally have made any donation to Senator Reid’s campaign nor have we solicited anyone to vote for him. We did not draft the letter that has been circulating in the Internet. Nor did we participate in the event where the letter was released.
However, we are legitimately concerned about this particular political race. Harry Reid holds the most important position in the United States Senate as Senate Majority Leader. As such, Harry Reid has significant input on what laws will come out of the committees and ultimately be voted on by the Senate. If he loses his position, it will be filled by either Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin. As most of you know, the United States Senate lead by either Schumer or Durbin would be a gun owners’ worst nightmare. One can only imagine a United States Senate headed by either Schumer or Durbin combined with the most aggressive anti-gun administration in history. This view is not solely mine. Most of the gun rights groups, industry leaders, and gun owners that are aware of this hellish possibility are rightfully concerned.
Our hope is that we are able to get enough Republican votes to take the majority of the Senate. However, if Republicans are unable to retake the Senate, we believe that it is important to maintain a good working relationship with Senator Reid. Unlike the other Democrats, such as Schumer and Durbin, he has worked with Arsenal Inc., FAIR, NSSF, NRA, and other pro-2nd Amendment organizations in the past and has demonstrated a strong willingness to reason with the current anti-gun administration on our behalf.
To exemplify our working relationship with Senator Reid, when President Obama was looking into pushing the ratification of the Organization of American States Treaty (“OAS Treaty”), he asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to evaluate the situation. For those who have read and understand the OAS Treaty it is extremely dangerous! The OAS Treaty would put into place some of the most restrictive gun laws and regulations one could imagine. The OAS Treaty would literally make it illegal to do any work on your firearm (including something a simple as attaching a scope or changing a stock). What is treacherous about treaties is that according to Article 6 of the Constitution they can take over constitutional rights that you now enjoy. Senator Reid turned to a local company (Arsenal Inc.) to see how this would affect the firearms industry and firearms ownership. We took this very seriously and got our friends involved at the gun rights groups: FAIR, NSSF, etc. We were extremely excited to learn that our efforts paid off and we were able to stop this treaty – at least for now.
This current election is very important and, whether we like it or not, politics and politicians are moving against our 2nd Amendment freedoms. If my view and approach is different from the one you have – that is OK. The important thing is that we are all on the same side on the issue of the 2nd Amendment. We should all try to work together to protect and preserve our 2nd Amendment rights. God knows how many anti-gun interest groups are out there that would like to take us apart and take our rights away.


They were hedging their bets.
 
#21 ·
has any other company imported romanian guns and converted them? Ive always heard wasrs were made of excellent parts but put together poorly by drunk monkeys at century. A ompetent smith may make a killing making good romys.
Yes, several companies have brought in Romy-made AKMs over the years.

Most recently, M&M out of Colorado - their M-10 series. Same guns, same fundamentally-sound arsenal-grade builds. But...

What I suspect is that unlike the hurry-up-and-sell-them Century (like what they tend to do with all their subcontracters - witness their C93 for example), M&M may possibly be forcing higher build standards - via rejections - on the Romy factory.
Maybe if Cent rejected some of the turds, we wouldn't have WASRs with canted FSBs or gas-blocks.
 
#23 ·
My dad bought one a while back and I was impressed with it. The stock looks horrible and will probably be replaced with a polymer in the future.

His is reliable and suprisingly accurate. Lots of fun. He paid $450 for it about a year ago.

My suspicion is that the factory is taking the heavily-shellac-dipped milsurp wood and belt-sanding it back to a raw surface and assembling guns. That would explain the pallet-grade butts.

Might also explain the heavy traces of shellac in the nooks/crannies.

I just did this to my last WASR; soaked the stripped furniture in bucket of scalding water heavily treated with Clorox and Simple Green. Degreases and bleaches wood.

Don't let it set in this water too long; 20-30mins max.

When bone dry, finish sand and then stain as desired. I'm blonding these... The upper HG at the bottom of the pic is a single thin coat of clear shellac over the "bleached wood".

 
#25 ·
Had a guy shooting a WASR yesterday. The trigger pin kept walking out causing it to go F/A. I have had a WASR in the past and never experienced such a thing. Anyone else experience this?
Yep.

Here's my two cents without actually examining the gun...

The shepherds crook was probably not installed properly, causing the pin to walk. A properly installed crook will almost never cause a problem but if it's not in right the gun will malfunction sooner rather than later.
 
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