So my brother, who lives in NY, wants an AK-47. NY is one of the most strict anti gun states, and there are many laws concerning gun ownership.
One of the challenges of owning an AR or AK in NY, is that they are classified "assault weapons". To own one, they must meet strict requirements. They are as follows:
- 10 round magazine limit
- NO pistol grips
- NO thumbhole stocks
- NO adjustable stocks
- NO forward vertical grips
- NO bayonet attachment
- NO threaded barrels, flash hiders, or silencers
Since an AK-47 has just about all of those features, you can't own an out of the box gun.
Since this will be his first AK (and his first rifle), I picked up a nice 1973 Romanian WASR-10/63, which is also a late CAI conversion (doesn't have the common issues of the older conversions).
My brother likes the more modern style black furniture, so I sold the original wood to a local that I have traded with before. I replaced the stock and foregrip with black Magpul MOE parts... really nice as Magpul always is.
Popped in a new 10 round double stack mag.
I milled off the wings of the bayo lug, chamfered the edges, and blued it.
I pinned and welded the factory compensator. From what I've looked into, this is an allowed solution, as it no longer gives access to the threads and the stock AK compensator does not count as a flash hider.
To solve the issue of no pistol grip...I custom made a spur grip. There is a company that makes a plastic spur grip for NY AR15s, and you can use an AR to AK grip adapter to use it, but IMO it looks like crap. I got a nice piece of ebony from LC, and I machined it all up nice in the mill to fit the gun and the shape I wanted, and then did some round smoothing on the belt sander. It attaches to the stock grip block with a nice stainless countersunk bolt.
Gripping the gun with the spur grip, feels just like gripping a regular style stock, like on an SKS.
Here are some pics of the grip, and the finished rifle