The truth about Chinese AK Kits

[Gator Monroe]

I've seen conflicting stories of the availability of significant numbers Chinese AK Kits early on in the AK kit Days (Late 90s on until a few years back) and even back in the golden era of Chinese AK availability (mid 80s through early 90s) So I'm asking you longer in the tooth AK fans & builders if you can give info on Gun Show venders  or early Web based venders or Importers who offered Chinese AK Kits ( The way we have seen waves of Russian Romanian East German Polish Yugoslav Bulgarian & even Hungarian Kits . Any help is greatly appreciated ...

[firstchoice]

Global Trades sold a lot of the Chinese kits and also put together complete rifles with their own manufactured 1.6mm or 1.0mm thick stamped receivers. (They sold the receivers, complete rifles, or barreled receivers through their "Arsenal USA" or "Armory USA" FFL name. (Can't remember the exact name right now) These guys were out of Dallas, TX, not to be confused with the Arsenal of Bulgaria/KVAR companies.

  I purchased several of the AK's made from the Chinese kits and they were nice. I still have catalogs from the Global Trades days, if you need part numbers, model numbers, prices, etc.

  They were also well known for their Polish PMKMS kits that were awesome! I still have demilled Polish kits from them that were as-new when demilled. They make/made great AK's, either in the underfolding or the fixed stock versions. I have two AK-74's built with as-new demilled Bulgarian kits, one with the original wood furniture, the other with the original black polymer furniture. I had both of those built with the 1.6mm stamped receivers, and they made the receivers to my order, so they matched the SN's to my matching number kits. They always did great work for me. For a while, they were using new Hungarian FEG receivers to build their rifles, until the ban started. I still have one of the FEG receivers waiting for a build someday, as well as a couple of Hungarian milled receivers.



KVAR used to put some nice complete kits together, (in the "good-ole-days"), when the kits came with the original barrels. This is a virgin Bulgarian AK-47 Milled Receiver kit.

 

Anyway, let me know if you need any info on those part numbers, model numbers or prices on those Chinese kits, etc.

firstchoice