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Craptastic Experience with a Waffen Werks AK-74

21K views 69 replies 24 participants last post by  22many 
#1 ·
Very unhappy with my Waffen Werks 74 at the moment. Took it to the range today and had multiple failures in less than two mags of 7N6.

The description on the web site I bought it from said it came with "the Cadillac of barrels;" I didn't realize they actually meant "the early '80s Cadillac Seville of barrels." Multiple failures to eject, light strikes, bolt not seating fully, etc. Templar says the chamber's most likely out of spec, and my caliper agrees. No idea why it was set to inches, but it says ~.243" at the top of the shoulder for the rounds that failed to fire and ~.256" for the empties.

Absolutely and completely unacceptable, just utter crap. I bought this thing over an AR for reliability and it can't even get through half a mag before jamming. Tuesday, I'll find out whether Waffen Werks customer service is any better than their rifles. Wish me luck.

Cheers,
-Kit
 
#5 ·
I bought the rifle from Classic Firearms. It was supposed to come with a Tapco mag, but it didn't. I spoke to a woman there who said they'd send one out to me the next day, and sure enough my UPS guy delivered it today.

The mags I took to the range are new production Bulgarian. Polymer, with metal feed lips and floor plates but plastic lugs.

All that said, I don't think it's the mags. The fired cases were getting stuck in the chamber badly enough that the extractor was tearing them up.

Here are some photos I forgot to share last night:









I was gonna call WW around 4:00 today when work finally slowed down a little, but then I realized they're in the Eastern Time Zone part of Tennessee so it was already 5:00 there. I emailed instead, so hoping to hear back tomorrow.

Cheers,
-Kit
 
#7 ·
There was a response to my email waiting for me when I got up today. They're having UPS pick up the rifle at their expense, so having a better experience with customer service than I did at the range.

Cheers,
-Kit
 
#9 ·
Ha!

I'll update this thread as appropriate. I dropped the rifle off at UPS around 2:30 this afternoon. Usually takes two days for me to ride to Knoxville from here, and I'm guessing UPS drivers show a bit more respect for speed limits than I do. Until I know more, I'll leave y'all with this Tom Petty tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMyCa35_mOg

Cheers,
-Kit
 
#12 ·
There was a bit of back and forth about ammo that I found rather discouraging. I was sitting on a reply I wasn't sure I wanted to send while dealing with a bunch of other, unrelated, crap, and then I got an email today saying they had fixed the mag catch and were sending it back. So things are looking up, but I won't know for sure for another 10 days or so. (The good range is about 50 miles from me, and the close range doesn't allow MILSURP 5.45.)

Cheers,
-Kit
 
#16 ·
Well, I got soaked on the way, but I made it to the range today. I picked up a couple boxes of commercial ammo to try, as well as some of the 7N6 I already had. 60 rounds of Monarch brand and 185 rounds of 7N6 and no malfunctions. (Well, none of the gun. The Vortex SPARC is another story...)

Anyway, long story short, WW has made it right. The weapon functions properly, I'm calling it a win.

Cheers,
-Kit
 
#17 ·
They claim all this was related to the mag catch? Perhaps, but that seems odd to me. See if you can find where they did some other work that perhaps they failed to mention. Regardless, it's good that they fixed it. Their overall turnaround time was better than most.
 
#20 ·
I should probably clear up a couple things here: I'm not a gunsmith, so I don't know what the actual problem was or whether those first cases were within spec or not. The tech who worked on the gun said he did something to the mag catch and refinished the receiver, but he never said he didn't do anything else. I can't tell from looking at it what was done, but it goes bang every time I pull the trigger now and that's all I ever wanted from it.

BadBrad, the SPARC broke off the mount. The screws didn't come loose; they pulled some of the threads with them. Haven't had time to start dealing with that yet.

Cheers,
-Kit
 
#27 ·
I've been keeping an eye on this thread because I have had the exact same issues with my Waffen Werks AK74:

I bought mine earlier this year and immediately had lots of FTF and FTE issues. When the rifle did eject, it would sometimes toss the spent casing back into the receiver, or smash it into the dust cover, locking the action up. Seriously? Ughh.

I contacted Waffen Werks and they told me to send the rifle back in, which I did. After a while of not hearing anything back, I called to check up on the rifle. I spoke with Hank and he said they wouldn't warranty the rifle because it had been "modified". I told him I hadn't done anything to the rifle. I returned it exactly the way I bought it...synthetic black stock, synthetic black grip, and Damage Industries Modular Forearm (Picatinny Rail), all listed on the sales receipt. He said they didn't ship the rifles with the DI rail on them, so therefore it was "modified". He said the distributor AGS Armament added the DI rails to lots of WW AK74's and that they would have to warranty the rifle. To my knowledge, WW never even test fired the gun for function.

Fast forward to AGS Armament. AGS Armament took delivery of the rifle and sat on it for a while...they're very busy and had some other issues to attend to. They were very polite and promised to look into the gun. After checking back in with them week later, they said they were experiencing the same problems with the rifle. They removed the DI Forend and slapped a wood one back on and said they rifle was now firing fine. They claimed the DI Forend was the issue and returned the rifle to me.

After almost 6 months, I received the rifle back and guess what? It's jamming again. Same problem as before, so it's not the DI rail since it's the original wood one. Frustrated I showed the rifle to a friend who's built several AK's and is very knowledgeable. Within 5 minutes we see the problem....it's the Waffen Werks receiver. It's out of spec and stamped wrong. The location holes for the pins, safety selector, trigger, etc are all misaligned! The holes on the left side of the receiver are further toward the muzzle and the holes on the right side of the receiver are further toward the stock. All the internals are canted and one of the receiver rails is lower than the other. This is clearly a manufacturing defect that should have been caught. They should have never switched from the Nodak Spuds they were using before.

Anyway, that's my story. I'm stuck with a Lemon of a rifle that I paid a good chunk of change for...especially because it had the "Damage Industries" rail. I made a Youtube video if you want to see what I'm talking about in more detail....hopefully it'll save somebody from making the same mistake I did in buying a WW 74

 
#30 ·
Within 5 minutes we see the problem....it's the Waffen Werks receiver. It's out of spec and stamped wrong. The location holes for the pins, safety selector, trigger, etc are all misaligned! The holes on the left side of the receiver are further toward the muzzle and the holes on the right side of the receiver are further toward the stock. All the internals are canted and one of the receiver rails is lower than the other. This is clearly a manufacturing defect that should have been caught. They should have never switched from the Nodak Spuds they were using before.
When I was reading your post I was thinking that something had to be wrong with the receiver or the installation of the virgin barrel. This is beyond extremely poor on WW's part. I'd also wonder about the quality of their heat treatment. I guess that it doesn't matter anyway as the rifle isn't reliable anyway.
 
#29 ·
Apparently, I'm not alone with these issues, looks like a rash of poor QC on the latest WW AK-74's:

Waffen Werks WW AK-74 Jamming, QC issues, Defects, Not honoring Warranty - The AK Files Forums

My WW AK-74 is borked - The AK Files Forums

waffen works not GTG - The AK Files Forums

Classic arms, Waffen Werks AK74 horrible.... - The AK Files Forums

WW 74 stuck case using Tula ammo? - The AK Files Forums

Hopefully they (WW) can get ahead of this thing before their reputation for great -74's gets ruined and more buyers get burned.
 
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