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So, in the next month I'm buying an AK-47. I've had one in the past, a WASR Underfolder. I know WASRs are lower end, but I never had an issue, I only sold it cause I didn't care for the folding stock. I've been thinking i'm going to buy a fixed stock WASR, but my cousin offered to sell me his Lancaster Arms for $500. My first question is, how many parts are interchangable between the two, and how reliable are the Lancasters?

My second question is about magazines. What are the best (most reliable), steel mags?I don't like plastic...I have lots ammo, and want to get lots of mags to load up.

Thanks.
 
buy your cousins lancaster. $500 seems like a wasr price. methinks your getting the family hook up. as for the rifle, its probably just as reliable as all the other ak's out there and purdy'r too.
 
I got some steel mags from Cheaper Than Dirt, which were 'various surplus', about $10 ea and all of them work real well in WASR. No wobble & no feed problems.

$500 for a Lancaster sounds good.
 
LancasterAK-47.jpg

I picked up this Lancaster Arms AK-47 from a local dealer just a few days before the 2008 election. It's been a good running, even better looking rifle. Mine is a "Russian Red" Model. The problem with Lancaster comes from if you try to buy direct. In a word.....DON'T! Buy from a stocking dealer like Atlantic Firearms, or else buy locally. Lancaster doesn't do well with customer direct sales, and never have. They build an excellent rifle, just not on a gun by gun basis.
 
Guys, just so you’re aware, Lancaster Arms recently filed for bankruptcy. Or at least, that’s the word on the street. Their website has been shut down, and they recently let their corporate status lapse in Arizona (meaning they are no longer a valid Arizona corporation).

Chet Durda ran that company into the ground by ripping off one too many people. In the last two years 63 people have filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau, and earlier this year Lancaster was treated to a criminal investigation due to all the complaints submitted to the Goodyear Police, Arizona AG and ATF. Durda is as dishonest as the day is long, and it finally caught up to him. As it usually does with these types of people.

Here’s the real scoop on Lancaster’s rifles: If anyone has a Lancaster rifle built prior to late 2008, it should be OK. There was a time when Lancaster put out a decent product. But beginning in late 2008, both customer service AND quality became more erratic. Some people believe that Lancaster’s problems were only related to customer service, or that Lancaster’s AK-74’s were the only guns that had problems. But neither of those statements would be accurate. After late 2008, ANY rifle Lancaster built would be a crapshoot. It might be fine, it might not. In this regard, titsonritz is correct…$500 might be a great deal on a Lancaster, or it might be throwing away $500. You just don’t know unless you’ve personally fired it, or you trust the person selling it.

The thing is, when Lancaster’s business picked up prior to and after the last election, Lancaster just started throwing rifles together with little concern for quality. It’s a classic mistake we’ve seen before with certain other AK manufacturers: they grew too fast, took more orders than they could realistically handle, and as a result both customer service and quality had to give. These matters were not helped by the fact that when people inquired about guns they had paid for months prior, Durda would always tell them “Your gun is shipping tomorrow”…and then a gun wouldn’t show up for months later, if it ever showed up. It’s one thing to make honest mistakes. It’s another thing entirely to just lie through your teeth constantly, which was Durda’s M.O. Quality issues and poor customer service are also some of the reasons that Atlantic Firearms, Aim Surplus and several other large dealers simply stopped doing business with Lancaster Arms long ago. They didn't want Lancaster’s stink to rub off on them.

Since it’s difficult to determine when any Lancaster rifle was built, anyone considering buying one needs to test it first, and/or get a guarantee from the seller that if it has problems, they’ll take it back. To be certain, you can't send it back to Lancaster now if it has problems. Not that you’d want to, as some people who sent rifles back to them for repair never saw their rifle again. I personally wouldn't touch a Lancaster rifle unless I knew for certain when it was built, and that it worked as it should.

Hope this information helps.
 
Going back to the magazine question; My opinion is that if a person is willing to pay 20+ dollars a mag then the Hungarian 20 round "tanker" mags are the hit. If the rifle is equipped with a foregrip they are easier to rock into place than the 30's, and I've heard (haven't seen) that they will clear an underfolder.
 

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