I know it's what the market wants, I know it's what people are going to be doing anyway,
and so it's probably a good thing that they just sell it this way to begin with.
But I'm just not sure I'm comfortable with tactical furniture on an AK.
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we're taking a look at
a Zastava M90, which I think now looks correct
and appropriate with wooden furniture.
The furniture, by the way, that it came with is actually pretty good stuff.
It's a Hogue nice rubber OverMolded handguard.
A Magpul Zhukov stock, which is fantastic for most people, but not for me as a lefty.
Because the folding stock hinge is on the right side of the stock,
and sits right under my face and is annoying, so we'll get rid of that.
The upper handguard is just simple normal plastic.
But Zastava actually offers American-made wooden furniture to the M70 pattern
which I have now put on, and I think it looks far better.
So, to get to the actual gun underneath this furniture,
what we have here is a Zastava M90.
Now Zastava is a factory in present-day Serbia. That of course used to be Yugoslavia.
So when you hear about "Yugo" or Yugoslav AKs, it is Zastava rifles that you're hearing about.
And they've been making AKs since back in the 1960s.
And they have a history of making them just a little bit different
than the standard Russian pattern. So when we take a look at this up close,
I'll point out a few of the characteristic Yugoslav pattern features.
But it's worth mentioning
... Zastava has actually been making 5.56 AKs since the '70s, believe it or not.
Back in the 1970s they saw an opportunity for an export market for a 5.56 NATO calibre AK.
The Yugoslav Army, later the Serbian Army,
didn't actually adopt these at the time, but they manufactured them.
And they actually have come into the United States in not just 5.56
but a variety of calibres for several decades now.
So ... like top of the line current production at Zastava is the M21 pattern.
Which is a heavily modernised AK that has some changes that are, I think, really nice.
It'd be cool to see them here, and I suspect there are some import legality issues
or else they probably would be importing them.
Those have things like
pinned in place folding dust covers, a new design of gas block,
ambidextrous safety, or at least a thumb safety on them, cool stuff.
What we have here with the M90 is essentially a Yugo M70 pattern of rifle.
The M70 was a standard Yugoslav Army rifle in 7.62x39.
And it has been adapted to other calibres, and that's essentially what we have here in 5.56.
So let's take a closer look, and I'll show you what all that entails.
Alright, if we take a quick look at the receiver to start with.
We of course have our Zastava Arms USA import marks.
The official designation of this rifle is the Model PAPM90PS.
The selector lever of course is blocked, it cannot go all the way down
which would traditionally typically be full-auto.
That's not a standard military pattern mark obviously.
We do have a serial number engraved on the bolt carrier
as well as on the receiver on the left side, along with "Zastava Arms, Made in Serbia".
Now, characteristic features of Zastava AKs in general, going back 50 plus years.
The rear trunnion is not a standard rear trunnion, it is a socket.
So on a traditional, like an AKM, rear trunnion
there's a little tang that comes out here that screws into the stock.
This is just a block riveted into the back of the gun with those two rivets,
and the stock has a socket plug on it.
In fact you can see that here on the Magpul stock, so that chunks in there.
And then you have a screw, and in this case it's there under the hinge,
one large-diameter screw that holds the stock in.
On a traditional wood stock that's a long bolt that comes all the way into the stock.
Now you may notice we also have this third round thing up there.
There's a cutout for it on the dust cover, and that is actually a spring-loaded button.
And that is there to prevent the dust cover from flying off when you launch rifle grenades.
Now the M90 doesn't come with a gas cut off or a rifle grenade spigot on it,
but they kept this feature of the design.
So if I don't push that button in, I can't push the recoil spring in.
It is locked in place which locks the top cover in place, and that prevents it from flying off.
So if I push that button in, then I can depress the recoil spring,
and now I can actually disassemble the rifle.
And you can also see our rear trunnion in there.
Another traditional feature of Yugoslav AKs is the use of an RPK receiver, essentially.
A 1.5mm thick stamped receiver with a bulged front trunnion.
This makes all the parts a little bit more durable.
This one unfortunately got damaged somewhere along the line,
it arrived with the rear sight a little bit bent up there.
I have no doubt that Zastava USA would be embarrassed,
and would very happily replace that if I asked them.
But I honestly haven't asked them because it still gives a good sight picture, so I just left it alone.
Inside we've got basically just an AK bolt carrier with a 5.56 calibre bolt, small diameter bolt stem.
The front end furniture on the Yugo AKs is slightly different from the standard AKM furniture.
So you can't use standard AK buttstocks, you also can't use standard AK forends.
The pistol grips are the same, pistol grips are interchangeable with any AK stuff.
But these you need Yugoslav M70 pattern furniture for.
The M90, as currently available, comes with an adjustable gas block which is kind of neat.
That was not a feature on the original early 5.56 Zastava AKs,
but it is something that was on the M76 designated marksman's rifle in 8mm Mauser.
And they've added it to this, it gives you an option for a little bit less gas
for use with a suppressor, that sort of thing.
So I'm just going to take this off to show you.
There's a retaining flat spring here on the gas tube.
And then the gas valve itself just comes out.
This one hasn't been cleaned, but it has been fired a little bit.
And you can see we have 1, 2, 3 gas ports that are slightly increasing in size.
So that's ... designated number 1 is the smallest, number 3 is the biggest.
The gas block and the front sight block here are the same pattern
as the Yugo M70 series, nothing wrong with that.
The M70 did have night sights, which have been removed for importation purposes
as they are not particularly sporting as far as importation is concerned.
The bayonet lug has also been removed, so that would have originally been down here.
Now, this may look rather long for a bayonet,
and that's because this is a gas block design from the 7.62x39mm version of the gun.
However, the 5.56 barrels, and interestingly this dates back to the 1970s,
all of Zastava's 5.56 barrelled guns have been actually just over 18 inches in length.
Where 16 inch was standard for 7.62x39.
So this is a 460mm barrel.
... The gas block is located at the same distance as
you would need for a standard gas piston and bolt carrier assembly.
Which means that the front sight block gets pushed two inches further out,
and a bayonet would no longer fit.
It doesn't matter since they are taking the bayonet lugs off anyway.
The muzzles however are threaded, it's a standard 14x1 left hand thread.
So standard AK devices, that's not Yugo specific, anything will fit in there.
I should also point out that notch here allows you to engage the safety
and retain the bolt in the rearward position.
That's not something that was on the early Zastava AKs,
it's a much more modern feature that they've incorporated into these commercial ones.
And the same goes for the optics mounting rail.
Not something that was traditionally found on early military Zastava AKs.
When you did find it on ... early military AKs
these rails were intended for using night vision optics.
Today, of course, they are intended for using all sorts of daytime red dot and magnified optics.
So I know RS Regulate just came out with a mount for this,
Zastava has a mount for this that fits as well.
So you've got a bunch of options for putting modern optics on this, which is nice.
One neat little trick you can do here because of this top cover retention piece.
If you're annoyed with trying to slap these things down into place on AKs,
well, on the Zastava ones with this feature,
you can put the recoil spring in behind this retention bar without actually pushing the button.
And then you can just set the dust cover in place without any springs pushing on it,
push the button, and the recoil spring will snap into place and lock it all down very nicely.
The magazine that this comes with is a new production polymer magazine,
almost certainly done to count towards 922.
I am not a huge fan of it.
Fortunately there are metal magazines that ... appear to be reasonably easy to get your hands on.
Now it's important to remember that not all 5.56 AKs use the same magazines.
All the 7.62x39 ones are all internationally interchangeable, 5.56 is not.
So ... if you plan to get one of these and plan to get new magazines for it,
I would be careful to find Yugoslav magazines, anything from the M85, M90.
Basically any of the Yugoslav (or Zastava) 5.56 AKs will fit,
but a Romanian, or a Chinese, or a Galil mag will not.
Alright, so I wanted to do a little bit of quick test firing with this
before we brought out the camera.
Loaded up the mag, the mag that came with it, with 30 rounds.
Went to rack the first round into the gun, and it half fed.
And when I pulled the bolt back it actually pulled it back into the magazine.
But then it has lost all spring tension on the mag.
So that just comes out.
And I was hoping that I could free up the follower somehow,
but it doesn't want to.
- Obviously the problem is you're running steel case ammo in a 5.56 right?
- Well I did that deliberately, because I figured what ammo ought this thing be able to run?
Hey hey, there we go!
See if it'll run at 3 rounds.
- Chambered it. - Well, that's something.
That's got some punch to it.
I suspect that even on gas setting 1, like many AKs, this is a bit over gassed.
But it's nice and stable.
Some people won't like the Yugoslav furniture, some people don't like the cut on it.
But of course I put that on there deliberately, it came with Magpul.
So if you don't like the Yugo, don't get it yourself.
Because you have to, it doesn't come on this thing.
A little malfunction there, I am using the cheapest Tula steel case ammo that I can find.
The trigger is actually remarkably good,
I'm impressed and surprised by the quality of the trigger.
Alright. And the mag that it comes with has one of those Yugo style followers
that will lock the bolt open when it's empty, which is kind of a nice touch.
When you take the mag out, of course then it just drops the bolt.
Anyway, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video. A neat, modern production 5.56 AK.
Thanks for watching.