The Polytech .223 Chinese 84S Spiker. These guns look just the same as a Type 56S spiker, although they can be identified by their straighter and less banana curved magazines. The .223 does closely resemble the 7.62x39 rifles, but the mags look different at a glance.
The 84S is not a very popular gun. I believe that most shooters and military personnel prefer a .30 caliber bullet, like an AK, much more heavy hitting than a faster smaller tiny .223 bullet.
So, these 84S are priced more fairly these days than their 7.62x39 cousins.
Here is an 84S spiker NIB. they came with 3 mags,a cleaning kit, sling and an oil bottle. They sit bolt facing down in their boxes. The Polytech versions are made a Factory /416\, while the Norinco's seem to have been manufactured at Factory /66\.
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| There seem to be two types of 30 round magazines for these. The style above seems to be a European mag style and may not be Chinese. The mags below are the typical Chinese .223 style. |
New in Box.
I think when it comes to AKs in .223, the reason they never got too popular is a matter of circumstance. People like .223 a lot, the AR15 is very popular, and many well liked NATO style rifles use the same round.
ReplyDeleteThese rifles are all easily and commonly available still today in the US, but if you look at various AKs in .223, they're not very easy to find, most are expensive collectibles if you do find them, magazines are not easy to find for good prices, and there's many different standards for magazines of this caliber, which do not interchange, compare to 7.62x39mm magazines which are widely available and work in basically all 7.62x39mm AKs in the world.
Old Galil? Was liked for a while, but import bans happen and now you can't really get them, magazines aren't widely available.
Valmet? These are very liked by everyone who has them, but they are also import banned, and magazines are VERY hard to find, usually commanding hundreds of dollars if you do find them.
Norinco? These are straight up classic AKs and have a lot of that appeal, but just a normal 30rd magazine for the .223 caliber ones can easily go for $100, even if you find a rifle for a good price, magazines are uncommon and expensive.
Zastava? They weren't imported in very huge numbers, the ones that take AR15 magazines are very rare, only 2000 were imported to my knowledge.
They're all very good rifles, and if you compare them to proper AK74s, they aren't too different, 5.45x39mm is pretty similar in .223/5.56x45mm in performance, and Americans did like the AK74 quite a lot before Russian guns and ammunition were import banned.
The AK74 had the advantage of all 5.45mm magazines being to one standard, and easily available, compared to .223 AK magazines, which there are a dozen different standards to, some which are pretty expensive and hard to find, and many of the cheaper options for such magazines today are too low quality to be useful.
I think that if there were no more import bans and laws saying what kind of rifle you were allowed to buy and sell, that AK rifles in .223 would probably become pretty popular again, even if what most people want from an AK would be 7.62x39mm.
I just realized the non-standard mags for these are Galil mags. I just figured it our after scratching me head with a 1985 Keng's import that would not accept the flat-back .223 mags and took a Galil mag like a champ. Yay
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