Ben:
Hey everybody, Ben with Classic Firearms here. I want to talk to you today about our current incarnation of AK-74 rifles that we currently have in stock. These rifles have become a real success story for us recently, after what admittedly was somewhat of a rocky start. Originally our AK-74s as you see here, were being made by Waffen Werks. In the original ownership, Waffen Werks, they were very, very good people. I still to this day have the highest respect for them, but they were basically a small mom and pop operation, and we put a lot of pressure on them, which was our fault, to turn out a number of rifles for us because we were selling the rifles very well. As a result, they ended up having some quality control issues on their early rifles.

Fortunately, that is all behind us now and has been put to bed. A company called Destructive Devices bought out Waffen Werks, DDI. DDI is a much larger corporation. They have a very good background in building rifles. In fact, they build some of the highest quality AK rifles on the market today, and they are currently producing our AK-74 rifles for us. They also carry the warranty on the AK-74 rifles. Because they bought Waffen Werks as a corporation, they bought up all the boxes and the packaging and everything that went with it, you will still see the Waffen Werks name on the boxes and on the receivers, but make no mistake about it, these are DDI rifles, and they're backed by a full 100% warranty by DDI.

Let me tell you a little bit about the rifles themselves. All of the rifles have brand new US chrome-lined barrels on them. They all have all matching part sets out of Bulgaria. They all have the original compensators. Very smooth actions. All of the base rifles themselves are going to be exactly alike as far as the metal is concerned with a nice DuraCote/CeraKote finish. The only difference you're going to see is in the furniture. The furniture that is on these rifles is the original furniture that came out of Bulgaria when the rifles were dismantled from the military.

Some, like this one, are beautiful, all matching wood furniture sets. Others will be mismatched a little, you see a little slight different color variation on this between stock and the forearms. Some will even have the solid stain finish. This is a solid stain, as opposed to the transparent stain that you see on the other weapons. It's a plum color. The solid stain covers the wood stock better and provides better protection for the stock. Some people like it, some people don't. About 15% TO 20% of our stock is in this solid color stain, but again the furniture is what you get.

I'll show you another one. You'll see some have a little more wear on them than others. A few more light dents and dings, but none are non-serviceable, none are broken, none are anything like that. Certainly all are refinishable if you so desire. One thing I forgot to point out, is that each one of these fine rifles does have a side rail on it for scope mounting. You can easily mount a scope to any one of them if you so choose. More than that, under DDIs tutelage, these things now feed and function great.

We're going to take a little break, I'm going to put some eyes on, some ears in. We're going to come back, we're going to show you live fire with our AK-74 rifles.

All right, we're back. Ears in. We're just going to work our way up the row on these things. These AK-74s came off of the shelf this morning in no particular order. Brought them out here and unboxed them. We wanted you to see a random sampling, which is what you have here. We're going to start at the end, we'll take this really pretty one here and start with it. We'll go forward, fire a few rounds through each, let you see how these things perform.

Range is hot. Range is hot. Range is hot. I love the light recoil on these rifles. The muzzle break does its job beautifully. If you'll see this thing just holds a natural plane, doesn't recoil up, and I'm basically firing into the same hole every time. Couple more. Range is hot. They run great. Range is hot. Just like clockwork, ticking them out. Love these AK-74s. We're going to take a little break and come right back and close this out.

All right, we're back. The reason I wanted to take a little break, is because I remembered we had brought a drum mag to the range with us. It was still laying in the back seat of the of truck. I forgot to bring out the first time. These are based on the beta mags, they're made in South Korea. It's a 95 round 545 by 39 caliber drum. You see they've got a clear front so you can see your round count. I have not tried one of these drums before, but we have it with us, it's loaded up and there's no time like the present. Without further ado, grab a weapon right quick. Ears in.

As a kid shooting a lot, I never used these ears, that's why I can't hear a thing today. So we're trying to do better in our old age. Anyway, AK-74 with the drum mag. Let's give her a try. Range is hot. Aha! Got to love that drum. See the clear front. You've got a round count going on. We got a cool look. I love this thing, as I do all of our AK-74 rifles. As always, we encourage you to give these a try and check us out at www.classicfirearms.com.