Prepper Budget Rifle Review – PSAK-47 Liberty GB2 Zhukov rifle

by James L

I have always considered myself to be an AR guy. I have built and own multiple ARs. A short barrel AR is something I carry to work everyday. I have shot, carried, and trained with ARs for years. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. The very first rifle I ever bought was not an AR. Wasn’t even a hunting rifle. No, it was a Norinco MAK90. Yep…it was pre-ban. (See picture below.)

It was very well made and pretty accurate, especially for an AK variant. I had that rifle for several years. Unfortunately during a time in my life where money got a bit tight, I sold it. (Oh how I wish I still had it!)

Anyway, as I became more and more enthused with firearms, I found myself being drawn to the AR for multiple reasons. And to some extent, AKs were really an after thought for me.

But over the past few years, I have received many emails from visitors asking all kinds of questions about “prepper battle rifles”. I figured I probably ought to expand my horizons to more than just ARs if I’m going to talk about prepper battle rifles.

After my review of PSA’s AR pistol, the folks at Palmetto State Armory reached out to me and asked if I’d like to review any of their other firearms. I thought this would be a great time to brush up my knowledge and experience with an AK. A few weeks later, an American made AK arrived for me to test out.

I asked for this AK for a few reasons. The first is that this AK is VERY wallet friendly. (As of this writing, it is $500 and ships for free.) Many preppers are on a tight budget and are always on the lookout for affordable gear and equipment. Some of this site’s most popular gun reviews are on budget friendly firearms. So I enjoy finding affordable firearms that are still dependable and well made.

The second reason is that while I have been a big fan of PSA ARs, I wanted to see if the same quality goes into their AKs. A lot of AK enthusiasts like to tell folks “Don’t buy an American made AK.” I wanted to see if PSA could dispel this notion.

This AK (chambered in 7.62×39) has a “16 nitride treated barrel made of 4150 steel. It’s a 1/10 twist. The front trunnion and bolt are both billet steel. The receiver is 1mm hardened steel which has been stamped.

A Norinco MAK 90

The furniture is polymer Magpul. I know there will be a few AK purists that will say that it should have wood furniture. Hey, I like Magpul. What can I say? I am an AR guy. 🙂

I really like the Magpul Zhukov-S Stock. The stock is not only adjustable, (5 positions) but it is also collapsible to the right side. This is handy for left-side mounted optics. It also has a QD sling mount.

I am a huge fan the the enlarged hand guard. I typically shoot with an extended grip, and this handguard lets me do just that! (See pic below)

The Magpul furniture makes this rifle a bit lighter than if it had wood furniture. A typical wood stock AK weighs around 8lbs. This one weighs a little over 6.5 lbs. This could be important to those of you who are trying to keep the weight down.

The billet steel bolt slides back and forth with no issues or problems. The safety is smooth and fluid, and locks into place with a very audible click.

As with all my rifles, I decided I wanted to put an optic on it. Since I am reviewing this AK as a budget rifle, I went with a more budget friendly optic. I chose the Primary Arms 3X Compact Prism Scope. This scope has the illuminated ACSS CQB-M reticule for 7.62×39/300BLK.

This AK has a side rail for mounting optics, and I went with a Tacksport Scope Rail Mount A-K Type Scope Mount. This wasn’t my first choice in AK rails, but I wanted to stick with a budget rifle theme, and this mount was fairly inexpensive. All things considered, it works well. I can remove this mount when I field strip the AK. I simply add it back without having to rezero the optic.

This is the first Primary Arms optic I have owned or even tried. I had heard wonderful things about it, and decided I would give it a shot. I wanted to see if it is as amazing as I have heard. Especially for its price point.

When I first took the AK out to the range, I did not yet have the optic. So I sighted in just the iron sights. My son and I really enjoyed shooting it. I will say that the polymer stock doesn’t have much in the way of padding. (My son left the range that day with a slight red mark on his upper chest/shoulder area.) But I didn’t find the recoil to be too bad.

The rifle’s sights are classic, with an 800-meter rear sight and adjustable front sight. At 25 and 50 yards, we were hitting fairly consistent groups.

I was pleasantly surprised with the single hook trigger. It was crisp, light, and short, coming in at about 3.5 lbs or so. There was no play in it, and it did not feel mushy. The reset was not bad at all, and rapid fire was easy and fairly accurate all things considered.

The following weekend we went back to the range, and this time sighted in the AK with the Primary Arms optic. This optic is designed to be sighted in at 100 yards, and so I did just that. You can see from the pic below, it held under a 3 MOA.

The range was INCREDIBLY busy that day, and I ended up using some of the same targets over and over to save time by not refacing targets. So please ignore the smaller holes, those were from an AR. Also noteworthy is the flyer on far left. That was partially my fault as I flinched slightly on that shot. But I feel like I can say that this AK held just under 3 MOA at 100 yards. For an AK, that is not bad at all.

The far left shot was partially my fault.

As I said before, the outdoor range I went to that day was swamped. Every time you wanted to reface targets, (or even walk down to see your targets) the entire rifle range had to “go cold.” This means that ALL shooting stops, firearms are unloaded, stored, etc. This is on ALL 10 rifle lanes. Hence you had to wait until multiple lanes were ready to “go cold” before you could proceed down range.

As you can imagine, this does not lend itself to sighting in a rifle very quickly. So I apologize for not having better pics of the zero targets.

On a subsequent zeroing, (not pictured here) it was right at about 2 MOA.

I tried two different types of ammo on both trips to the range. I used Tulammo 122 grain steel cased ammo. When sighting in, I went with Winchester 123 grain brass case ammo. The AK had zero issues with either ammo. Both ran flawlessly, though the brass ammo seemed to be a bit more accurate. The safety selector locks into place with a noticeable click. But it is fluid and snug.

Stock collapses to the right

This AK ships with a 30-round Magpul PMAG. I also tried a steel magazine and a Polish polymer magazine. Neither magazine caused any issues, and all 3 were easy to attach and unattach from the mag well. (The Polish poly mag was a bit difficult to load after about 20 rounds.)

This particular model was “blemished”, but to be honest I could not find it. In very bright light, the Magpul furniture had a very faint purple tint. But it really wasn’t noticeable to me. PSA has other “blemish” models that are most likely color related, cosmetic only. But if they are anything like this one, you will most likely not be able to tell unless right up close.

A larger gripping surface than the standard handguard

The only drawback that I could find was that there is no cleaning rod with this model. And there is no heat shield on the top of the barrel. I typically use a C clamp grip when shooting rifles. But otherwise I didn’t find anything about this rifle to really dislike.

I’ll admit that I am not an AK expert. But I found this rifle a lot of fun to shoot. It was pretty accurate out to 100 yards, and felt well-built. I don’t torture test my rifles, but you can see from the video below that 5,000 rounds later this rifle keeps on ticking. If you take care of it, I feel that you could easily get even more out of it. For an American made AK on a tight budget, this AK is the way to go!

I know I’ll get a few questions about the ACSS optic. (I’ll do a review on it in the near future.) While the glass is clearly not the same quality as something like a Trijicon, for the money, the 3x Primary Arms optic is worth the coin. It is great for close to medium ranges, and the ACSS reticle has so many great features on it. (Click the link for a video on this reticle.) I actually bought a second one in 2.5x for a 5.56 AR.

UPDATE 12/12/18: I have put about another 500 rounds through this AK. No hiccups or problems. I still held just under a 2 MOA. All in all I really like shooting this rifle.

For the money, this feels like a solid AK. If you are looking for a budget friendly battle rifle, the PSAK-47 Liberty GB2 Zhukov rifle from Palmetto State Armories is a very viable option. For about $100 more, PSA as now added the SAK-47 GF3 forged Classic red wood rifle. This AK has a forged front trunnion, bolt, and carrier. This is a step up from the billet trunnion. I have not shot that rifle yet, but the reviews I have watched have been pretty positive.

Be sure to check out my list of Top 5 Prepper Battle rifles