really for the money thats not to bad of problems to have to deal with. as long as it dont blow up lol. Id honestly like to see another update on this at a high round count just to see if the reliability still stand and if that chamber issues goes away
Bought the AK 5.56 underfolder last year because it was an underfolder and had 223 compatibility with my ARs. Unfortunately it couldn’t clear casings (stovepiping) and jammed every 3 rounds. Shipped it to Pioneer Warranty (PW) and it was supposedly fixed, but then continued to stovepipe and jam immediately after being returned to me. Shipped it back to PW again, asking for a replacement rifle, which they agreed to do. New rifle fired and ejected casings fine for about 200 rounds, then the semi-auto disconnecter broke (1/16 thick metal on its pivot point). PW is shipping me a replacement trigger kit to install. Bottom line; good customer service from PW but a poor quality/reliability rifle. I had already replaced the firing pin with a Beryl in anticipation of its failure. After this repair, my plan is to try and put at least 1k rounds through the rifle and if it runs fine and nothing else fails I’ll probably keep it. I read all kinds of reviews before buying it, and the cheap firing pin was the only consistent problem I could find. Hope this information helps other people decide on whether to roll the dice on a Pioneer 5.56 AK or to just buy a different rifle.
Thats interesting, i havent had any issues with mine. Hopefully wont have the same issue with mine once I get close to that many rounds. Good information 👍
After all, the problem is in the strict chamber, in fact, this is not a terrible problem and it is very easy to eliminate it, if there are felt patches for cleaning and paste for polishing the surface. Nevertheless, it is not recommended to use drills and other things, since the risk of spoiling will be much higher. However, at the same time, you can polish the surface of the barrel, this will facilitate subsequent cleaning of the weapon. but ideally, it would be interesting to study the surfaces with a borescope and monitor the work on polishing the chamber, but after polishing all the problems with the work should disappear.
Well, in general, felt patches can be used for these purposes, with a polishing paste (such as GOI), Carefully and without fanaticism, so as not to kill the chamber.
I swapped my extractor and extractor spring and firing pin with FB Radom Beryl firing pin and fb Radom beryl extractor and spring and ran completely fine no issues mine didn't have issues it just hated Zenitco b-33 dust covers and tws dogleg gen 3 dust covers 5.56 cartridge too long for it to kick the casing out and It caused stove pipes
The ejector fin take a punch and hammer and tap the ejector fin upwards and you will have any mag fit your rifle, the ejector fin maybe bent downwards on yours to cause ac unity mags circle 10 mags to not fit. It'll put downward force on the mag
Unfortunately in my case it’s also that the rear of some mags run into the center pin. In some cases it’s possible to shave just bit off the mag and get it to fit, in other cases it’s not even close and nothing short of lopping off the entire corner would get it to fit.
Thoughts as I have them while watching: Sounds like the extractor is jumping for some reason and you have a failure to extract whenever the gasses aren't pushing the case hard enough against the bolt face to stay on it until the extractor bounces back onto the rim. The same thing happened with M4 carbines in the late 1990s, and the Navy at Crane had to make some really weird looking testing rifle assemblies to figure it out. What they did was take two M4s, remove the handguards, put them on top of each other with the top one upside down, and run each gas tube to the OTHER rifle. This let them fire a round in one of the rifles without it cycling at all, and then take another round, put it in the other rifle, and use it to simulate a 100% accurate recreation of the gas system's operation WITHOUT any pressure on the case from the expanding gasses in the barrel. This replicated the failure quite reliably, and allowed them to develop a spring solution for the extractor that would not jump off the rim of the case and would stick to it well enough it'd work every time without any bolt thrust effect. That lead to the development of the O-ring in AR15 extractor spring assemblies. Extra power recoil springs as a delay mechanism are almost worthless. You're talking about 1% the delaying force you probably expect. Yeah, that would do it, without any extractor-side failures whatsoever. Any rifle with a chamber with pitting/improper specs will have problems, not just 5.56, notably. You could expect the same problems in a 7.62x39 pioneer arms rifle. I love it when firing pins break! : D It will not wear in. Your brass will never wear down the ridges or whatever are caused by the pitting/tool marks left in there. Overall, this is hilariously similar to what happened to the M16 in Vietnam, ignoring the firing pin breaking. Import AK problem with the magwells most likely. The Americans doing it have to do it more consistently. I am surprised how close to just working this rifle is. Needs a new barrel essentially unfortunately, unless you do something really weird and ill advised to the chamber. The US Gov had an M16A2 upper receiver contract from Emco and about 15% of all the barrel assemblies had essentially the same problem in the chamber from tooling marks, and the US gov had to just throw away almost the entire contract worth of uppers after inspecting and certifying as good a decent number of them because they didn't think it was worth checking every single one for the issues.
The problem is not that the cartridge does not correspond to the originally calculated one, because it was originally designed not only for 7.62 x 39, but also for the more powerful 7.62 x 54, yes, it was for the rifle, since they wanted to unify weapons in the army, but Dragoons won the tests. That is, the run-up in ammunition from 7.62 x 39 to 7.62 x 54 indicates that the AK platform is universal in this regard. Therefore, the AK platform has the practical majority of ammunition varieties from 9x19 to 30-06. The problem is the unreliable work of the TCD (Technical Control Department), because they are simply unable to control the quality or make it extremely limited, and not in full compliance with military standards. Because we had no problems with the development of an AK for a new cartridge (.366) for an AK, in principle, using a larger caliber compared to 7.62 x 39 was a much more difficult problem, since it rested on the lack of magazines with the correct geometry, and here 5.56 which is almost identical to 5.45. And even more so in Russia, athletes preferred shooters for a long time .223 they generally liked him with a large assortment of cartridges, now of course the trend has changed and 5.45 is more interested in everyone because of the lower price, but naturally the arrows from the AR-15 remained on.223. But in general, today everyone has abandoned expensive cartridges and switched to budget ones, so no one is worried about purchasing some cartridges of the best "quality" anymore. Although the AR-15 with a 5.45 cartridge with a standard magazine has now begun to gain popularity, again, all because of savings.
I could tell you were Russian before the first sentence was over, because y'all talk about firearms in a totally different way than anybody else. It's refreshing. @@konstantin070797 Anyways, when you said "the problem is not that the cartridge does not correspond to the originally calculated one", I assume you're talking about the change in powders in 5.56 for the initial Vietnam War problem with the M16? That was a problem, but frankly is overstated. It was quite easily solved with a new buffer with weights in it, which was a drop in solution and still works very well today. The massive problem that earned the reputation was that 98% of malfunctions were stuck cases. The chambers were getting dirty and pitted from rust and corrosion from the environment. If most rifle malfunctions are generally magazine related, and 98% of your malfunctions have nothing to do with your magazine, that's quite apocalyptic. Anyhow, the powder wasn't nearly as big a deal as the lack of chroming. People will say it was the Army's decision, or Stoner's decision, but really we're not quite sure who decided/why not to chrome the barrels originally. Since the end of WW2, it had been Ordnance policy that all new service rifles needed chrome lined barrels due to similar problems in the South Pacific in WW2 with the M1 Garand. There MAY have been a technological inability to chrome a barrel of that diameter, but this is slightly dubious and I cannot really tell if it's a load of bull or not. If there was, it was solved in a few years. The M14, notably, was chrome lined, following Ordnance policy.
@@superfamilyallosauridae6505 As for the discrepancy of the cartridge, I very often find the statement that 5.56 is not native to AK (or rather because it is not authentic), therefore the machine works unreliably. This is quite funny, since the majority of Russian shooting athletes preferred Saiga in 223, or VPO 223 (for hunting). Mostly due to the large variety and availability of ammunition, and 5.45 was deficient, but cheap, since most commercial ammunition was sold abroad, but since now they are not sent to the USA, ammunition is on the shelves in excess, so people began to switch to 5.45. But it's more just like a fun fact. And as for chrome plating, it's really strange since the procedure is not that complicated. Well, if we take into account the analogy with AK, then if we take the AK produced in Izhevsk, then there is chrome of a single coating, and for AK (PKK) made in Vyatka Glades, then there is a double coating of trunks with chrome. But Stoner originally planned to make shutters from stainless steel, which is probably why chrome plating was not provided. But of course, barrels without chrome plating are not very tenacious, especially considering the use of bimetallic shells for bullets...
@@konstantin070797 Yeah, the "5.56 in AKs is bad" is a product of botched civilian market rifles, not any actual design issue with the cartridge. I own a Wz96C Beryl myself, and absolutely love it. It's kinda like the opposite of the situation in Russia, naturally. Some love 5.45 in AKs because of the history and the nice features of the cartridge, but the price, sometimes being corrosive, and the rarity of the rifles recently makes 5.56 AKs far more attractive. We see this in offerings from Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and domestic, though domestic US 5.56 AKs are generally very, very bad for non caliber related reasons. I think it's quite funny how our service cartridges mirror each other on the domestic markets.
I went with the regular, free-floating kind. It is true that they’re different, the Beryl kind has the more typical rectangular stem compared to the round one in the Pioneer, but so far it seems to work just fine.
@@hobofactory they have VIDEO out of their factory machinery and assembly line...it impressed me soo much I bought 2 of them...both are no issue guns in 7.6 and 556
A gun shop a while back had a raffle for a pioneer akm, they got mad when they knew I was a serious ak guy and didn't wanna buy any tickets. I won't buy factory guns for the most part, depends on the country of origin. I mostly like professional parts kit builds. No cast trunnions and only cold hammer forged barrels for this guy...
A friend advised me over 25 years ago (a weapons sgt in special operations)...never buy guns manufactured in calibers they were not originally designed in. "Avoid AR-15s in 7.62x39, AKs in 5.56 and (at the time) MAS 49/56 in 7.62x51" He felt you are just buying into problems and stuff that (particularly back then) manufacturers just haven't been figured out yet...and it appears in some cases they still haven't. There is a reason certain platforms are so popular... because they work. Avoid the odd ball stuff, cause even when they do work, you run into issues with finding magazines, accessories and spare parts. Thanks for your great reviews and evaluations, always informative.
In the big picture, statistically I think that advice probably does still ring true. I do think it’s possible to have a reliable 5.56 AK (my M90 is fine for example), but on average it very much still seems like you get better results in the original calibers.
It's too general to be useful anymore. There are so many huge exceptions you're better off learning specifics if you're going to go deep into guns at all, and if you're on this channel, you're probably a nerd to one degree or other. Beryl is in 5.56 and works fantastic. ARM1 is in 5.56 and works fantastic. AK-101 is in 5.56, and again works exactly as reliably as its 7.62x39 and 5.45 counterparts. This is not a 5.56 AK problem we're seeing here. We're seeing a Pioneer Arms problem here. I would not buy their 7.62x39 AKs either. The Pioneer Arms Hellpup was all the indication people should've needed to never touch their rifles until they make serious changes. Those pistols were usually 7.62x39 and had MASSIVE issues. You can see the same with C39s, C39V2s, etc. PSAK-74s and PSAK-101s have these issues even though AK-74s are definitely not a new technology, nor are AK101s. But people are having massive problems with them all the time. The manufacturer doesn't know what it's doing. 5.56 AKs have been figured out since the 1990s, and though Beryls wouldn't come until the 2010s, AK101s in the form of unconverted Saigas were around shortly thereafter. It was a different time though, when information was not nearly as accessible, so who could tell? By contrast, 7.62x39 AR15s in normal size receivers and bolts inherently have major weaknesses caused by just how much the rim of 7.62x39 takes up of the frontal area of an AR15 bolt. It requires better than Carpenter 158 steel to do even acceptably. Same for the 7.62x39 DR300 Daewoos.
There are definitely exceptions to the rule as technology improves, as does the knowledge base, but it is still a useful "rule" for the new to the gun arena to steer clear until they have built up some experience of their own @@superfamilyallosauridae6505
Huh weird considering over 25 years ago, RUSSIA was MANUFACTURING 5.56 AKs….. Ever heard of the AK 101???? This is such a silly argument. The chambering of the firearm isn’t the problem, 5.56 and 5.45 are extremely similar to begin with. On top of that the reason you run into problems with stuff like this Pioneer is because people insist on buying from bad manufacturers….like Pioneer….
Damn, pioneer arms doesn't seem worth the headache. 50/50 chance of getting a lemon. Inconsistent quality. Save the couple hundred bucks and buy quality guys. Pick another brand. But I don't know....
Dude, brake aside, your shooting stance and the way you hold the rifle are not helping you. You got some work to do. The muzzle device is not a miracle worker.
The purpose of the video is more to discuss what’s wrong with this rifle (and apparently at least some others like it), and how I diagnosed it. What one does about it (polish the chamber, send back to the manufacturer, avoid buying one in the first place and not have to worry about it), is up to the viewer.
It’s definitely not a good enough rifle that I could ever recommend it, but I guess it’s better than the older rifles and they could take a few more steps and end up with something okay.
@@hobofactory I'm not going to bet my life, my survival on an "ok" AK. For me personally, it's not a fucking toy, it's a tool. A survival tool. I'm sure you feel the same way.
@@couchwarrior2449 in that sense, you’re correct. Even if they fix all of the issues mentioned here, I’d still not recommend it for any serious purpose where your life depends on it; there are just too many better options. If someone just wants to shoot for fun, maybe run competitions, sure.
Thank you for going over these malfunctions and their fixes 👍🏼
Thanks for watching! It’s been fun and frustrating at the same time somehow. I guess the fun is it did give more excuses to go to the range.
Good overview. Glad you have been able to keep it running. 👍
Much appreciated!
Excellent video, good to see such a balanced, objective perspective on these.
Much appreciated!
really for the money thats not to bad of problems to have to deal with. as long as it dont blow up lol. Id honestly like to see another update on this at a high round count just to see if the reliability still stand and if that chamber issues goes away
Bought the AK 5.56 underfolder last year because it was an underfolder and had 223 compatibility with my ARs. Unfortunately it couldn’t clear casings (stovepiping) and jammed every 3 rounds. Shipped it to Pioneer Warranty (PW) and it was supposedly fixed, but then continued to stovepipe and jam immediately after being returned to me. Shipped it back to PW again, asking for a replacement rifle, which they agreed to do. New rifle fired and ejected casings fine for about 200 rounds, then the semi-auto disconnecter broke (1/16 thick metal on its pivot point). PW is shipping me a replacement trigger kit to install. Bottom line; good customer service from PW but a poor quality/reliability rifle. I had already replaced the firing pin with a Beryl in anticipation of its failure. After this repair, my plan is to try and put at least 1k rounds through the rifle and if it runs fine and nothing else fails I’ll probably keep it. I read all kinds of reviews before buying it, and the cheap firing pin was the only consistent problem I could find. Hope this information helps other people decide on whether to roll the dice on a Pioneer 5.56 AK or to just buy a different rifle.
Wow, sounds much worse than even my example. Thanks for sharing!
Just get a Beryl and stop wasting money
Thats interesting, i havent had any issues with mine. Hopefully wont have the same issue with mine once I get close to that many rounds. Good information 👍
Hopefully you got a more fortunate one, but I would recommend replacing the firing or at least having a spare on hand (if you haven’t already).
Thanks for doing this update video. I have two of these rifles with no ussues, HOWEVER they both have very low round counts.
Not buying Pioneer until they get this fixed. I'd rather spend twice as much on one that actually works.
After all, the problem is in the strict chamber, in fact, this is not a terrible problem and it is very easy to eliminate it, if there are felt patches for cleaning and paste for polishing the surface. Nevertheless, it is not recommended to use drills and other things, since the risk of spoiling will be much higher. However, at the same time, you can polish the surface of the barrel, this will facilitate subsequent cleaning of the weapon. but ideally, it would be interesting to study the surfaces with a borescope and monitor the work on polishing the chamber, but after polishing all the problems with the work should disappear.
Possible use a shotgun bore mop with some lapping/ polishing compound on it to help smooth the roughness out ?
Yeah I think I may need to do something like that for a more permanent fix so I don’t have to scrub with a power drill every 1200 rounds or so!
Well, in general, felt patches can be used for these purposes, with a polishing paste (such as GOI), Carefully and without fanaticism, so as not to kill the chamber.
I swapped my extractor and extractor spring and firing pin with FB Radom Beryl firing pin and fb Radom beryl extractor and spring and ran completely fine no issues mine didn't have issues it just hated Zenitco b-33 dust covers and tws dogleg gen 3 dust covers 5.56 cartridge too long for it to kick the casing out and It caused stove pipes
The ejector fin take a punch and hammer and tap the ejector fin upwards and you will have any mag fit your rifle, the ejector fin maybe bent downwards on yours to cause ac unity mags circle 10 mags to not fit. It'll put downward force on the mag
Unfortunately in my case it’s also that the rear of some mags run into the center pin. In some cases it’s possible to shave just bit off the mag and get it to fit, in other cases it’s not even close and nothing short of lopping off the entire corner would get it to fit.
Was that Molchat Doma in the opening?
The firing pin issue is poor materials. They should use a stainless firing pin hardened correctly.
Yeah, I can’t imagine any reason other than cost savings for them to deviate from how it’s supposed to be done.
Thoughts as I have them while watching:
Sounds like the extractor is jumping for some reason and you have a failure to extract whenever the gasses aren't pushing the case hard enough against the bolt face to stay on it until the extractor bounces back onto the rim. The same thing happened with M4 carbines in the late 1990s, and the Navy at Crane had to make some really weird looking testing rifle assemblies to figure it out.
What they did was take two M4s, remove the handguards, put them on top of each other with the top one upside down, and run each gas tube to the OTHER rifle. This let them fire a round in one of the rifles without it cycling at all, and then take another round, put it in the other rifle, and use it to simulate a 100% accurate recreation of the gas system's operation WITHOUT any pressure on the case from the expanding gasses in the barrel. This replicated the failure quite reliably, and allowed them to develop a spring solution for the extractor that would not jump off the rim of the case and would stick to it well enough it'd work every time without any bolt thrust effect.
That lead to the development of the O-ring in AR15 extractor spring assemblies.
Extra power recoil springs as a delay mechanism are almost worthless. You're talking about 1% the delaying force you probably expect.
Yeah, that would do it, without any extractor-side failures whatsoever. Any rifle with a chamber with pitting/improper specs will have problems, not just 5.56, notably. You could expect the same problems in a 7.62x39 pioneer arms rifle.
I love it when firing pins break! : D
It will not wear in. Your brass will never wear down the ridges or whatever are caused by the pitting/tool marks left in there.
Overall, this is hilariously similar to what happened to the M16 in Vietnam, ignoring the firing pin breaking.
Import AK problem with the magwells most likely. The Americans doing it have to do it more consistently.
I am surprised how close to just working this rifle is. Needs a new barrel essentially unfortunately, unless you do something really weird and ill advised to the chamber. The US Gov had an M16A2 upper receiver contract from Emco and about 15% of all the barrel assemblies had essentially the same problem in the chamber from tooling marks, and the US gov had to just throw away almost the entire contract worth of uppers after inspecting and certifying as good a decent number of them because they didn't think it was worth checking every single one for the issues.
Interesting! Hadn’t heard of the historic parallels, thanks for the insight. Hopefully they end up paying some attention to these issues and fix them.
The problem is not that the cartridge does not correspond to the originally calculated one, because it was originally designed not only for 7.62 x 39, but also for the more powerful 7.62 x 54, yes, it was for the rifle, since they wanted to unify weapons in the army, but Dragoons won the tests. That is, the run-up in ammunition from 7.62 x 39 to 7.62 x 54 indicates that the AK platform is universal in this regard. Therefore, the AK platform has the practical majority of ammunition varieties from 9x19 to 30-06. The problem is the unreliable work of the TCD (Technical Control Department), because they are simply unable to control the quality or make it extremely limited, and not in full compliance with military standards. Because we had no problems with the development of an AK for a new cartridge (.366) for an AK, in principle, using a larger caliber compared to 7.62 x 39 was a much more difficult problem, since it rested on the lack of magazines with the correct geometry, and here 5.56 which is almost identical to 5.45. And even more so in Russia, athletes preferred shooters for a long time .223 they generally liked him with a large assortment of cartridges, now of course the trend has changed and 5.45 is more interested in everyone because of the lower price, but naturally the arrows from the AR-15 remained on.223. But in general, today everyone has abandoned expensive cartridges and switched to budget ones, so no one is worried about purchasing some cartridges of the best "quality" anymore. Although the AR-15 with a 5.45 cartridge with a standard magazine has now begun to gain popularity, again, all because of savings.
I could tell you were Russian before the first sentence was over, because y'all talk about firearms in a totally different way than anybody else. It's refreshing. @@konstantin070797
Anyways, when you said "the problem is not that the cartridge does not correspond to the originally calculated one", I assume you're talking about the change in powders in 5.56 for the initial Vietnam War problem with the M16?
That was a problem, but frankly is overstated. It was quite easily solved with a new buffer with weights in it, which was a drop in solution and still works very well today.
The massive problem that earned the reputation was that 98% of malfunctions were stuck cases. The chambers were getting dirty and pitted from rust and corrosion from the environment. If most rifle malfunctions are generally magazine related, and 98% of your malfunctions have nothing to do with your magazine, that's quite apocalyptic. Anyhow, the powder wasn't nearly as big a deal as the lack of chroming.
People will say it was the Army's decision, or Stoner's decision, but really we're not quite sure who decided/why not to chrome the barrels originally. Since the end of WW2, it had been Ordnance policy that all new service rifles needed chrome lined barrels due to similar problems in the South Pacific in WW2 with the M1 Garand.
There MAY have been a technological inability to chrome a barrel of that diameter, but this is slightly dubious and I cannot really tell if it's a load of bull or not. If there was, it was solved in a few years. The M14, notably, was chrome lined, following Ordnance policy.
@@superfamilyallosauridae6505 As for the discrepancy of the cartridge, I very often find the statement that 5.56 is not native to AK (or rather because it is not authentic), therefore the machine works unreliably. This is quite funny, since the majority of Russian shooting athletes preferred Saiga in 223, or VPO 223 (for hunting). Mostly due to the large variety and availability of ammunition, and 5.45 was deficient, but cheap, since most commercial ammunition was sold abroad, but since now they are not sent to the USA, ammunition is on the shelves in excess, so people began to switch to 5.45. But it's more just like a fun fact.
And as for chrome plating, it's really strange since the procedure is not that complicated. Well, if we take into account the analogy with AK, then if we take the AK produced in Izhevsk, then there is chrome of a single coating, and for AK (PKK) made in Vyatka Glades, then there is a double coating of trunks with chrome. But Stoner originally planned to make shutters from stainless steel, which is probably why chrome plating was not provided. But of course, barrels without chrome plating are not very tenacious, especially considering the use of bimetallic shells for bullets...
@@konstantin070797 Yeah, the "5.56 in AKs is bad" is a product of botched civilian market rifles, not any actual design issue with the cartridge. I own a Wz96C Beryl myself, and absolutely love it.
It's kinda like the opposite of the situation in Russia, naturally. Some love 5.45 in AKs because of the history and the nice features of the cartridge, but the price, sometimes being corrosive, and the rarity of the rifles recently makes 5.56 AKs far more attractive. We see this in offerings from Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and domestic, though domestic US 5.56 AKs are generally very, very bad for non caliber related reasons.
I think it's quite funny how our service cartridges mirror each other on the domestic markets.
I sold mine for 400 cash didn't care for 5.56 AKs anymore
Did you get a regular Beryl 5.56 firing pin or one of the spring loaded ones? they seem different shaped than the one this rifle has
I went with the regular, free-floating kind. It is true that they’re different, the Beryl kind has the more typical rectangular stem compared to the round one in the Pioneer, but so far it seems to work just fine.
@@hobofactory sweet, ordering now thanks for the reply
What grip did you add to it? It’s beautiful
If its going to be Polish...WBP..❤
While I don’t have any personal experience with those, they’re almost certainly the better bet.
@@hobofactory they have VIDEO out of their factory machinery and assembly line...it impressed me soo much I bought 2 of them...both are no issue guns in 7.6 and 556
Use flexhone on the chamber it will fox that issue.
Will very likely do something like that for a more permanent fix.
@@hobofactory Somebody else was having the same issue but with a PSA AK 101 and that fixed the issue
AK's generally should have "loose" chambers. That is one reason they just run.
Lmao
A gun shop a while back had a raffle for a pioneer akm, they got mad when they knew I was a serious ak guy and didn't wanna buy any tickets. I won't buy factory guns for the most part, depends on the country of origin. I mostly like professional parts kit builds. No cast trunnions and only cold hammer forged barrels for this guy...
WhatEver
U.S. Barrel?
A friend advised me over 25 years ago (a weapons sgt in special operations)...never buy guns manufactured in calibers they were not originally designed in. "Avoid AR-15s in 7.62x39, AKs in 5.56 and (at the time) MAS 49/56 in 7.62x51" He felt you are just buying into problems and stuff that (particularly back then) manufacturers just haven't been figured out yet...and it appears in some cases they still haven't. There is a reason certain platforms are so popular... because they work. Avoid the odd ball stuff, cause even when they do work, you run into issues with finding magazines, accessories and spare parts.
Thanks for your great reviews and evaluations, always informative.
That is sound advice. I just want an AK that uses NATO ammunition lol
In the big picture, statistically I think that advice probably does still ring true. I do think it’s possible to have a reliable 5.56 AK (my M90 is fine for example), but on average it very much still seems like you get better results in the original calibers.
It's too general to be useful anymore. There are so many huge exceptions you're better off learning specifics if you're going to go deep into guns at all, and if you're on this channel, you're probably a nerd to one degree or other.
Beryl is in 5.56 and works fantastic. ARM1 is in 5.56 and works fantastic. AK-101 is in 5.56, and again works exactly as reliably as its 7.62x39 and 5.45 counterparts.
This is not a 5.56 AK problem we're seeing here. We're seeing a Pioneer Arms problem here. I would not buy their 7.62x39 AKs either. The Pioneer Arms Hellpup was all the indication people should've needed to never touch their rifles until they make serious changes. Those pistols were usually 7.62x39 and had MASSIVE issues. You can see the same with C39s, C39V2s, etc. PSAK-74s and PSAK-101s have these issues even though AK-74s are definitely not a new technology, nor are AK101s. But people are having massive problems with them all the time.
The manufacturer doesn't know what it's doing.
5.56 AKs have been figured out since the 1990s, and though Beryls wouldn't come until the 2010s, AK101s in the form of unconverted Saigas were around shortly thereafter. It was a different time though, when information was not nearly as accessible, so who could tell?
By contrast, 7.62x39 AR15s in normal size receivers and bolts inherently have major weaknesses caused by just how much the rim of 7.62x39 takes up of the frontal area of an AR15 bolt. It requires better than Carpenter 158 steel to do even acceptably. Same for the 7.62x39 DR300 Daewoos.
There are definitely exceptions to the rule as technology improves, as does the knowledge base, but it is still a useful "rule" for the new to the gun arena to steer clear until they have built up some experience of their own
@@superfamilyallosauridae6505
Huh weird considering over 25 years ago, RUSSIA was MANUFACTURING 5.56 AKs…..
Ever heard of the AK 101???? This is such a silly argument. The chambering of the firearm isn’t the problem, 5.56 and 5.45 are extremely similar to begin with. On top of that the reason you run into problems with stuff like this Pioneer is because people insist on buying from bad manufacturers….like Pioneer….
So in my semi uneducated opinion it looks like a compounded issue of tolerance
There’s probably some truth to that, especially as it relates to the mag well issue.
Damn, pioneer arms doesn't seem worth the headache. 50/50 chance of getting a lemon. Inconsistent quality. Save the couple hundred bucks and buy quality guys. Pick another brand. But I don't know....
Dude, brake aside, your shooting stance and the way you hold the rifle are not helping you.
You got some work to do.
The muzzle device is not a miracle worker.
I just don't understand, you could have spent a little more money & gotten a reliable accurate shooter!
The purpose of the video is more to discuss what’s wrong with this rifle (and apparently at least some others like it), and how I diagnosed it. What one does about it (polish the chamber, send back to the manufacturer, avoid buying one in the first place and not have to worry about it), is up to the viewer.
@hobofactory the purpose of the video is to try & get an unreliable firearm to function correctly!
@@gleamtarrest6310 bold of you to try and tell me what the point of my own video is.
@@hobofactory very!
@@gleamtarrest6310not very sensible tho ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pure crap not acceptable at all no exceptions..just pay for a zastava or a Romanian neither great but bothare better
I see Pioneer are still purveyors of Crap. Some things never change.
It’s definitely not a good enough rifle that I could ever recommend it, but I guess it’s better than the older rifles and they could take a few more steps and end up with something okay.
@@hobofactory I'm not going to bet my life, my survival on an "ok" AK. For me personally, it's not a fucking toy, it's a tool. A survival tool. I'm sure you feel the same way.
@@couchwarrior2449 in that sense, you’re correct. Even if they fix all of the issues mentioned here, I’d still not recommend it for any serious purpose where your life depends on it; there are just too many better options. If someone just wants to shoot for fun, maybe run competitions, sure.