Well, Jeff Zimba is at it again, calling this one "without a doubt, the nicest AK style firearm" he has ever seen. Whoah, that’s a pretty definitive statement. This thing must be pretty good, although we here at DefRev really don’t know, since we haven’t ever fired one.
I actually had the opportunity to visit Arsenal Inc.’s booth at Shot Show 2002 in Las Vegas, and was pretty impressed myself with…
the guns I handled. My only semi-negative observation was that they were all AK-47’s built on milled receivers. Personally, I prefer AKM’s to AK’s, since AKM’s have stamped receivers, as opposed to milled ones. AKM’s are therefore lighter and tend to dissipate heat better than AK-47’s, especially when firing a lot of rounds very rapidly.
Anyway, the SAM-7 is a high quality AK-100 Series-style semi-auto AK-47. The most noticeable thing to me is its unique muzzle brake, which looks pretty interesting. According to Zimba, it tames recoil pretty effectively. He also says the SAM-7 has the smoothest trigger he’s ever experienced.
The SAM-7 has a forged and CNC milled receiver, trigger, hammer and disconnector. The barrel is hammer-forged and chrome lined. The SAM7 S model is equipped with a scope mounting rail.
Price on the standard SAM-7 is $700, which isn’t bad, considering what you get. Arsenal Inc. also offers a SAM-7 Classic model, which is identical to the original AK-47 as it was introduced in 1955. Price on that bad boy is $875, which also isn’t too bad.