A year ago I saw a Pioneer underfolder at a gun store. It was absolutely beautiful, nice rivets, nice finish, and typical polish fit. I promptly put it on layaway. I didn't understand how it stayed off my radar but the thought of an European made AK for $800 was too good to pass up. When I got home I started researching them and what I found was hardly good. Rob Ski of AKOU had bad things to say about the IO guns (which were the predecessor to Pioneer) as did Mishaco who had NOTHING good to say. The first complaint is that Pioneer set up shop in the old FB Radom factory and was making use of the Radom name for marketing purposes and "implying" that these rifles were FB Radom guns when in reality they were more accurately commercial guns made in the old factory and with some of the same tooling as the historic "FB Radom" guns. The second issue (and the one that concerned me) was the fact that most of their guns at the time used cast barrel trunions and there were numerous reports of loss of headspace at relatively low round counts. They had recently switched production from cast trunions to forged trunions but after checking the gun I had placed on layaway had the cast trunion and I cancelled my layaway.Originally Posted by Tokarev
Fast forward 6 months or so and the forged trunion guns started hitting the market and Mishaco took one on for T&E. His results were that as much as he wanted to hate the rifle and wanted it to fail, it performed very well. Other reports of the forged rifles have been positive so I was eager to see how this rifle worked out for Klayco47. While street price on these rifles is quite a bit more that the $500 Klayco47 paid, they are still in the PSA price range and if results continue to be positive, may very well prove to be a good entry level gun. I am very tempted yet still hesitant.
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