I just got back from the gun show and found a 1977 Russian AK for $500. It had everything but the bolt and trigger group I think. I think it was a 3rd generation. I am in the market for a older Russian AK. What is the process to get this thing ready to fire and how much more money do you think would be? Thanks for the help.
You mean a Romanian AK?
For $500, it isn’t worth it. Even if it were $300, it still wouldn’t be worth it…
Save a little more to buy an Arsenal, or convert your own Saiga.
It was a 1977 Russian AK. I saw some Romanian AKs and they were very different. The wood on this was very dark. It was really a beautiful gun.
pictures please
Sorry to break this to you, but it was not a civilian legal Russian AK…
There are several options…
1, A Russian kit, built on a US receiver.
2, An illegally imported Russian weapon.
or
3, Someone tried to sell you a Romanian rifle as a Russian rifle…
There were NO genuine Russian AKs legally imported for the civilian market in that time frame.
If it were a genuine Russian AK that could be legally transferred it would be worth a metric ton of cash as it would be highly collectable as a only-one-ever-imported deal.
Don’t be sorry. Thanks for your help. It was a Russian kit then. It didnt have the US reciever. That is the part that I would need to get it up and ready to fire. I am going back tomorrow. I will take a pic. It was not Romanian.
What receiver did it have?
A true Russian receiver will be marked in Cyrillic on the selector lever side AB and what looks like OA.
Romanian AK’s will be marked S or F, S A R, or S FA FF.
If it’s a kit, it has zero receiver. Just stubs, if even that.
77 is the last year for AKMs (in Russia). Could also be a Russian AK-74. Those were imported rather recently. $475 ($450 if you buy multiple).
I’ll be interested to see pix 
Oh, and since the OP asked for what’d be involved: You’d need to find a new fire control group (trivial, as you’d most likely end up needing one for 922(r) requirements anyway), and a new bolt (which isn’t a huge deal if the rifle isn’t built yet, but if the rifle is built and is now missing a bolt, it’s a huge deal since headspace is based on the specific bolt…). Those two parts shouldn’t cost much at all. The receiver would be around $100 from Nodak Spud (or $200 if you were into a “period correct” receiver, but you likely aren’t unless you’re a major AK collector, in which case you wouldn’t need to ask these questions to begin with ) Then you’d probably send it somewhere to have it assembled… I don’t really know how much that’d cost ($200?), since I built mine myself. You can do that by buying the equipment (between say $100 and a couple hundred, depending on how into it you go).
Hope that helps
I shot with a Canadian guy in about 1988 who had a semi-auto AK, all Russian, it had been modified to semi-only. They were being sold in the Canadian civilian market… despite all the Draconian laws and everything (even at the time), it was possible, if you jumped through enough hoops, to get one. He came to Michigan for a competition every year (Second Chance).
Otto, where are you now?
All of this is correct. It had everything but the fire control group, reciever, and bolt. Glad to know that all that doesnt cost much. I will take a picture tomorrow. I might even buy it.
Yup. AB and ОД
There are several people who have taken Russian milled kits and reweleded a “new” receiver using the existing stubs with the Russian markings. I’ve seen this done with a lot of PLO kits.
There’s a chance a cyrillic-marked receiver could be Bulgarian, too: АВ and ЕД.
Ned brings up another good point: a modified semiauto-only AK or AKM that could be legal in Canada will still be considered NFA territory in the USA. Once your receiver has a happy hole, it’s a machine gun. Even if you weld the auto-sear hole up or fill it with a rivet, the BATFE still considers it a machine gun.
More likely though, the guy selling the gun just didn’t know or misrepresented it as “Russian” to make the sale, and you’ve got yourself a shooter once you drop some parts in it. Good luck!
Thanks for everyone’s help. The guy selling the gun knew his stuff. He had another ak there that was not Russian. He also had a belt fed fifty that was cut up and and a few more big machine guns that were cut up. I hate that they cut up all those sweet weapons.
Some people mistake the Romanian arsenal marking for a Soviet one. The Soviet factory Izhevsk trunnion marking is the arrow with flechette inside triangle while on the Romanian the arrow lacks flechette. If it was indeed a Soviet/Russian kit with a good barrel it was a very good deal.
Russian/Soviet
Romanian