The Saigas are the best of the bunch that you can get for under $1000. They are made by the Russian Ishmash armory to Russian Specs which are pretty much tops for AKs, the Chinese make good AKs also, but thanks to Bubba Clinton, they can't be imported anymore and command a high price these days. The Saigas can easily be converted back to their military form with a few hours worth of work and about $100 worth of parts. The accuracy of Saigas that I've shot were rather decent out to 100 yards, and there is always an option of adding a scope.


As far as shooting moving deer goes, that is a completely different story. The conservation club I belong to has a running deer shoot where only AR rifles are allowed. The deer runs at 60 yards away and is in view for about 3 seconds and makes a total of 6 passes for the shooter who has to shoot standing. There is a small paper plate attached to the head and a standard paper plate attached to the vitals. Most of the shooters used 30 rd mags, and there were very very few hits on the paper plates. I burned off 30 rounds myself without a single hit. [] It looks very easy to an observer but is very difficult in practice.