My Century Arms Romanian WASR10 is an odd bird. I had always planned to eventually buy an AK style rifle. At this point, I'd never shot one and had hardly handled them at all, but it was on my wish list.
However... one morning, I woke up and was laying in bed staring at the ceiling and the thought came to me. I should go to the local gun shop and buy one.
No, really. I had reached that point in my gun buying where this actually happened to me. But it proved to be a good notion. I landed a really great rifle and it was still marked at $300. It wasn't long after this that the prices on the same gun shot up to $1000 and then "normalized" down to between $450 and $500.
So I got up and got dressed, then collected my cash. I was off to the local gun shop run by one of the most notoriously cranky individuals ever to grace the gun counter. Now, in our area this guy has become almost famous. Everyone knows him, and no one is ever going to shop at this store again because of him, but the shop seems to be doing just fine. Me? I find the guy to be entertaining.
In I walked and spotted the one I wanted. I reach the counter and our friend is there chatting away. He looks and me, sighs, and says, "What?"
"Can I see that AK, please?"
Exasperated, he reaches over and grabs it... then throws it at me and walks into the backroom of the shop.
Now I'm standing alone in the store holding an AK that doesn't belong to me. So I leaned on the counter and waited. I figured eventually he'd realize if I wasn't an honest person I could walk off with this rifle and no one would be the wiser. He eventually came back and look almost surprised to see me still standing there holding the AK.
He was even more surprised when I threw it at him. Hey, eye for an eye, right?
He's very nice to me every time I go into the shop now. Huh.
Anyway, I walked out of the shop that day with my new WASR10.
Now, the WASR10 has a very bad reputation. Trigger slap, jamming, and wobbly magazines are only a few of the complaints I've heard tossed around by people... generally people who don't own one. I've had mine - named Fadia, as the title implies - for several years now. Since about 2007. I've fired countless rounds through her, too. Not a single jam to date. It came with a non-slappy Tapco trigger, and my magazines fit just fine with zero wobble. Maybe I lucked out, who knows.
Now, Fadia is known for something I hate to admit. The folks at the range always ask if I have Fadia with me (they know me as they do all their regulars, and they know who names their guns and what those names are. I love my range). If I say yes, I can count on finding a bucket of water next to my shooting station. Fadia tends to set her wooden handguards a blaze. It's not a huge fire like the crazy guy in that video everyone's seen. But black smoke does tend to pour out around round 300. They call Fadia "Dunkin' Shoot" because of this. When the smoke comes, dunk it in the bucket and keep shooting.
Fadia hasn't been getting the attention she deserves in recent years. I hate to admit it, but she's not had any range time in about a year and a half. I'll have to change that soon.
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