Turkish AR15– Quality AR or Total Dumpster Fire??? | AKDAS SEM 223 | IWA 2026 | Nuremburg, Germany

Turkish shotguns have attained a poor reputation in the US for those shopping at the poverty-tier, but Turkey also makes a wide range of other types of firearms. These include licensed copies of HK firearms to semi-auto pistols that have an excellent reputation to now some new entries into the already-saturated AR-15 market.

The AKDAS SEM-223 is a semi-automatic firearm developed by the Turkish manufacturer Akdaş Silah A.Ş., built on an AR-platform design. It has been released as a compact semi-auto pistol as well as short-barreled, chambered in both .223 and 300 Blackout. The rifle employs a short-stroke gas piston system with rotating bolt head locking.

Note that the AKDAS incorporates the most common advanced features seen on ARs these days, besides just the use of a gas piston over the conventional AR15 direct-impingement system. It has a full-length top rail and ambidextrous bolt-carrier release built right into the lower receiver. There is also some design changes to the mag release fencing that are borderline-ornamental to. Note this change in the close-up picture of the right side of the receiver.

 Upon close inspection, the AKDAS appeared to be very well-made. The closest thing to actually firing it was working the action and I detected nothing unusual when doing so. I suspect that this is actually an excellent firearm. There are a number of Turkish companies that produce outstanding firearms and AKDAS might be one of them. After almost 7 decades of production and design improvements, optimizing the AR15 platform is well-understood by manufacturers. On the other hand, semi-auto shotguns have been in production for more than 12 decades and some Turkish companies manage to produce shotguns that have a very poor reputation. Hopefully the AKDAS SEM 223 will be available as a pistol in the US soon.