AK Build Almost complete

[awptickes]

Probably could have concentrated better if that jerk at the other end of the range didn't keep shooting that .22 off while you were trying to work

Yep.

 

[awptickes]

Ok, so now the rifle is loading rounds 100% from the right side of the mag, but not the left. It loads about 30% from the left side. I may have fixed some of it with a hammer. It cycles by hand 100% with no mag, or even with a mag and no rounds.

When it does jam on a round, it is always on the left side, and it grabs the round by the forward part of the extractor groove, then jams when the round doesn't rotate up and into the chamber because of the pressure on the extractor groove.

EDIT: This seems like a common problem. I'm still researching, but any help is appreciated.

 

[awptickes]

Another 30 rounds through it.

I did some research today, and discovered it to be a problem called "Short Cycling." My case appears to be related to the upper rails.

I banged and pounded and bent it last night to get it to feed a round from the left side 100% by hand. It'll do that now. But it still has the occasional misfeed on the left side, I think it's attributable to the right side bolt cut-out on the upper rails. If I rack the action by hand, I can get the round to chamber no matter which side of the magazine it feeds from. After about 15 rounds I decided it wasn't going to change on it's own.

After banging it with my hand with a mag in, and hitting it on the edge of the shooting bench, it fed the last four rounds with no problems. I also found where it's catching when feeding. I think it was the cut outs in the rail for the bolt. I marked the whole upper rails with a permanent marker, and looked at what was shiny after several rounds. I filed them smoother and removed any square edges that it might get caught on. We'll see if that did the trick next time I take it to the range.

 

[awptickes]

I installed the trigger group for the 1980 last week, and I finally took it to the range last night.

The 1980 will cycle in semi-auto no problems, ONLY after I open up the feed lips a bit. This was easy with the plastic mags, but might become more difficult with a metal mag. I ran 30 rounds through the 1980 in semi-auto with no issues.

 

[awptickes]

The 1978 cycles fine now. The top rails were causing the carrier to stick a little on the cutout for the bolt, combined with the ejector was a little bit too long, by approximately 1 mm. All resolved. I did the first coat of bluing on the 1978 last night. It was pretty splotchy, but I fixed all that with some more prep work on the next coat. It's pretty dark after prepping the metal, and you can see where the hardened parts are, which isn't a big deal, I can get those down to the correct color with no problems. Last night was more of a test than anything, but I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Tonight I used my roommate's hair dryer and got the metal good and hot before bluing. This made a bit of a difference, and I think I heated it more evenly than last night with the butane torch.

The pics show obvious differences between the bluing tonight and last night. In the background of both last night and tonight I have the unblued receiver just to give some kind of reference point. I need to wait for the camera battery to charge, otherwise I'd have some decent macro shots for everyone.