Uncle Builds an AK: Part 1

Reader Shoot-N-Scoot and I set out a while back to build some Kalashnikov rifles. We ordered a some of these kits from Tapco. They look like this:

Note how it’s cut in two at the receiver.

The other piece involved is a receiver flat, which is a piece of stamped metal with holes drilled in it. Once you bend it, it then becomes the receiver. Essentially, you take the rifle kits and remove all the parts from the old receiver, which has been decommissioned by being cut in two. Bend the new receiver and put the rifle kit together on the new receiver. To comply with federal law, the kits come with a semi-auto fire control group (meaning it’s missing the parts that would make it a machine gun). You can also only use ten imported parts to comply with federal law so we will add some American made parts as well. The fire control group is not imported so this helps with your part count. This post will detail bending the flats and removing the old receiver.

We initially used flats bought from Tapco as well but the first attempt at bending one didn’t work. We obtained some laser cut flats, which are easier to bend but require welding to strengthen.

Here’s a pic of the flat:

More pics and commentary below:

Notice how the cut in the flat is incomplete around the magazine well. It will be important later. Here’s the flat in the bending jig:

The second flat was ruined due to the incomplete cut. Basically, one side of the magazine well didn’t bend at all. It will be returned to the manufacturer for another. Here are the two receivers, the top one is bent correctly. The bottom one is basically ruined. No problem though as we’ll get some more:

Here’s Shoot-N-Scoot grinding off some rivets so that we can remove the old receiver (which has been cut in two) from the trunnions. Note the use of a quality $35 shirt:

Being done with the day’s metal work, I loaded up the car. Thought it was odd to have miscellaneous AK parts in my car with a car seat and baby toys. Snapped a pic:

Once we got the rivets removed, the old receiver was placed in a vise and, using pliers, I basically bent it off the rest off of the rifle being careful not to damage the trunnion. I also forgot to snap a picture of this process. I got the non receiver portions home (leaving the receiver parts for Shoot-N-Scoot to finish) intent on removing the furniture. I plan on stripping and sanding all the wood since neither me nor Shoot-N-Scoot care for the varnished Romanian look. I’m also going to saw off the forward vertical grip since I don’t really like them on AKs. Here’s the furniture ready to be stripped and sanded:

I’ll be stripping paint and varnish and then sanding for next few days.

Part 2 is here. The running series can be seen here.

Posted in uncategorized on November 7th, 2005 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |

Uncle Builds an AK: Part 1

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