I have been shooting for thirty years, but never did much mechanical work on my guns. I installed some optics, replaced the handguard on my first ar, replaced a mag spring on my 500 and trigger springs on a .22 bolt rifle. Nothing difficult at all. Reading about the AK made me want one, and it had to be built by me! Haha, the joke was on me. I had no idea what lay ahead.
That is funny about the Maadi barrel. That is the first mistake in my build too. It was going in fine, but then got tough. I kept cranking on the driver, and noticed the barrel pointing to the left. I had to take a wheelbarrow axle, a brass pusher and a three pound sledge to knock the barrel back out. Then I had to grind down the pile of steel the rivet plowed up. The opposite side trunnion left a little to be ground down also. Hmmm, is the barrel junk? We'll see.
I screwed up the rivet heads when I tried to reset them. They were functional, but too fugly to leave. I had to drill those out and replace them. Glad I had extra rivets on hand.
Pressing the barrel went smoother the second time. So well, that I went way too far before checking headspace. Of course, I did that because I had no idea HOW to check headspace. A little studying of the situation and I figured that out. Well, out came the sledge again! Headspace got set, a little tight, but still a go. I did read that it could loosen a bit after the first couple of shots as barrel shifts forward against pin.
Next came the rear sight base. Kind of hurried it, but made sure it was positioned loose enough for the dust cover to go on easily. Of course I was too worried about that and didn't notice that it was canted a tiny bit. Until after I drilled and pinned it:/
The lower handguard notches were done, and locating and filing the top groove was pretty easy.
The tolerances were too tight for the gas block and front sight base, so some emery cloth took care of those. The gb went on and lined up quickly, but the fsb kept canting to the left. Finally I said F it and wedged a screwdriver in it and beat it with a mallet until it looked good. I didn't pin it until I shot it out to 100 yards to check windage adjustments.
Back in the shop and I pinned the fsb and drilled to pin the brake. Measured three times, and marked the drill bit and still thought it was going to be tight. Not a lot of barrel thickness to drill for a pin. This friggin state sux:/ Anyway, got it drilled, checked bore and it all looked good. Slipped in the pin and tapped it in a bit with a ballpeen hammer. Oops, dimpled the rifling!!!
FUCH!!! Did I just ruin my barrel (and my build) on the last step? What to do? Hmmmmm. Went to the range and nobody there. Good start. Set up a target at 25 yards and made a bunker around the end of my barrel on three sides and on top with sandbags. Crouched behind it and fired one round. Cleared gun and inspected bore, all ok. Took two more shots and inspected again. Dimple gone! Fired five quick shots into a 1 1/2" group. I moved the target to 100 yards and fired five more. Group wasn't great, but that is because of my eyesight. Nice round holes, so no effect on bullets leaving muzzle.
Just need a c-clamp from work to adjust windage 1" at 100 yards. Forgot to do it after screwing up drilling the brake. Height is right on, although the rear sight base is canted and sitting a little high so my front sight is a little higher than the wings.
All in all, it was a great learning experience! I learned what can be done with a drill press, a bench vise and some threaded rod. Extra drill bits, extra punches and some basic hand skills helped. The two most important lessons for the next build though are:
1. Always have a bigger sledge available.
2. Use plenty of vodka. Then I can blame the mistakes on that.
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