Pin and Weld

Pullman screwed up hardcore on my Russian SGL-21 years ago.
I wish I had the pics still but owner contacted me and said he’d fix it but I went to Dave Santurri to fix and cerekote and was excellent
Agreed Dave Santurri is great. He is my go to guy.
 
I heard good things about Santurri, so I went there. Had him thread an AK barrel and do a pin+weld on another AK.

On the pin and weld job, he drilled through the barrel... gobbed it up with weld bead and passed it off to me as if there was no problem. A few mags later I noticed the weld bead fell out of the brake... and I could see clean through to the rifling. He made it right, AFTER being called out... VERY dishonest, since it's not like you can accidentally drill through the barrel and not notice.

Had him thread a barrel on an AK. Threads were very shallow, and stripped. For some reason (I'm assuming to hide bad work...) he installed the brake on my pre-ban AK after threading it with RED permanant loctite AND a crush washer...

Expensive F-ups, I'm not going there again. Seriously, I'm like wtf... 2 absolute screw up jobs in a row for me.

I've had decent experience with Old Glory Guns and Ammo in Greenville, NH for AR pin and welds. They re-did the threading on one of my AKs but went too far on the lathe (notice the front sight base)

1656724503261.png1656724518814.png
(Santurri's handiwork ^)

Old Glory (below)

1656724674933.png
 
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I heard good things about Santurri, so I went there. Had him thread an AK barrel and do a pin+weld on another AK.

On the pin and weld job, he drilled through the barrel... gobbed it up with weld bead and passed it off to me as if there was no problem. A few mags later I noticed the weld bead fell out of the brake... and I could see clean through to the rifling. He made it right, AFTER being called out... VERY dishonest, since it's not like you can accidentally drill through the barrel and not notice.

Had him thread a barrel on an AK. Threads were very shallow, and stripped. For some reason (I'm assuming to hide bad work...) he installed the brake on my pre-ban AK after threading it with RED permanant loctite AND a crush washer...

Expensive F-ups, I'm not going there again. Seriously, I'm like wtf... 2 absolute screw up jobs in a row for me.

I've had decent experience with Old Glory Guns and Ammo in Greenville, NH for AR pin and welds. They re-did the threading on one of my AKs but went too far on the lathe (notice the front sight base)

View attachment 632798View attachment 632799
(Santurri's handiwork ^)

Old Glory (below)

View attachment 632803
how did the chuck that up in the lathe ? especially with the front sight on?
 
+1 for Dave Santurri.
Pullman screwed up hardcore on my Russian SGL-21 years ago.
I wish I had the pics still but owner contacted me and said he’d fix it but I went to Dave Santurri to fix and cerekote and was excellent
 
Second for Newtech - he did some great work for me recently. Nice guy too!
 
I heard good things about Santurri, so I went there. Had him thread an AK barrel and do a pin+weld on another AK.

On the pin and weld job, he drilled through the barrel... gobbed it up with weld bead and passed it off to me as if there was no problem. A few mags later I noticed the weld bead fell out of the brake... and I could see clean through to the rifling. He made it right, AFTER being called out... VERY dishonest, since it's not like you can accidentally drill through the barrel and not notice.

Had him thread a barrel on an AK. Threads were very shallow, and stripped. For some reason (I'm assuming to hide bad work...) he installed the brake on my pre-ban AK after threading it with RED permanant loctite AND a crush washer...

Expensive F-ups, I'm not going there again. Seriously, I'm like wtf... 2 absolute screw up jobs in a row for me.

I've had decent experience with Old Glory Guns and Ammo in Greenville, NH for AR pin and welds. They re-did the threading on one of my AKs but went too far on the lathe (notice the front sight base)

View attachment 632798View attachment 632799
(Santurri's handiwork ^)

Old Glory (below)

View attachment 632803

Holy shit.. I know a bunch of people like him, but when it comes to AK's he is a complete hack.
 
I heard good things about Santurri, so I went there. Had him thread an AK barrel and do a pin+weld on another AK.

On the pin and weld job, he drilled through the barrel... gobbed it up with weld bead and passed it off to me as if there was no problem. A few mags later I noticed the weld bead fell out of the brake... and I could see clean through to the rifling. He made it right, AFTER being called out... VERY dishonest, since it's not like you can accidentally drill through the barrel and not notice.

Had him thread a barrel on an AK. Threads were very shallow, and stripped. For some reason (I'm assuming to hide bad work...) he installed the brake on my pre-ban AK after threading it with RED permanant loctite AND a crush washer...

Expensive F-ups, I'm not going there again. Seriously, I'm like wtf... 2 absolute screw up jobs in a row for me.

I've had decent experience with Old Glory Guns and Ammo in Greenville, NH for AR pin and welds. They re-did the threading on one of my AKs but went too far on the lathe (notice the front sight base)

View attachment 632798View attachment 632799
(Santurri's handiwork ^)

Old Glory (below)

View attachment 632803
When I see things like that it definitely reinforces the do it yourself attitude. You couldn’t even f*** it up that bad yourself
 
When I see things like that it definitely reinforces the do it yourself attitude. You couldn’t even f*** it up that bad yourself
Yup. And if you can't do it, send it to a place that specializes in it (although it's gonna cost you, but the chance of it getting FUBAR'd is lower)

There seem to be a lot of great gunsmiths in the area, but most have zero clue about AKs unless they are a specialty AK shop.

I learned the hard way over the last few years from being a total newbie to getting a basic idea and tinkering with the guns... some of the stuff I saw in retrospect I now think WTF was he doing
 
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