I'd been planning to do a .50 Beowulf AK with a bent receiver, but a milled Chinese receiver is now laying on my workbench. It's part of some kind of training/DEWATS rifle; the barrel is welded up, the top cover has a few short (and pretty!) TIG welds anchoring it to the receiver, and it's missing the bolt and carrier.
I'll need the following:
.50 barrel
7.62x39 bolt to match the Beowulf case head
bolt carrier and operating rod
.223 magazine (may require some "adjustment" according to the AR15 sites)
modified or full-custom RSB, gas block, and FSB - the .50 barrel would have to be thinned unworkably to match the OEM bits. Though machining them from scratch is okay, I might cheat, saw the rings off, and weld or silver solder them to appropriate-sized tubes
At the moment, the only real point of uncertainty is the barrel attachment - it appears to be threaded into the receiver. I know I saw a chart around somewhere that gave the thread specs, but darned if I can find it now...
Anyone see anything major I've overlooked? Other than the gas and sight blocks, it looks fairly easy.
I'm going with .906 or 29/32 at the gas block.. I have plenty of time & material to find a way to get it right.. Even if it is welding first & boring second.. I'm just a bit scared of things flopping around in the lathe! Hehh..Heh.
Like you say, that's why I have a horizontal mill. Really just having fun with tool toys & learning from mistakes.
I recently bought some MT2 drills & reamers for my lathe. I like better than my 5/8 drill chuck in the tailstock.
I'm going with the virgin rpk trunnion & a smaller barrel pin. Yugo style heavy bent blank/ shell, Weiger .223 mags
No reamer yet. I bought my barrel about three years ago from PacNor. Just a heavy center turned blank. I had no luck finding someone to sell me a reamer. I was thinking of trying to make a pull through type myself. Seems like that would be a nice way to come up to headspace.That kind of thing is why this is a long long project. and I only get back to it now and then.
I think my fixture may act as a heat sink somewhat. But may just turn out to be a waste of time other than improving my sorry ass lathe skills.
I WONDER IF THERE IS A WAY TO RUN 50 BEWOULF BRASS INTO A 500 S&W AN GET A REBATED ROUND THAT YOU CAN BUY A REAMER FOR????????????
i CANT RECALL HOW TAPERED THE THE 50BW IS VS THE 500 S&W.
I WAS THINKING THE 50 BW CHAMBER COULD BE CUT WITH A BORING BAR AN THEN USE A .50 THOATER THATS ONLY $50 OR SO. I HAD CONSIDERED TRYIN THE 444???? CHAMBER THIS WAY. ( AFTER A FEW TEST RUNS ON SCRAP)
SO BASICALY YOU NEED A HOLE THAT IS ROUND AN .010 SMALLER ON ONE END THATS 1.65" DEEP . SEEMS TO ME THIS COUD BE CUT WITH THE TOOL POST SET TO THE CORRECT ANGLE.
EVEN IF THE ANGLE WAS A LITTLE OFF IT WOULD NOT REALLY MATTER.
THAT BARREL WOULD NOT FIT THROUGH MY HEAD STOCK SO ID NEED A STEADY REST.
YOU NEED A GOOD EDGE TO HEAD SPACE ON AN THEN USE A 50 THROATER .
i DONT KNOW IF THERE IS A SRAIGHT ECTION WERE THE BULLET IS SEATED OR NOT ??? IF HAVE TO SEE A ROUND IN PERSON. IF THERE IS THAT CAN BE DONE WITH THE BORING BAR AS WELL.
You sure won't get any answers or help from Alexander Arms. I'm planning to ream until the case sticks out the same distance as other AK's & I guess I'll have to headspace with shims. Even if I can make a reamer. I sure as hell can't make headspace guages.
I too have no steady rest & don't know if a regular South Bend 9" one will fit my oddball South Bend 405 9".
I'd have to spend a couple hundred bucks to find out.
I'll ream by hand. Then I'd have to face muzzle as close to live center as I dare & wing it on the crown.
I have a 9 inch South Bend as well that I need a steady rest for. If I had a steady rest I would send it to you to see if it fits laugh out loud. I could give. You some really good measurements of my lathe bad and you could compare to yours to see if yours is standard. who knows if mine is standard it's 1 of the really early ones with the smaller headstock with an odd ball thread.
I'm working on getting a bigger lathe up and running I'm limited to what I can do with barrels as well. I have no way to do a full size 29 inch bench rest Barrel.
biggun; If your spindle threads are 1 3/8 x 10 instead of 1 1/2 x 8 & if you can reach the tailstock nut from front & back ( see thru tailstock) you may have the 405 also. I'm screwed trying to find chucks or faceplates.I've been looking at Ebay for five years or so!! And there is a ton of South Bend 9" parts on there. I can't even read the lines on my rusty pitted dials eitther. Cut & measure, cut & measure
Part of the delay on my Beowulf project is the .875 spindle bore on my lathe. I have to do all the work over the ways with a steady rest. The bed is 60" long, but first I had to modify the steady that came with the lathe, since it didn't actually fit this lathe. I have some of the through-the-bore oiler stuff done, and the oil catch tray welded up, and an oil pump. I still have to source a motor for the pump. Oh, and the main motor on the lathe is dying, but I managed to snag a nice three phase motor for free, except I had to buy a Variable-Frequency Drive for it. Well, I could have used the phase converter I already have, but true variable speed was a big attraction. And then I decided the first steady rest wasn't good enough, and I'm partway through building a ball bearing steady using a giant ball bearing pillow block.
I have several barrels to chamber, when I get all the above sorted out...
Brad, I can chamber your barrel for you if can wait.
Thanks TRX. I've been at this a few YEARS now & have not really gotten anywhere . So chambering is way down the road.
Another issue has popped up as I carve out the receiver shell.
With the .223 mags being a bit smaller from front to back, it messes me up at the mag catch. I don't know what they do on the .223 AK's? Move the whole trigger guard assembly forward a bit? Or is the reciever itself shorter in front so the trunnion is a hair closer to the rear of magwell?? I'm leaning towards just extending the mag catch plate forward a tad.
Just when I think I'm getting somewhere, another bug pops up!
TRX, I know a local FFL holder that does transfers for $20. I know its probably a little late for this project but maybe for future builds/ gun purchases...Jimmy Robinson Enterprises Inc, 921 Woody Dr, Alexander, AR 72015 501-847-1029
I am glad I found him cause I was sick of the high fees some were charging.
I have a Polish .223 magazine, but I really need to modify the trunnion to take Galil magazines, which are way cheaper. The difference is the height of the front lug; the Galil is a bit higher due to the slant cut.
The though-the-headstock oiler and ball bearing steady aren't just for the Beowulf; I have several rifles and a couple of pistols waiting for barrels. And half of the fun is making the tools, you know?
On the Hadar build, where I'm duplicating the slant cut receiver so it will fit into the Hadar II stock, the latch surface is even with the bottom of the slant. To get some meat under it, the surface needs to come up at least .060, more if you want a chamfer on the bottom.
On Valmet.org, the word is that the Valmet/Galil/R1 mags have the front lug higher, to match the raised mating surface in the front. Sometimes a regular AK mag will work, sometimes it won't. The problem seems to be the feed angle as much as magazine retention.
Going the other way, with a Galil mag in a conventional AK, might not be a problem.
Of course, if you have a .223 magwell, you can use one of the snap-on STANAG adapters and use conventional AR-15 mags, which are cheap and easy to find. They were originally developed for the Israeli army, so they'd probably have the Galil front lug.
Nice to see other caliber conversions! Hopefully he'll post it up here too
The 5.56 mag solution I have is the synthetic Galil mags. I have a TON of them bought before they all dried up so I stuck with them. To make them fit in my Saiga, I chose to mod the mags. There is a small "anti-wobble" ridge on the front where the Saiga trunion rivets are located. I sanded those down to fit the (unmodified) Saiga trunion. They still work fine in the Galil but wobble a bit... not enough to affect feeding. "works!"...
I have successfully modified an AR follower to fit in the metal Galil/Weiger mags (there a thread here about that). Pretty simple really, just sand on the guides until they fit. So far I have had no performance problems with them. If you use the same fit technique with a Beowulf AR follower then I suspect the Galil mags will work no problem.
Here's my half assed abomination. Hope you guys like it. For anyone that cares there is probably some more info in my thread over on calguns.net
Pookie have you had success with the beo using those poly mags or just 5.56? I tried some bulgy poly mags and they were pushing the feed lips out something awful.
Thanks for the welcome. I haven't sighted it in yet. I spent the first trip(50 rds) just ballparking the sights and seeing if it would cycle. If I get time in the next couple weeks I'm gonna make up a hundred rounds, and put it on paper. I'm not really expecting anything amazing. It's just an AK....and I'm a lousy shot.
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