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Hadar build

16K views 100 replies 10 participants last post by  TRX 
#1 ·
I have a Hadar II stock coming. Now I have to figure out what to do with it...

The Hadars used milled Galil receivers, angled up in the front. As far as I can tell they were all in .308.

I'll be doing a scratchbuilt sheet metal receiver. Various Valmet models (Galils were licensed Valmets) used stamped receivers. I posted pictures of several of them on the general AK subforum. I'll use .060/.062 4130 stock and thin a spare Romanian trunnion to match, like the thick-receiver Norincos.

Somewhere I saw a picture of a stamped Valmet that showed the weld; they just bent the sides, cut a V, bent the angle, welded, then bent and trimmed the top rails, apparently. With fancy dies they could have just stamped it bent and done the top rails on the next top. Load across the weld is compression due to recoil, so it shouldn't hurt. Lots of .060 thick milled rewelds out there working just fine, too.

I need to see if I can find some of those flat, low-profile rivets some AK variants used. I'll have to clearance the stock to clear the rivets.

I'll probably dispense with the iron sights entirely and used a top cover mounted scope. A side rail won't clear the Hadar stock.

So, I expect to have a nice targetty-looking rifle with a wood stock. Now I'm wavering about what cartridge. .300 Savage or 6.5 Grendel look good so far...
 

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#64 ·
Harrumph. A standard trunnion slides right into the Coldsteel receiver. I thought I had to narrow the trunnion to make things fit; at least, that's what I've read was necessary for the .062" Chinese receivers.

So, did Coldsteel bend these wrong, or is there a top cover that will fit? For that matter, it's going to need longer axis pins, too.
 
#65 ·
Is it a bulged receiver blank? The straight trunnion blanks may take standard trunnions without narrowing them. I remember some issue with the FCG pins because if that with some blanks. Do the FCG pins fit across inside the stock? The Chinese receivers are narrower inside. The Bulgarian 1.5mm receivers are too. I have heard some of the straight Cold Steel blanks are wide, even the thin ones may be a bit. Some of them have the FCG pin holes X and Y a bit off too. I do like the Cold Steel bulged RPK/ Yugo blanks though.
 
#68 ·
No, it takes standard Galil bits. Well, except for the extra threaded hole under the barrel. There are some shallow slots to clear the barrel pins when you drop the receiver in; you can see them in the pictures earlier in the thread.
 
#70 ·
The flatside Yugo and 1.6mm Chinese receivers were normal width on the outside, to take standard top covers and axis pins. They used narrower trunnions to make everything work.

At least, that's what I remember from the old threads at gunsnet, which have reverted back to the primordial electrons whence they came. I remember pictures of people cutting Romanian trunnions to fit thicker Chinese receivers, anyway.


The 1.6mm Yugo trunnions are 1.21" across; the 1mm Romys are 1.25".
 
#71 ·
AFAIK, all the factory "thick" sheetmetal receivers were made to the same OD as the thin ones, therefore the trunnions and furniture were narrower to accomodate them. Some of the US made thick receivers were made to the same ID as the thin ones to accomodate normal AKM parts sets instead of just the narrower ones. These are the ones that require the longer pins and bending of the topcovers to fit. When the Russkies went to the AKM they kept parts specs as much the same as they could, which is why they have stepped rails to accomodate the carrier groove for the milled models instead of making a new carrier spec that would only fit the AKM. Less spare parts to inventory and issue.
 
#72 · (Edited)
Looks like I need to call Coldsteel and see what's going on.

update: no response to email, and they're not answering their phone. No problem, I'll just bandsaw it down the middle and weld it back at the correct width. Considering all the other welding that has to be done it's not that big of a thing.

Next time I need a 1.6mm receiver I'll just bend my own blank. <sigh>
 
#73 ·
AAAARGH!

[pounds head on desk]

I could've done it from a flat! It would only take one weld!

Take a regular flat, make a V cut on the front back to the end of the magwell, made a crosscut with the Dremel and/or a hacksaw blade, bend the two front flaps up at 90 degrees, then bend the flat. You would need a shorter shoe, from the back to the magwell. The flaps in front would come together under the front trunnion. Weld the flaps together, done! You might want to touch the corners at the back of the magwell with the welder and dress them down, no big deal.

I don't know why I didn't think of this in the first place.

Oh well, I'll save the idea for my "build a stamped slant-cut Valmet clone" concept...
 
#74 ·
One Hadar stock was almost square at the back, other than the 4 degree (?) cut. The other was shaped to where it needed the rounded-off Valmet/Galil milled shape.

I could have opened up the stock with wood chisels, but Apex had cut-up Galil receivers for $20, plus $9 shipping. On the other hand, that's what AKM rear trunnions were selling for last year... I ordered one.

Whoever torched it up was *much* more enthusiastic than the ATF requires. The front trunnion is basically gone, and they cut the rear off at such a sharp angle that they got into the rounded end. I guess I'll just build the missing area up with weld, but it's still annoying.

The plan so far is to narrow the Romanian front trunnion to fit the .064 receiver, use countersunk rivets, and maybe a Yugo-style weld or two. In back, I'll mill the rear stub square, cut off the stamped receiver, and butt-weld them together. I can't see welding tabs to the rear so I can rivet it together when the receiver and the stub are the same thickness. Shouldn't be any different than a milled receiver reweld.
 
#75 ·
I machined the spacer blocks to hold the receiver halves together earlier this week. Yesterday I bought some 1x3/16 copper flat bar to back up the weld seam. A little more trimming along the joint area and I'll fire up the MIG welder.

The receiver turned into a bag of snakes, but I'll be damned if I'll throw away a bought-and-pair-for blank before I've wasted a ridiculous amount of time trying to save it...

What you really need here is one of those "Chinese" pattern .062 blanks, not the weirdball Coldsteel blanks. Or a spare Valmet, Galil, or Norinco Hunter milled receiver...
 
#77 ·
Yeah, but in the last couple of years I don't think I've ever seen a milled receiver for sale anywhere, other than new-mades from ORF and wossname. That's beyond the budget at this time.
 
#78 ·
Yes, I'm doing it the hard way... this is the first receiver, that I butchered. However, it welds really easy, so I'm continuing with it.

1) I milled some scrap CRS to the right width to act as spacers for the sides.

2) The receiver is sprung so there's a gap, but when it's clamped it's perfect. I used a copper bar to back the weld area.

3) Clamped with pressure on the copper bar and sides

4) and all welded up...

5) weld dressed. The grinding wheel dug in a few spots, but I'm sure there are other places that will be uglier...
 

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#79 ·
1) Milling the Galil stub. The sides were similar enough to make a single cut. There's a T-nut and a piece of rubber clamped in there to keep the ears from vibrating. Worked fine, to my mild surprise...

2) marking the angle for the next receiver cut

3) rough cut. I need to smooth it out with the disc sander next.
 

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#80 ·
Looks interesting TRX. Keep the pics coming!!!
 
#81 ·
10-4!

The bag of countersunk rivets showed up from MSC today. For some reason I'm still a bit dubious of their holding power compared to regular rivets, but I guess if the trunnion starts to loosen up I can re-rivet it and then do a rosette weld on each side.
 
#84 ·
The sculpturing inside the Galil stub and the dimples in the blank made it impossible to use the copper backup bar. The welding came out good anyway.

Welding the opposite side was more difficult. The Coldsteel blank wasn't quite the same height on each side, so I had to twist it until the top rails lined up. This left a gap along the weld seam. There was some blobbing on the inside, but not too bad.

Notice the heavy scale on the Galil rear stub - that's after being belt sanded, too.
 

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#85 ·
I trimmed the top of the trunnions flat. A cleanup cut on the right side came out right at .375", so I used a 3/8" lathe bit as a spacer to clamp it in the vise.

First cut. The width needed to be 1.202" to fit the .062" receiver. The flycutter tip was chipped; dressing it made a mirror-bright finish cut.

.020 narrower on each side; the .062 Chinese guns are like this, so there shouldn't be any problem.
 

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#87 ·
Feh! I cherry-picked the pictures. First pass on the trunnion, I used a 1/2" end mill. Left the damnedest corrugated finish I ever saw; I'm still not sure WTF happened. So I dug out the old standby flycutter. You also missed all the head-scratching and cursing when the sides of the receiver didn't line up with the trunnion...

Due to my inexpert welding and enthusiastic application of the angle grinder the receiver will never be pretty, but it will be entirely hidden inside the stock. Mostly all you see is the top cover and barrel bits.
 
#88 ·
My fancy blue laminate stock for the Ross build showed up today. It's the "Tac-Driver" from rifle-stocks.com. And there's plenty of meat, horizontally and vertically, to inlet it for an AK receiver.
 
#89 ·
My fancy blue laminate stock for the Ross build showed up today. It's the "Tac-Driver" from rifle-stocks.com. And there's plenty of meat, horizontally and vertically, to inlet it for an AK receiver.
can you post some pics of the stock with a AK reciver sitting on top of it?? Ive been thinking about a Vepr style build for a while with one of those stocks. also how is the quality and hom much will it take to finish one out??
 
#90 ·
I've been meaning to get your picture. It'll be Real Soon Now.

Meanwhile, I was expecting the usual wavy surface finish from the ball-end router bit I've seen in stock duplicator pictures. Instead it's relatively smooth; it looks like they might have used a small disc sander to knock off the high spots. The three slots in the front are precise, chatter- and burr-free. The work around the finger grooves isn't too pretty, but there's plenty of wood to shape it the way I want. Of course, it came uninletted, so I can't comment on that, but I did have them cut a 3/4" barrel channel to guide my inletting later.

All in all, it's more finished than I expected, but it will take a lot of work to make it as nice as I want. But it's all finish work; the shaping is properly done.

And it's bright blue!


It didn't occur to me until it came in that I could glue some of the 7/16" Russian birch plywood I have on hand to make a blank, and practice inletting on that. I've found very little useful information on inletting to start with, and bupkis on doing laminate..
 
#91 ·
Everywhere I touch a flat, it rusts... but you can see there's plenty of room to inlet an AK receiver down into the stock. The stock is a hair wider than the Hadar. You'd want them to leave out the rear set of slots, probably.
 

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