Gunco Forums banner

A Reminder of Why You Can't and Don't Want to Convert Your AK to full Auto.

138K views 284 replies 141 participants last post by  2ndAmendican 
#1 ·
These internet Assault Weapons discussion boards invariably attract newbies or gun-owners with a little bit of warped enthusiasm who just can't get it out of their heads how neat it would be to convert their AK to full auto.

In discussions with people I meet, who are invariably new to guns, I keep hearing how easy it is to convert your AK to full auto by filing on this or that part.

I'm tired of it.

To manufacture an AK as a semi auto weapon, a different fire control group is used; a different bolt carrier is used; and the receiver is machined slightly differently. You as a civilian cannot legally find any way on earth to convert your lawfully-purchased semi-auto AK to full auto. Period. End of Story. I won't go into the laws here, but suffice it to say that if it wasn't already what is called a "fully transferable" full auto AK, dutifully registered as such by the Federal Government, then you can't own it. Deal with it.

Now, let's say you're one of those adventurous people who likes to go tell people that all you have to do is file down the disconnector so it won't grab the hammer and you have "instant full-auto".

Here's why that's not wise:

1. It's illegal. You will be decades older by the time you get out of Federal Prison for doing it. There is no parole in Federal Prison. Twenty Years is twenty years. I'm not saying that's the sentence you'll get, buy you understand my point. Firing more than one round with one pull of the trigger may be fun, but it's not worth being married to a guy covered with tattoos for several years.


2. It's dangerous. I deal a lot with gunsmiths; I read a lot of engineering literature on firearms. I understand how firearms work and don't work. I have repaired my own personally-owned AK's. I know what breaks them and what fixes them. Over the last ten years, I have also rubbed elbows with enough gunsmiths who have had to "fix" home hobbyists' misguided projects that I know enough not to EVER want to convert a semi-auto AK to full auto.

The AK-47 action is not "timed" . We all know about revolvers, and how they are "timed" so that the round is not fired until the cylinder has locked on a fresh chamber, and the chamber is lined up properly.

A full-auto AK-47 has an extra lever just forward of the hammer that holds the hammer back until the bolt is fully closed and locked. It also prevents the hammer from falling unless the round is fully seated in the chamber. This is to prevent the gun from firing "out of battery", and possibly blowing pieces of the firearm into your face. Because the AK action is not "timed", the hammer could very well fall too soon without this lever holding the hammer back until tripped by the bolt carrier.

This is why a full-auto AK has different parts: it requires a special hammer and a special bolt carrier to interact with this trip lever.

When an AK is manufactured in semi-auto only, the little lug on the bolt carrier that trips any full-auto lever is machined off. Plus, the hammer on a semi-auto only AK is machined not to allow that little trip lever to fit under the front of it; not to mention the fact that the receiver does not have the extra hole required for that trip lever to be installed.

Sometimes, manufacturers of semi-auto only AK's also machine off a little tab on the rear of the disconnector, and the corresponding tab on the safety lever that pushes the disconnector out of the way so it doesn't grab the hammer on a full-auto gun.

So, you, as the home gunsmith about to take his life in his hands, decides to "file" down something to make the gun full auto.

Assuming that when you file down the disconnector, the gun doesn't just stop firing at all as the hammer follows the bolt carrier into battery, you have just created a bomb patiently waiting to blow your face off.

Since the AK action is not "timed", your little file job has created a situation where there is NOTHING to prevent that round from firing as soon as the bolt face touches it. The hammer falls with the bolt carrier, and so will detonate the primer as soon as it can, whether the round is chambered and the bolt is closed or not. So instead of that full auto AK you always wanted, you now have one that will eventually kill or injure you or bystanders the first time it fires a round out of battery.

That is why you don't want to illegally convert your semi-auto AK to full auto.

__________________________________________

On a similar subject, those of you who read the above carefully realize that there is nothing to prevent a semi-auto AK from firing out of battery either. This is technically true, but the tolerances of the AK-47 are loose enough that I have literally never heard of an AK firing out of battery (I'm not saying it's never happened--just that I've never heard of it).

The lack of "timing" is not an issue, since "timing" only applies to full-auto fire. The disconnector will hold the hammer on a semi-auto AK until you let go of it, and it is humanly impossible to let go of the disconnector faster than the action can cycle. So this is not a problem.

The one worry might be that if your AK gets so full of crud that the bolt won't close properly, then you might have a problem with firing out of battery, but I have literally fired hundreds of rounds through AK's without cleaning them, and I've never had a problem. Suffice it to say; clean your weapon occasionally, and if you drop it in goop so that the bolt lugs might be gunked up enough to prevent the bolt from closing, then your gun needs a thorough cleaning before you try to fire it again. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

:smile:
 
See less See more
#192 ·
in real life do we need full auto
self defense at home dont think so
target shooting noop
oh yeah if a terrorist want to spray on crowd he needs a full auto
other wise i dont see any need for full auto in civilian life
dont think i am against guns i am all for guns but i dont see any need for full auto as a civlian
 
#195 ·
It's a BS argument. The standard should be, do I have the same rights that my government has in protecting my civil rights?

Does my government have the right to arm itself with semi-automatic or automatic weapons? Then why shouldn't I have that same right? Is the government entitled to rights that are denied average citizens?

What ever happened to a government for the people, by the people?

Are weapons so dangerous that I only trust my government with them? Think about that, when has the government been the preferred repository of trust.
Exactly
 
#196 ·
When the government stops fearing the people, something has gone wrong. I forget who said something to that effect...was it John Adams?

Anyways, the Federal Government always misreads the Second Amendment. It has no "if" , "and", or "but" anywhere within it that allows for restrictions that keep us from carrying openly or concealed in public, or from owning fully automatic weapons all without license or permit, Federally, at least. Yes, the states are (supposedly) delegated (well, not so much anymore) any other powers to regulate not mentioned in the US Constitution.

Even so, The People deserve to be able to defend themselves without a license to carry concealed or not within their Nation, their states, their districts, their counties, their cities, their neighborhoods, and their homes. Why should we have to be on a government list (state or federal) if we want to own or carry a particular weapon? I see this as preparation by the elites that rule the country and corporate world making notes in case the people try to rise up as implied by the second amendment.

There do need to be exceptions of course, for courtrooms and other such cases, and for mentally ill and felons, but our rights are being trampled on.

"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

Pretty freaking clear.
 
#200 ·
Your right! Bump firing is better...my friend can bump fire an ak from his shoulder...just remember it might be legal to bump fire...but you might attract unwanted attention. We got kicked out of a range once...also with the way things are going....who knows, we may end up in jail for bump firing. just shoot semi. I don't even shoot that much anymore with the price of ammo. ($300 for 1,000 rounds)
 
#201 ·
It is sad that the folks with money are the ones that can get a legal transferable FA weapon. I strongly believe that ANYONE that has the background check should be allowed to own a fully automatic firearm, from the stand point that we should have weapons that are used by combat troops to our disposal. Price keeps many from buying a FA, and sometimes state regulations curtail this. Wonder how this will work when the Second Amendment is found to be state to state wide and not just in D.C. in the up coming SCOTUS decisions?

I also believe that one should always have ability to have or build a sound suppressor. It is ecologically better, it's less annoying to neighbors, and since the inception of the NFA on that silencer only 2 people have been killed with suppressors illegally. I also would advocate a suppressor for a deer hunting rifle. Would keep you from giving away your position and would be easier on your ear drums. Perhaps if there were a way to eliminate some of the emissions of the powder burn one could put on a suppressor to keep the air clean?

All in all I believe in full auto weapons, just not illegal ones and dangerous ones tinkered with at home. Leave it to a professional gunsmith that has knowledge of such things. I also believe in suppressors and would love to enact legislature to remove that outdated law from the books.
 
#204 ·
legal silencers are tax paid and leo signed off.

A piece can count as the whole. It's my understanding that Paperwork is first.

There is a good site but I lost the link when my other machine went down.
 
#205 ·
When I was in the military (Navy) we had M-14's (man how I love 'em). My instructor told us right off the bat, " I know all of you want to shoot this full auto, but let me show you why you don't want to". Each one of us shot it full auto and could not hit the broad side of a barn with any sort of accuracy or ability, just wasting ammo. Once we were done, he asked an interesting question. "How many of you would still be alive with adequate ammo for a possible second attack after being in a firefight where you shot full auto and didn't hit anything?" Answer... none. When your life depends on finite numbers of lead hitting enough targets to where the other targets lose thier nerve, break camp, and regroup for another day, full auto kind of goes out the window with Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy.
 
#206 ·
Just like anything else, you have to train to use full auto (or burst fire) effectively and know when to use it and when not to use it. It's not that full auto is inherently inaccurate, because I guarantee if you had a bipod and some support while firing small bursts, your accuracy would increase dramatically.

That said, regardless of how wildly inaccurate full auto can be... It's still great fun.

Mark
 
#207 ·
True, Markp. Some rifles are better designed for full auto firing. The new HK 416 ( ref: Heckler & Koch HK416 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) can shoot very well under full auto, and keep right on firing because the bolt does not get gas bled on it and neither does it get hot. I've seen it fire and it baffles me that it is not adapted over the more jam prone M4. Piston driven system. It is designed to take the action straight back upon firing. It is alway inherently more accurate to fire semi -auto and make clean placement shots as opposed to full auto. However, as I said, some calibers, such as 7.62 NATO and 7.62 x 39 Soviet do not lend themselves well to full auto. It was the difficulty of the FN FAL in 7.62 x 51. My .308 Saiga would have a similar problem.
 
#208 ·
Any ak can be made to fire FA
During WW1 the 1903 Springfield Bolt action rifle was converted to fire full auto.
Is it worth going to jail for?
 
#209 ·
That depends... If you are a prohibited person, the penalty for having a full auto weapon is the same as having any firearm. Where is the incentive for criminals not to own machine guns?

Don't think so? Prohibited persons are not subject to the NFA, see US v. Haynes. Requiring criminals to register their full automatic weapons violates their 5th amendment rights. Sure, they are still subject to the CGA of 1968 but there is no material difference of violating 922(g) regardless of the type of firearm involved.

Mark
 
#212 ·
only reason law enforcement dosen't want fully auto weapons is 2 reasons 1 the federal goverment want's that tax for stamp know where and who owns them so they know where they are 2 they don't won't to be out gunned by private citizens saiga/iszmash are the only foreign made reciever all recievers made now are american look at your kits they don't come with recievers because romanian russian or what other variant because they can be made full auto with no modification . but i was told thefull auto parts in the same place as the ak even if parts aren't even installed its considered fullauto by atf if you buy kit keep in garage out side of house 5k to buy legal 20k fines illegal plus loss of your guns and 10k attorney fees but for 79.00 you can buy bolt on trigger attachment that shoots 3rd burst legally . you figure that one out
 
#214 ·
Could you try that again? Hard to understand exactly what you are saying.

BTW, it doesn't matter if the parts are in your garage or your house, as long as they are "under the control" of a person it's considered the same as if they were all in one place. You were told wrong, ATF doesn't consider all the FA parts and a receiver in the same place to be an MG because the semi auto receivers have to be modified to accept the FA parts. Modifying the receiver is what gets you in trouble. If they went after people for having FA AK parts along with a semi auto receiver or gun they would be arresting nearly every kit purchaser out there.

There are plenty of foreign made AKs with foreign receivers coming into the country, Century WASRs from Romania and the Arsenal ones from Bulgaria, just to name 2. Dunno if the FEGs are still coming in from Hungary? Those are commercially made semi autos, the kits came from cut up full auto military surplus rifles. That is why the receiver is gone on those, Saiga is not the only game in town for a semi auto foreign receiver.
 
#218 ·
People can talk shit about Sarah Palin all they want but Alaska show the truth....everyone can carry without a permit so it is the only state that upholds the 2nd Ammendment to a T, not to mention Alaska is the only state that actually turns a proffit , so much so that all residents been there over a year get a check, the extra proffit is divided between the residents....that is how it should be. Granted it is only $1k-$2k a year it is still free money....and pot is legal there up to an ounce....realistically she would probably do a great job.

We need more soccer moms in politics and average people who relate to people and aren't out for special interests. I would never vote for a liberal for that reason, they are all about an agenda vs being for the people and less Govt....they want to tell you how you should live every aspect of your life and that is Unconstitutional , especially in a supposed "free" country, even though we are really just a police state with relaxed marxist socialist Pres who has a touch of communist tendencies....it is sad we qualify for for most of what it takes to be a communist country according to the Communist Manifesto...this is coming to an end though, the people are taking their country back!
 
#219 ·
NHM since the AK typically only has a 30 rnd mag the barrel won't get hot enough for the limp dick thing to happen, it would most likely get hot enough to burn flesh though.


I think Palin is a good person with the right agenda, but you have to admit, she does seem like an airhead at times ;)
Also I think Chip's pic needs a question mark at the end, I didn't get it at first :D
 
#220 ·
Sure, I be willing to be that I am smarter than Palin (raw IQ), but smart doesn't get the job done... Values do, I would vote for this woman in a heart beat. It's her values I appreciate, she can find all the smart people she needs to surround herself with to make the right decisions.

No question Obama is smart, how's that working out for you?

Mark
 
#221 ·
bs- zoid

:grumble:this is bs with exception of the legal ramifications- there are enough parts in the afterworld to do a full auto conversion with a minimum of fuss and minor mechanical skills and money- there is even a drop in auto sear option(see youtube-ak47 dias)do not file your disconnector or tye shoe strings on your weaponthey won't reliably work
These internet Assault Weapons discussion boards invariably attract newbies or gun-owners with a little bit of warped enthusiasm who just can't get it out of their heads how neat it would be to convert their AK to full auto.

In discussions with people I meet, who are invariably new to guns, I keep hearing how easy it is to convert your AK to full auto by filing on this or that part.

I'm tired of it.

To manufacture an AK as a semi auto weapon, a different fire control group is used; a different bolt carrier is used; and the receiver is machined slightly differently. You as a civilian cannot legally find any way on earth to convert your lawfully-purchased semi-auto AK to full auto. Period. End of Story. I won't go into the laws here, but suffice it to say that if it wasn't already what is called a "fully transferable" full auto AK, dutifully registered as such by the Federal Government, then you can't own it. Deal with it.

Now, let's say you're one of those adventurous people who likes to go tell people that all you have to do is file down the disconnector so it won't grab the hammer and you have "instant full-auto".

Here's why that's not wise:

1. It's illegal. You will be decades older by the time you get out of Federal Prison for doing it. There is no parole in Federal Prison. Twenty Years is twenty years. I'm not saying that's the sentence you'll get, buy you understand my point. Firing more than one round with one pull of the trigger may be fun, but it's not worth being married to a guy covered with tattoos for several years.


2. It's dangerous. I deal a lot with gunsmiths; I read a lot of engineering literature on firearms. I understand how firearms work and don't work. I have repaired my own personally-owned AK's. I know what breaks them and what fixes them. Over the last ten years, I have also rubbed elbows with enough gunsmiths who have had to "fix" home hobbyists' misguided projects that I know enough not to EVER want to convert a semi-auto AK to full auto.

The AK-47 action is not "timed" . We all know about revolvers, and how they are "timed" so that the round is not fired until the cylinder has locked on a fresh chamber, and the chamber is lined up properly.

A full-auto AK-47 has an extra lever just forward of the hammer that holds the hammer back until the bolt is fully closed and locked. It also prevents the hammer from falling unless the round is fully seated in the chamber. This is to prevent the gun from firing "out of battery", and possibly blowing pieces of the firearm into your face. Because the AK action is not "timed", the hammer could very well fall too soon without this lever holding the hammer back until tripped by the bolt carrier.

This is why a full-auto AK has different parts: it requires a special hammer and a special bolt carrier to interact with this trip lever.

When an AK is manufactured in semi-auto only, the little lug on the bolt carrier that trips any full-auto lever is machined off. Plus, the hammer on a semi-auto only AK is machined not to allow that little trip lever to fit under the front of it; not to mention the fact that the receiver does not have the extra hole required for that trip lever to be installed.

Sometimes, manufacturers of semi-auto only AK's also machine off a little tab on the rear of the disconnector, and the corresponding tab on the safety lever that pushes the disconnector out of the way so it doesn't grab the hammer on a full-auto gun.

So, you, as the home gunsmith about to take his life in his hands, decides to "file" down something to make the gun full auto.

Assuming that when you file down the disconnector, the gun doesn't just stop firing at all as the hammer follows the bolt carrier into battery, you have just created a bomb patiently waiting to blow your face off.

Since the AK action is not "timed", your little file job has created a situation where there is NOTHING to prevent that round from firing as soon as the bolt face touches it. The hammer falls with the bolt carrier, and so will detonate the primer as soon as it can, whether the round is chambered and the bolt is closed or not. So instead of that full auto AK you always wanted, you now have one that will eventually kill or injure you or bystanders the first time it fires a round out of battery.

That is why you don't want to illegally convert your semi-auto AK to full auto.

__________________________________________

On a similar subject, those of you who read the above carefully realize that there is nothing to prevent a semi-auto AK from firing out of battery either. This is technically true, but the tolerances of the AK-47 are loose enough that I have literally never heard of an AK firing out of battery (I'm not saying it's never happened--just that I've never heard of it).

The lack of "timing" is not an issue, since "timing" only applies to full-auto fire. The disconnector will hold the hammer on a semi-auto AK until you let go of it, and it is humanly impossible to let go of the disconnector faster than the action can cycle. So this is not a problem.

The one worry might be that if your AK gets so full of crud that the bolt won't close properly, then you might have a problem with firing out of battery, but I have literally fired hundreds of rounds through AK's without cleaning them, and I've never had a problem. Suffice it to say; clean your weapon occasionally, and if you drop it in goop so that the bolt lugs might be gunked up enough to prevent the bolt from closing, then your gun needs a thorough cleaning before you try to fire it again. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

:smile:
 
#223 ·
Thanks

On a similar subject, those of you who read the above carefully realize that there is nothing to prevent a semi-auto AK from firing out of battery either. This is technically true, but the tolerances of the AK-47 are loose enough that I have literally never heard of an AK firing out of battery (I'm not saying it's never happened--just that I've never heard of it).
Thanks for the explanation. I'm a novice to rifles, especially AKs, but I just bought an AK-47 and had to return it due to malfunction.

And the terminal event was that it fired out of battery. It blew the dust cover off over my shoulder and blew the bottom of the polymer magazine out. I wasn't hurt at all, but I was pretty concerned. And I was forced to stop shooting for the day, as the bolt carrier was jammed into gas chamber and had to be hammered out.

Though I can't say that I perfectly follow your description of the "firing-out-of-battery" phenomenon (especially since I no longer have the rifle to look at), it sounds like a perfect explanation of what happened to me on my Century GP 1975 rifle.

(And, for the record, I had not even attempted to modify it in any way. I'd only fired about 300-350 rounds through it. And it was virtually brand new.)

I wrote about this on another forum to see if anyone else had ever had a similar problem with this rifle. Here was my description:
  1. I just received my GP 1975 about 2 weeks ago. The 1st time I took it out it jammed about every 10 to 15 shots. The guys at the range were watching and said it looked like a problem with the magazine. (It was the California-mandated 10/30 magazine.) There was some play in the magazine.
  2. Following the 1st day of shooting I tried to field strip and clean the rifle. Somewhere along the way, the lever retaining clip fell out. And then the both the trigger and hammer pins came lose from their seatings in the receiver, causing the hammer and trigger to come out of place. After several hours, I finally got both of them back in place. But both were pins were poorly seated, and dislodged several times, necessitating a whole lot of effort to get the hammer spring and pin back in place, along with the trigger spring and pin back in place (the latter being considerably easier.)
  3. The bolt action was not smooth, and stuck several times just manually pulling the bolt back. When I took the bolt and bolt carrier-gas piston assembly out, it seemed like the bolt would stick in the bolt carrier.
  4. It took a total of about 8 hours for me to get the rifle back together after my initial cleaning/field stripping. Much of this was because I didn't know much about rifle cleaning and breakdown. But it was also due to the lever, trigger, and hammer pins being so poorly seated that they fell out while I tried to clean it.
  5. The 2nd time I took it to the range it again jammed frequently, and at one point the trigger stopped working because the retaining pin on the assembly fell out on the ground. Having wrestled with this rifle for several hours already, I was now familiar with how to get the pin back in. Thus, I broke it down on the range, put the pin back in, and resumed shooting.
  6. On my next reloading, I picked the rifle up to fire, and the trigger wasn't there! I mean there was NO trigger in the rifle. It had fallen out on the ground, along with the retaining pin.
  7. I finally did find the triggher (and the retaining pin), broke the gun down, and reassembled it on the range. I resumed firing, and made sure I laid the gun down on the opposite side of the bolt lever, to keep the pins from falling out again.
  8. After this 2nd round at the range, I bought a new 10-round polymer magazine, which fit the rifle without any play--unlike the used metal 10/30 magazine I'd used previously.
  9. Prior to my 3rd trip to the range, I taped over the large end of the retaining pins for the trigger and hammer to keep them from falling out.
  10. On my 3rd trip to the range, though the bolt action still appeared rough, the 1st round jamming that I'd previously been experiencing was resolve. At least initially.
  11. Then I had some intermittent trouble with bolt sticking when I tried to pull it back. I continued firing when I could get the bolt back.
  12. And then on the 3rd or 4th round of a clip, a round exploded in the chamber--blowing the dust cover off and over my shoulder and blowing out the bottom of the new polymer magazine.
  13. And the bolt carrier-gas piston assembly remained jammed into the gas chamber. I couldn't tell if there was still a live round in the chamber or not. I got the guys at the range to help me hammer the bolt back out of the chamber with the gun pointed downrange just in case a live round was still chambered.
  14. There was no live round in the chamber, but there was part of a casing jammed inside another casing in the chamber. One of the rivets on the right side holding the front trunion to the receiver was gone. I don't know whether it was blown out on the misfire or if it was already missing. The other right-side rivet was beginning to come loose.
  15. I don't know for certain what happened, but I can guess. Apparently a spent cartridge did not eject, another live round was partially chambered (posterior to where it should have been), and fired through the non-ejected casing.
  16. I stopped firing after that and took the gun home. Though I took it apart, cleaned it, and reassemble it--the bolt and bolt carrier could not be made to function. When reassembled and bolted back, the bolt-carrier piston assembly jams into the gas chamber and does not come out.
  17. I can hammer it out, but that really doesn't fix the problem, as it just rejams again on the next bolt-back.
  18. After 3 trips to the range, and roughly 350 rounds fired, by brand new Century GP 1975 is non-functional.
Again, I think your description of "firing-out-of-battery" is what happened.

I'll be getting another AK-type rifle. When I do get it, I'll look closer at all the parts you described. I don't want to have the same thing happen again.

Thanks again for the explanation.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top