[mike26038]

Well almost anyways..

I was building a Bulgy 74 on a OOW receiver.. Well let me tell you this wasn't as easy as I thought..

Yesterday I located and drilled the front trunnion holes. The I used Naval Jelly to sort of etch the receiver for paint..

Then I painted with Low Gloss Black Duplicolor from the auto parts store, $3.99, Then I baked it in the oven at 300 for 2 hours(it didn't stink the house up like I thought it would), It turned out great.. The paint matched close to the parts kit, not exact but really close..

I painted just the receiver as a test to see how it would turn out if I didn't refinish the whole rifle...

Well that was the easy part...

Today, I used plinker762's rivet jig.. The jig works pretty good, only it takes a while to set everything up..

I did the countersunk rivets first and all was going very well until...I moved to the center front trunnion rivets.. The anvil in the press arm was too big to properly squeeze the center rivets and I ended up pushing trunnion and receiver into the bucking blocks, I put two small dents in the rec but I can live with it, they are hard to notice...oh well, this was a learning build..

Next I pressed on the bbl, with Xebec's press block set, all went great here, had a little trouble getting the cross pin back... No biggie..

Next I located the holes for the rear trunnion, now this is were things turned to shit...

I got the cross rivet hole off, buggerd up the receiver a little.. I fixed it and mostly it is finish damage now...

The only thing, with the rear trunnion in place, and not riveted the carrier went in and operated smooth.. Now that I squashed the rivets, it is tight to get in and operate..

Question, is it ok to file the top rails down a little??

I think when it set the rivets in the rear, it pulled the receiver a little tight and that is what the carrier is hanging on....

The only other thing I have left to do is fit the saftey, I just don't have the energy today.. Been working on this since 9am...


Thanks for all your help, I hope my next build goes better.....

 

[Kevin_M4]

Looks fabulous!! Great job!

 

[mike26038]

testfired today..

It finally stoped raining for awhile today, so I packed up and headed for the woods with my new home build.


I can say I was a little nervous at first, because I broke a major rule, and used a unfired case to headspace since I am a little poor right now.. As a reminder I nore anyone else here condons such a act.. Allways use a headspace gauge to check...

Anyways..

I lashed this sucker to a tree, and tied a 30ft. piesce of string to the trigger. loaded 4 rounds, and got back...

Pow pow pow pow..

Went and inspected the gun, inspected the empties. There was no sing of swolen or ruptured cases, nothing wrong with the gun.. So I tooke her out of the tree..

Then I loaded afull 30 held it out at arms length and let her rip.. Inspected all the cases, looked over the gun.. No signs of trouble..

Then the fun began.. This Ak is pretty accurate, extremly low recoil, cyles faster than my Norinco... The RSA trigger is a dream...

Time for a little Bump-O-Rama.... This thing bump fires like a wet dream.. I dumped a whole mag in one string at about I would guess 800-900 RPM... Got to love that RSA group.. Thanks Ken!!!!

So in total I fired 210 rounds out of my creation without 1, I mean not 1 problem, no jams, FTF, FTE, nothing.. And that was with soft point ammo.All I have...

Then I came home, tore down the rifle, inspected everything to make sure nothing moved, and it did'nt.. The only thing I have to do is bend the selector lever a bit, It need to hold against the receiver a little tighter, its' easy to knock out of fire...

I am very proud of myself now as I have overcome the fear, and have built my firat AK.. So to all of you on the shelf about building so to speak, get off of it, If I can do it, anyone can.....

 

[Evil_Walks]

Looks good and sounds like it turned out great! Congratulations!

I've got a couple of kits I'm going to have built but I might just pick up a 7.62 kit to try on my own one of these days. Glad to hear your further praise of the RSA fcg, I've got one for my Bulgie 74 kit.

 

[hcpookie]

COOL!


Yes you should be able to file on the rails a little. My first '74 is a little tight as well, but I didn't bother doing anything about it. File slow, to keep the filed area smooth.

 

[mike26038]

You did a fine job. A country boy will survive, Way to go W.V. . See ya sat some time at Pitt. :rofl: :headspin:

Unfourtunately not, I guess were going on Friday now...Oh well, I'll have to come down and go shooting sometime...

 

[7.62x39]

Nice job Mike, that's a fine looking rifle.

 

[alpo]

Nice job. Looks good.