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New draco... she's picky about her ammo!


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Well, I just got a new draco from J&G. She looks perty, had a bit of rust in the bolt but fit and finish is great.. Overall very happy

I noticed how nice and tight the mags sat.. went to stick a tapco in and realized it didn't fit.. Didn't bother me, I prefer the steel mags.. So I dropped it a metal surplus and pulled back the handle, let it go, and it got stuck barely out of being fully forward (half an inch out). I had to knock it back with a hammer. So I looked at it, pulled the gas tube off and made sure the piston wasn't catching the gas block, same problem. So I took out the bolt from another romanian ak-47 and stuck it in.. same problem. I grabbed a mag that had wolf ammo in it (instead of the china sports norinco ammo I was using) and it caught just a bit before close and since then has hand cycled beautifully with wolf ammo.. Just not with the norinco stuff. So I tried the norinco in the other AK and no problems.

 

Long story short- Norinco China Sports ammo will stop as the bolt is about half an inch from fully forward- I can beat the charging handle with a hammer and it will chamber, but requires another hit to pull the handle back again.

On the other hand wolf cycles perfectly.

 

Whats up?

 

Secondly on the barrel turion after the Cugir emblem it says 1968 followed by the serial number. Probably a dumb question, but is that the made in year?

 

Thanks for any input

Edited by volkov
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You must have a Draco C. The 1968 was the year the original gun was made that was then used to build your Draco. I just bought one yesterday, & it's also 1968. The earlier Draco's had no date because they were made from new parts, but my gun's parts look like new & are all #'s matching. Does your gun have matching #'s? Hope it works well for you. Some Draco owners say they need to be shot to break them in, & then they're OK. GARY N4KVE

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took her to the range today.. couple fail to feeds but after 300 rounds was noticing improvement. Probably still 1-2 failures per 30 rounds

 

Failures were either the bolt would come fully forward without catching any rounds or it would come forward and the round would be stuck at an angle entering the chamber. Most unreliable AK I've owned.

 

 

 

Having said that, it was a blast to shoot. I just need to fix whatevers wrong.

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Shoot the shit out of it. Should get loose after a couple hundred rounds and and a few cleanings. Hang in there.

Nothing like coming home from a mind numbing day and lock in a 75 rd drum, ear plugs, and 5 torso targets

set up. It will turn the frown upside down in seconds. Just like an apple a day.

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When I first read this thread, I decided to hand cycle some Bulgarian ammo through my Draco using a great looking Chinese mag. The first bullet feeding from the left side of the mag fed fine. I yanked the cocking lever back, & the bullet flew, but with the 2nd bullet, the bolt carrier got stuck 1/2" from all the way forward. A quick hit with the wooden handle of a hammer pushed the carrier back. I repeated this tonight, & the same thing happened. CRAP I thought. So I removed the Bulgy ammo from the Chinese mag, & loaded it into one of the 2 Euro mags that came with the gun. Now I was able to easily hand cycle 5 bullets w/o a jam. That Chinese mag looked mint, but I have never fired ammo from it. I gotta get this gun to the range. By the way my ser # is 1968 B 120xx. Is yours close to that? Also I noticed where the bullet feeds into the chamber there is a slight ramp on the barrel to help the bullet get in there. Do the Draco's & Draco C's both have this ramp? GARY N4KVE

Edited by N4KVE
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My draco's serial is 1968 BH 26xx.

 

On the norinco ammo-

I didn't try a different mag- loading a norinco round without a mag produces the same result when it comes to sticking (although my lancaster, built on a romy kit has no issues). I'm also limitted to surplus steel mags since the tapco and some bulgarian polymer mag I have will not fit.

 

On the FTF on the other ammo-

Hand cycling is not a problem whatsoever, but actually firing it causes several jams with the bolt pushing the bullet without clamping it in the extractor claw and the bullet tip sticks on the top of the chamber. This MAY be a feed ramp issue- and my lancaster did the same thing initially and took 1000+ rounds to overcome it fully (none of my saigas or saiga's I've converted have ever had this issue). 300 down the draco now and more to come for sure. I may try polishing the feed ramp.

 

 

 

 

It's just frustrating- I've seen videos of AKs buried for 18 years covered in rust function flawlessly, and my draco (cleaned carefully before the first range trip) fails on 1/15. I'd find that unacceptable in an AR, let alone an AK.

 

But whitetrash is right- more rounds have helped, initially it was a 1/6 jam... and it's still fun as anything to shoot. I love it to death but as an AK enthusiast I find failure to be unacceptable. The fireballs are amazing, the recoil is ryhtmic, and the accuracy is superb for what it is (at least based on my expectations giving some peoples critisism).

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  • 2 weeks later...

bumping my own thread just to ask if I should be worried about the non-chambering issue.. I'll have a picture up in a couple of days. Actually ran a few searches and I can't really find any info on this particular problem. Again the problem is with certain ammo (norinco) the round sticks a few centimeters out of chamber and by sticks I mean it won't move forward or back (without the assistance of a hammer, which will either chamber or extract the round depending on the direction). I have not attempted to fire it having smacked it into chamber. I have only actually fired wolf and Uly ammo (which loads successfully with the above error occuring 1 in 300 with this ammo)

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The machine tools in making your Draco may have been on the lower end of it's life span where the chamber could be on the tight side of its tolerance.

The ammo may just be on the larger side of its tolerance and you have, with this ammo, everything lining up to make what is happening, happen.

Just a guess. With the taper on the chamber and on the round it may not be so easy to get a consistant #. Like I said before maybe have it checked at the

Gun Smith with the chamber ream if you suspect the chamber is undersize.

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alright, the story gets stranger.

 

Didn't mention I was in the UK for two weeks (I don't like publicly broadcasting that I'm out of town). But I got back yesterday and decided to cycle a few, have a look at the cartridges.. see what I could figure out...

 

 

I'm both happy and extremely confused to report it now cycles the ammo in question.. Hand cycled a little over 35 rounds through it with only 4 failing to enter the chamber.. Also had one or two that entered the chamber, but the bolt stuck forward and needed a sharp wack to drive it back out.

 

Really confused now.. So the story is, I get a new draco, have serious issues that day after I get it (put it through a thorough cleaning). Take it home, clean it thoroughly again, problems continue during hand cycling, I leave town for two weeks and its improved drastically..

 

 

What the shit is going on?

 

gonna lightly polish the feedramp today and hopefully get to the range this weekend.

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  • 2 weeks later...

last update since I've learned I'm not the only one with these problems.

 

- as I said, the ammo not chambering (appearing to get stuck just out of being fully chambered, certain makes of ammo only) literally just stopped being an issue after the gun sat for 2 weeks.. Is it possible it was the extractor being rusty and a good clean/ cycle fixed it? (the extractor WAS rusty when I got the gun and I couldn't remove the pin to fully clean it, but I'm not sure if this is logical for causing the problem)

 

 

- as for the other feeding problem (bullets coming out of the mag at an angle and not entering the chamber at all) it also has been resolved. I polished the feed ramp LIGHTLY (both bullet guide area and barrel) with wet sand paper and honestly could see or feel no difference from before I started, but having put a 180 rounds down range for verification the problem is resolved.

 

Interesting point though on the draco- it's barrel feed ramp seems to be at about half the angle of the other ak's I have and about half as wide. I had thought this was the problem and that I'd need to have a professional fix it, but some light sanding and it works fine. (There was no visible change to the structure of the feed ramp, I just took some wet sand paper and wrapped it around a pencils eraser and rubbed it for about 15 minutes.)Please keep in mind I do not in any way encourage anyone to change the profile of any part of the feed system, if your going to do anything serious have a professional do it.

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