Tightening slop in Tapco Folder - My solution

[brownwood 11]

I am in the middle of my 1st Saiga conversion on a 16 barrel 7.62x39. I purchased a Tapco folder from this board and felt it was a little sloppy, a complaint I have heard here before. I tightened mine up considerably using WECSOG methods. Here's what I did:

 

1. I removed any looseness by adding metal shims held in place by small sheet metal screws. The main offender on my stock was the locking wedge where the stock locks into the butt. A little L shaped piece of metal fixed it nicely. The other offender wasy where the top of the stock does not touch the butt. A small tapped machine screw into the stock lets me adjust this so that the stock actually makes contatc with the butt when the stoc is extended. Your stock may be different, but jiggling it and observing it will show you what to do

 

2. The biggest gain came from replacing that plastic pivot pin with a metal one. I am not a machinist so i used a 2.5 inch 1/4 inch bolt and a 3/8 x 1.5 inch tension pin to fabricate a new metal pin. The bolt drops in from the top, allowing the stock to slide up and down on the unthreaded portion of the bolt. Then I drilled out the tension pin to 1/4 so the bolt will go through it (it's hardened metal and it was a pain). I then plopped the pin into my drill and plopped my drill in my vise. i turned the drill on and used a file to turn down the pin until it fit snugly in the stock, but so the stock would still move up and down. Then I cut the tension pin to length using the original pin as a guide. Then I turned down the base of the pin so it would press fit into the butt and not slide through. I blued the whole mess with cold blue.

 

Now I drop the bolt in from the top through the butt and the stock, I push the spring up into the stock and then push the tension pin up through the butt. Then I secured it at the bottom with the nut for the bolt and trimmed the bolt off snug with the nut. the result is a much tighter stock. Total cost was 3 bucks at Home Depot and about 45 minutes work.

[G O B 3,516]

Good job!

 

G O B

[vjor 2]

cool, nice rework of the stock.

[IndyArms 10,186]

It is WAY TOO BAD that you didnt take step by step photos of that... I know you were winging it by the seat of your pants as ya went... I know the deal...

 

But to make it work so nice, and to have a photo step by step, sort of thing, would be invaluable to those who have one and would like to do a similar tweak for themselves...

 

Excellent, idea, though!!!

 

 

[Cobra 76 two 2,677]

Good job man! Improvise, Adapt,...

Indy's right you should borrow a digital camera and snap a few pics of that. There are a lot of people who have those and are unhappy with them. I was going to try and make a metal hinge pin for mine too. That's where all the flex is coming from. Very big design flaw in an otherwise good product if you ask me. Tapco should do a recall on those. Mine fell over once on carpet and snapped that POS pin! At least they sent me a couple of backups when I asked for them. Their service is much better than some of their products. Thanks for reminding me about the drill = lathe trick! I'm going to fix that sucker now.

[brownwood 11]

I'll see what I can do about some pics. I'm digitally chalenged but maybe my sister inlaw can assist.

 

One final note. I ended up adding a small steel L bracket, trimmed to fit, to the bottom of the stock so that the lower part of the floder contacts it when it locks in place. This prevents the stock from flexing downward when you mount the rifle. Now I actually have to lightly slap the stcio to get it to lock in plave and slap it to unlock, but it is real tight. Again, I'll try to post some pics.