10 replies to this topic

[lelandEOD]

I did this rifle for a customer. I think it came out nice enough to share. This was the first 5.56 Saiga I've built and it shoots so nice, I may have to go pick one up for myself now.

(Before anyone starts in on me, he didn't want to spend the extra time/money for me to fill in the dot matrix importer obliteration on the receiver so it stayed.)

He also asked for tactical black Duracoat which I applied over fresh mangenese parkerizing. It basically looks damn near like parkerizing if you ask me. It's nice but shows the most minor scuffs pretty bad. If I rake my fingernails over it... it leaves a scratch. He wants to use an optic on it so he went with the MI railed hand guard instead of the AK-100 furniture. Anyway, all the holes were TIG welded and all factory AK parts used (minus the obvious) in the conversion.

I found the Tapco mag to be very wobbly in the Saiga. I was very surprised to see it cycled fine when I test fired it. Is this normal for the Tapco Galil mags?

One thing I'm also proud of is that I took all the parts that are usually numbered on military contract rifles and stamped the serial number into them. The top cover, selector, gas tube, recoil spring and extractor all got marked.

Edited by lelandEOD, 25 September 2012 - 09:30 PM.

[smeeg]

beautiful work

[mancat]

Looks great man. Importer mark looks fine, most of it gone with the stock latch. Nice to see a triangle folder .223 as not many here go to those lengths. I think it's cool that you stamped the serial on the parts.

The Tapco Galil mags work fairly well despite their lack of metal supports and IMO ugly appearance. Tapco started making 7.62x39 magazines that clone combloc design, and hopefully they start producing these in .223.

I had the same problem with Duplicolor DE1634. After baking, it came out looking like parkerizing. It was really tough and I couldn't scratch it off, but the scratches would show on the top finish as glossy marks. I used DE1635 instead which is a higher gloss and doesn't show the scuffs.

Also you should have your pal pull out those axis pins and hit them with some solvent to get the weak paint off of them. Izhmash paints them for some reason on the Saiga line, but they are usually grey phosphate on their military rifles.

Edited by mancat, 09 May 2012 - 04:11 PM.

[GunFun]

Looks good other than the junk bolted to the trigger guard. I hope it seldom sees the inside of a safe.

[Sgt. Raven]

Very good AKS-74-looking rifle: classic lines with practical modern spin.
Nice job on folder hardware integration.
(Make your friend hate it, and then put it up for sale here, lol!).

Is it a mag release lock?
Hope you're not in Commiefornia (no offense to anyone: I lived there).

Edited by Sgt. Raven, 09 May 2012 - 06:08 PM.

[lelandEOD]

I live in California for another 600 hours. We are moving to Nevada in less than a month. I think Mancat's got a point too. I sure wish I had thought of parking those axis pins when I had the tank out. Not worth the trouble now, but a good detail to remember for the next build.

Looks good other than the junk bolted to the trigger guard. I hope it seldom sees the inside of a safe.

Also, you want to talk about really sad??? I had to pin the folding mechanism on that stock. I spend over 4 hours installing a folding stock only to pin it open.

Sad.

[GunFun]

very. I am surprised you would go to all that effort to install something you can't use.

You can un-paint the pins with a q-tip, MEK and a steady hand. Probably would be smart to tape off the near by areas.

[lelandEOD]

Well, I go through all the trouble on my personal rifles because KA was never a permanent thing and I will be un-pinning them literally within minutes of crossing the state line. The one I built for a friend... well, that's his business. If he takes it out of state to shoot, all he needs is a phillips screw driver and 15 seconds to make it fold.

[Dad2142Dad]

Glad you and your tools will finally be free

[Pyzik]

Also, you want to talk about really sad??? I had to pin the folding mechanism on that stock. I spend over 4 hours installing a folding stock only to pin it open.

Sad.

Wow.

The rifle looks very nice though. And congrats on making your escape Kali.

[liberty -r- death]

Nice!