It's finally finished....

[jbanzai 113]

....as finished as it's gonna be anyway. Just gotta find my cleaning rod.

 

 

I'm gonna let this one acheive beater status as it's a little too imperfect to try and make pretty. After much fretting, drilling and pinning the barrel components was easy will a drill press.

 

What I didn't anticipate was how off the sights were even if the FSB was straight. After the FSB came off during test firing, I decided to leave it alone since I verified it could cycle fine. I've only had one rifle that didn't need adjusting right out of the box anyway....an SGL.

 

I had to raise the post almost to the height of the ears and I had to push the sight barrel all the way to the right so it was flush with the FSB to be on at 100 yards. If I had indexed the FSB to compensate for some of it, it would have looked very obviously canted.

 

The RSB is canted to the left, but I don't know how much this would have effected POI and the FSB. I was using tech sights before and I did have the rear windage pretty far to the left and never paid attention to the RSB.

 

Since it is on at 100yds, I'm not gonna bother with driving out the pins and correcting the FSB (I think its straight already anyway). It would probably look worse with canted sights than the barrel pushed all the way to one side anyway.

 

The components were far from perfect too. Not only were they beaten all to hell, it looks like they were machined poorly too. The lugs on the bottom of them are not level like others I'm saving. The FSB has the slightest gap on the right side of it. It seems a little of the gases may even be getting through as the right side of the barrel had fouling after shooting. The plunger pin on the FSB was seriously off center too.

[TheDarkHorse 216]

I like it.

[thebuns1 4,323]

I like it too! Is this the first one you did with the front end? They do get easier. Id say you learned a lot about what to do vs. what not to do. I think it looks good.

 

I plan on using mine as a beater too. I havent zeroed mine in yet, but if I have to shift my FSB some then I will. It shouldnt take much movement of the FSB to get the post back closer to center.

 

I like it dude.

[thebuns1 4,323]

One thing you could do to remedy the sight post issue without having to fight with your looser FSB again, is to put an adjustable rear sight leaf on.

[jbanzai 113]

thanks guys

 

Yeah, I definitely learned some valueable lessons here. I say I won't bother with the FSB, but that's probably just because I want it to be done. I'll probably mess with it in the future. I swear the FSB is slightly canted to the right already. I'm afraid it'll look seriously off if I push the FSB that way further. Plus, I used soft nails to pin it in there, so driving them out would be tedious and probably involve drilling them out.

 

I'm wondering if I got a vodka special but never knew it since I went straight to tech sights when I first got it.

 

One thing you could do to remedy the sight post issue without having to fight with your looser FSB again, is to put an adjustable rear sight leaf on.

yeah...I'm gonna look into my options here first....maybe even just say 'fuck it' and leave it as is since it's zeroed at 100....for now at least

[su16a 84]

Nice!

[thebuns1 4,323]

I like the ribbed dust cover you chose. I have one on my .223. I think they complement the waffle mags really well. And if you already got it zeroed, then fuck it. Its good to have options. Ive learned that sometimes my beaters turn into some of the best AK's Ive owned, and Ive regretted gettig rid of everyone of them.

[mancat 2,368]

It can be a pain in the ass to line up the FSB right. I tried all of the tricks including the string trick, laser level, etc. and none of it was any good IMO. I ended up using a digital caliper and straightedge to align the FSB with the RSB. If you ever decide to re-do it, let me know and I'll break it down. However it won't help if the FSB is machined wrong or if the drum channel is drilled crooked.

 

Also my FSB/brake is tight as hell, out of a matching parts kit, and gas still gets through the threads. I doubt anything is wrong with yours.

 

I even find that gas gets through the gas block and barrel on several of AKs. Of course this eventually means they seal themselves up, but if I clean them real good, it comes back.

 

Any way it looks great. And yeah I like the ribbed cover on these too. I like the classic AK-74 look, and the ribbed cover is a bit more old school vs. the smooth cover of the AK-100 series. The ribbed cover also shows less "case smack" than the smooth cover does.

Edited September 26, 2012 by mancat

[canoecanoe 63]

Looks good. Congratulations on the fruits of your labor.

[liberty -r- death 1,445]

Nice looking Saiga. I have been tempted to do the same, but there are so many other things that I want to spend the saem money on.

 

I see knees in the photo, but not the obligatory sokced foot. Can you reshoot that photo with a socked foot?

Edited September 26, 2012 by liberty -r- death

[jbanzai 113]

It can be a pain in the ass to line up the FSB right. I tried all of the tricks including the string trick, laser level, etc. and none of it was any good IMO. I ended up using a digital caliper and straightedge to align the FSB with the RSB. If you ever decide to re-do it, let me know and I'll break it down. However it won't help if the FSB is machined wrong or if the drum channel is drilled crooked.

String, level, sleep on it and look again. I tried it all, and it looks straight still with a slight leaning to the right. The entire sight tower looks a little off...like it got torqued to the right by getting run over by a tank. I don't know know how much of this is reality and how much is my imagination. After you stare at something so long, you start to lose perspective especially as dinged up as these parts were.

 

This is from a very used parts kit and the drum was centered and the sight post was at a normal height, so it must have worked for someone. Even if I'm wrong about the FSB being straight raising the post that much doesn't seem right.

 

I may take you up on your walk through for straightening it out with calipers and straightedge. The string method is seriously lacking.

 

 

ETA: I gotta blame my shooting a bit here too. I shoot left handed, and have a tendency to shoot to the right. All my rifles have front windage adjusted a little to the right, or the rear to the left. Never this much though.

Edited September 27, 2012 by jbanzai

[vulcan16 971]

Looks good.