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Anyone Replace Their Piston?


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All AK pistons are threaded, but are secured semi-permanently by various means.

 

The Saiga factory piston is held in place by a pressed dimple. You would need to drill the dimple out, thread out the factory piston, install new piston, and secure it. You could probably drill the Saiga carrier to accept a normal AK piston pin, which is a tapered head pin. Some people also braise the piston in place. You may also be able to stake the piston threads in place with several well-placed staking strikes, but I don't know that this is a common practice by anyone.

 

Hopefully you ordered an AK-74 piston. The AK-74 and AKM/AK-47 pistons are slightly different lengths.

Edited by mancat
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http://www.amazon.com/Tapco-Ak-47-saiga-Gas-Piston/dp/B002WJ8DEC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355469319&sr=8-1&keywords=tapco+piston

 

I ordered this one.

I read somewhere that someone just drilled out the dimples then threaded the new one in without securing it, and didn't have any issues.

I'm just worried about the possibility of serious damage if done incorrectly. Seems pretty straight forward but you never know. I need to do this for 922r cause I dont mind the factory hand guard and I'm putting off doing a conversion.

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Well someone else on the review page says they used that piston on a Saiga .223, so you may be in luck. I don't know that I would trust Loctite to keep it from threading out, though the reviewer appears to have used it.

 

I read up on the Tapco piston and found that it does not appear to have the proper hole through the threaded area for a piston pin. I guess this means you'll need to secure it another way than pinning.

 

You really do need to secure the piston. Otherwise it wouldn't be part of the original design.

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When you drill out the dimples in the carrier to remove the factory piston. thread the new one in and use those holes for a guide to drill a pin hole through new piston. You dont need to get all high speed looking for a hardened pin, roll pin or drill bit to use for a pin. A simple finish nail will suffice, cut to leave some leight to peen the ends over and grind or file them flush to the contour of the carrier. The factory pins used to do this same job, beforee they were press dimpled, were of soft metal and easy to drill out. I've alwayed just used the nail method.

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