AK Side Rail Issues...Need advice

[Jpanzer 1,265]

Thought I would post this on the forum where I actually respect the opinions of most of you guys.

 

Little history... had this rifle for about 6 years, shoots good with irons always been a reliable weapon, but never been able to zero a red dot with it. After a couple hundred rounds through it when it was a new the side rail began to wiggle a bit. Not real loose, but loose enough to move about a bit.

 

Took it to a gunsmith well known locally for working on AR's and pistols, thinking he could handle a couple of loose rivets. Got it back, and again, after shooting a while the play returned. Finally, I decided to peen the rivet head down as best as I could, and now the rail is holding fast. However measurement with digital calipers shows the rail isn't level, whether it was like this all along or only after I re-set the rivets I don't know:

 

 

The pic shows it clearly, there is now a downward cant to the rail, which kinda explains my zero issues.

 

I have two options....I would like to get the rail corrected, which I hope would be a simple re-rivet job. If worse case, the holes are wrong and the job would require re-welding old holes, drilling new ones, and re-bluing the receiver, I will just get a Texas Dog leg top cover rail and install it on the rifle.

 

My questions are do yall think its just the crappy rivet job causing the problem, and if so, anyone know a good gunsmith in the Atlanta metro area who can fix a AK or at least tell me one way or another? Or would I be better served just installing the Texas Dog Leg rail?

 

 

Could Cobra, or maybe any other of you Saiga guys in the South East handle this job at a fair price?

Edited July 30, 2014 by Jpanzer

[storm6490 2,768]

what "red dot" did you use. Ever use an optic? Shouldn't be that big of a deal if you zero your optic for 100 meters. you will still hit center mass of a body at close range. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Enjoy it open sights and dont dump more money into it. filling and drilling again will only make your receiver weaker. How often will you use the side mount for optics. If you want to use US optics then just rail the cover. Maybe go on the cheap and grind that fucker off and fill it. Don't remount it.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Stryker0946

[Spartacus 1,619]

IMO, I think you fixed it.

 

As long as the rail is solid and quit moving around, NOW you should be able to zero your optic.

The slight cant is irrelevant.

[jimdigriz 580]

I have one with a canted rail. Zeroes fine with my red dot.

[Spacehog 2,218]

Agreed. The cant should not affect your zero if the mount is solid now and not moving. Have you tried re-zeroing and shooting with it for a while since you have peened the side rail? You may find that everything is good. If not, I would go with the TWS dogleg before I spent the money to weld, drill, and re-rivet. I don't think you will find someone to do that for less than $130, which is what the Dogleg will set you back.

[Jpanzer 1,265]

Tried it with a old Kobra I used to have and with my Vortex Strikefire on a old RS AKM mount. Went through the entire range of adjustment on the Vortex and never could get the damn dot centered. Not trying to co-witness, just trying to zero it. Could never get the dot to lower far enough to match the POI.

 

Gotta be the rail cant causing this, don't know what else it could be...

[Spacehog 2,218]

I wouldn't have thought you would have run out of adjustment at 100 yards even with the cant, but I am finding it hard to argue with your logic. It would be my suspicion too. If you are curious about the TWS dogleg route, I can highly recommend the product. I have it on my Saiga with a PA red dot, and it has performed admirably.

[thebuns1 4,323]

Did you have the optics in the middle of its range of adjustment? I wouldn't have thought that little bit would throw it off that much. How close were you able to get it? I don't know if a new rivet would give you the movement your rail needs. How loose was it prior?

[Spacehog 2,218]

Just out of curiosity, have you tried a different slide on mount? I know RS makes a quality product, but it would be worth double checking it with a different mount just to eliminate it as a source of the problem.

[mancat 2,368]

Who is the manufacturer of the receiver?

 

There is also the possibility that the receiver is weak, possibly not fully heat-treated, and the rivets are wallowing out the drilled holes in the receiver. In that case it doesn't matter if the rail is level, because it might simply work itself loose again.

 

Not even sure what type of rail that is.. Does not look Bulgarian, Russian, or Romanian.

Edited July 31, 2014 by mancat

[HB of CJ 1,263]

The rail will never be square with the receiver. The receiver is not square either. Neither is the barrel aligned exactly with the receiver. You will have to remove, shim and re-align your factory side rail. No big deal. A fun afternoon project. Maybe half a day.

 

Easy and fun to do. I did this with Betty Bucker and Maxinne Maxblast. Drill out the rivets and remove the rail. Go down to the auto parts store and buy a cheap stainless steel automotive valve adjustment tool. These look like a weird Swiss Army knife with many blades.

 

Get a laser bore sighter. Attach the scope mount to your scope and both to the detached receiver rail. C clamp hard all to your receiver. Be sure to first exactly zero your scope up and down and right to left first. This makes it easier to adjust later. Lock it all down.

 

Eye ball where your scope is pointing vs where the chamber laser is zapping. There will be a tremendous error. On both of mine, the laser was pointing at the sky and the scope looking at the moon. That bad. Way off. It is normal. Russian AK products.

 

Use a bench rest doing this. Then using fun 8th grade math, figure out how much you will have to shim the receiver side scope mount rail both up and down and left to right. Cut out small pieces, (not too small) of the aforementioned valve adjustment shims.

 

You want to bore out or elongate the holes in the receiver rail and NOT the receiver. The center hole can be left alone. You can use the needed short nuts and bolts then to hold down the rail tightly. I use hex bolts and nuts. No problem. Have not shot loose....yet.

 

Shim it up. I cut holes in the shims soss they would be captive by the replacement bolts, nut, lock washers and blue Loctite that now bolts the scope mount rail to the receiver side. Get it very very close with the scope adjustments zeroed. That is it.

 

Once done and done correctly, your receiver side rail scope mount will be exactly zeroed with your scope also almost exactly zeroed. Also you can swap scopes and stuff and still have the new scope be very close to perfect. Another fun afternoon project for sure.

 

Hope this helps kinda maybe perhaps. HB of CJ (old coot) (lousy at math)

[Cobra 76 two 2,677]

When you want to really tighten up a rivet it actually needs more than just peening. Peening is only capping the end. A steel rivet when bucked properly will also expand within the holes in the middle and fill all the voids. That's why if you grind the head off a factory rivet during the conversion it is still difficult to drive the shank out of the hole. The center has expanded so tight inside the hole it's better than a weld. Well that's my opinion anyway and I'm sticking to it. Master K did not weld anything on these babies besides spot welding the rails into the receiver.

 

YMMV and all that shiot lol.

[Jpanzer 1,265]

Did you have the optics in the middle of its range of adjustment? I wouldn't have thought that little bit would throw it off that much. How close were you able to get it? I don't know if a new rivet would give you the movement your rail needs. How loose was it prior?

Last trip to the range with it I started at 10' with a B27 silhouette target to simply get on the paper as a starting point. I was hitting square in the chest with the red dot sitting in the middle of the targets head. Thats a good 17" off at a ten foot distance! And the dot is at the bottom of it's adjustment and cannot be lowered any further.

 

Naturally, that far off at 10' is gonna mean a clean miss and any other distances one usually uses a rifle for. Previously I had tried starting at 25 and 50 yards and missed the paper entirely! Removed the optic, use the irons, and I am back on target at those distances . 

 

Tried this same optic and mount setup on my 74 and the dot sits right on top the front post, just as it should. I'm tempted to say screw it and buy the Texas Dog Leg. Only reason I haven't is this is a clone of the East German Weiger, and I have wanted to keep it close appearance wise to the rifle it's based on.

 

The rifle is the STG 2000c, made by IO Inc. several years ago. Always been a good shooter and other than the optics rail I've never had any other issues with it.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Jpanzer

[storm6490 2,768]

well, if the rail is pressed with a few tons and won't move anymore, you need to find an alternative mount that will work with the offset and angle of your vortex that was designed for dead nuts level mounts on AR platforms.

 

put some collimator of the surplus variety on it and see if it will work on that rifle. looks like you are trying to keep your rifle as close to original as possible so might as well trash that vortex piece of shit.

 

just kidding, im very opinionated on optics. its an ok unit. i just hate vortex and night force because people think they are the best and have never used the best.

[SGL 530]

Check the other holes in your receiver,  like your hammer and trigger pins.   They should be perfectly round, but IO rifles have inconsistent heat treating on receivers from gun to gun.  Some of them are fine, but if you see any egg shape to the holes,  you'll know that it's the heat treat on the receiver and nothing you do to that rail is going to solve it.   I hope this isn't the case, but it's worth checking.

[G O B 3,516]

 Knock out front 2 rivets, align rail to receiver top rails. Clamp tightly, ream front 2 holes, recheck alignment - rerivet!

[Jpanzer 1,265]

 Knock out front 2 rivets, align rail to receiver top rails. Clamp tightly, ream front 2 holes, recheck alignment - rerivet!

Sounds simple enough! Alas. when it comes to drilling my receiver I would rather let someone with some experience tackle that job.

 

Which leads me to ask, does anyone know of a competent gunsmith in the metro Atlanta area with experience working on AK's? I've heard of a guy named Bill Hayllar who is supposed to be good with AK's, but have no firsthand experience with him. You Georgia guys know any others you would trust working on your AK?

Edited August 1, 2014 by Jpanzer

[IndyArms 10,186]

I have a PSL with a sight rail so far out, it is impossible to mount a PSOP optic on the rifle...  We are talking  FEET at 100 yards...  not a matter of inches!!!!

 

Unless that side rail is removed, and reattached straight, its junk with a POSP, so its not unlikely you willhave impact issues with yours as well.

 

If I BOTHERED to get an adjustable side rail MOUNT, I could mount a traditional optic, and adjust. Just never felt like it... 

 

 

Good luck!

 

[Cobra 76 two 2,677]

Exactly Indy. Some of these bitches are just so far outa spec it's laughable. On one rifle I have (I think it was the .308 maybe...) I was just barely able to zero at 100 by shimming the fuck out of my rings AND doing some side rail mount adjustments and that was with a true Russian mount.

 

 Panzer bud GOB hit it on the head. Only way to fix it right is to move the holes and rivet again.

[Cobra 76 two 2,677]

Hey bro I am about to reattach the siderail to a Saiga 12 I bought that it was removed from. I decided to film this short clip first just to give you an idea how much play is possible with the factory holes in the rail and receiver, using standard steel AK rivets. This should at least give you some idea of how much room there is for error / adjustment in one.

 

[thebuns1 4,323]

Cool vid Shannon!

[Jpanzer 1,265]

Hey Shannon, thanks a lot! Great vid. You know, I don't believe my side rail is crazy out of spec, if there is that much wiggle room hopefully a decent smith can adjust it to align correctly. Thanks for taking the time to show me that buddy!!  

[Cobra 76 two 2,677]

Yeah man you should be able to just remove the center and either end rivet, or ....actually the two end rivets would really be easier on whoever has to rivet it back on.. This is because that center one is recessed in there and is harder to get to with some rivet tools. With a small air rivet gun it won't matter but the bolt cutter type like I have is a bitch on that one and I'm gonna have to make a spacer for this one. Anyway, there should then be enough play to level it up using the top edge of receiver as a guide, clamp the shit out of it to keep it there, and with your two rivets already sitting in the holes crush those bad boys.

 Edit to add though>>> You will need to remove at least two because they expand inside the holes and fill the entire void. It won't be possible to just "drive" it over...

[G O B 3,516]

I would leave the rear rivit alone and do the front 2. The rear rivet is not a standard length, it is longer than most. You MAY be able to move the sight base by using a flat punch and knocking the front into alignment and re-setting the front 2 rivets. There just might be enough wiggle room to do this without removing the rivets.