I just noticed that the SGL-10 uses an AK trunion shape, but with the extra trunion rivet (like a Saiga), so my Danzig guide will not work. Are you cutting down real AK bullet guides to fit and welding in place?

Never mind. That big pre-drilled hole threw me off (Ive never seen a trunion like that before). I riveted a modified Bulgarian BG in place tonight. Looks very nice.

FYI, Tony makes his own out of hardened bar stock.

Bob is correct, I make my own.

Keep in mind there are two different style trunions in the SGL-10 rifles. The cheaper rifles have the rounded trunion where the BG is riveted in place, and the more expensive ones have the .4" wide milled flat bottom channel at the BG position.

Tony

Mine has the Milled flat bottom channel with the pre-drilled hole. I dremelled a K-Var bulgarian BG to fit and put a rivet in. It worked perfect.

How did you "put a rivet in"? Any photos? Can you describe the method you used (in detail)? Riveting a bullet guide with the trunnion installed in a rifle is anything but trivial, so I'm curious to hear how you did it?

thanks-
Thirtycal

Well, that's interesting. That means that there are actually 3 versions, since neither of the two types that I have seen have any pre-drilled holes for the BG.

Tony

Yeah I'm curious how you bucked that rivet.

Tony, I had also never seen a trunion like this, thats why I posted, it left me scratching my head when it was time to put in the bullet guide. The pre-drilled hole is also quite large, too big to tap (the screw head would be too big to fit the contour of the bullet guide).

To rivet it in, Take off handguards, slip a piece of 3/8" thick x 1" wide steel bar between trunion and reciever (from the front). Set gun on flat metal surface and punch that rivet in from the top. It only took a minute. I got the idea from someone's post on the AKfiles.

Punch it in with what? A press? A hammer and punch? An air hammer?

Did you set the rivet into the hole from the top (meaning that the rivet head was pointing up?)

How long was the rivet?

Here's what I came up with (considerably more difficult, but it worked well and formed the correct heads on the bottom and top, and it didn't transfer any force through the receiver):







Basically I drilled a hole through the bottom of the receiver. This allowed me to stick a hardened pin thru the bottom of the receiver to act as a support for the bucking bar. This transferred the mechanical energy of the 20-ton press directly through the rivet and into the base of the press fixture. No pressure was applied to the bottom of the receiver. I then had to weld the hole closed.

I considered all sorts of strategies like the one you chose, which basically attempts to "fill the void" in between the bottom of the trunnion and the bottom of the receiver with some sort of bucking bar... The problem of course is that the "void" is not a simple rectangle - it's a parallelagram due to the fact that the receiver bottom is angled relative to the bottom of the trunnion. I'm still curious to see some photos of how your rivet turned out (both from the top and from the inside of the bottom).

There are other complications, here, such as the fact that the bullet guide is a concave surface, so I had to make a press ram with a matching convex surface to correctly 'squash' the rivet into the curved bullet guide.

Sorry but when folks post a simple one or two line description of setting a bullet guide rivet in a Saiga, it really gets me curious - and the method you described appears to have worked for you, but it seems like there's a bit of a risk for damaging the receiver and/ot getting bad squash on that rivet.

-Thirtycal

Has anyone tried to "form" a bullet ramp from some JB Weld or something and buff it out a bit? Would that work, or is my inherent lack of gunsmithing and tools just getting the best of me?

I just got a Saiga 7.62x39 after having Saiga-12s for years. I got all my romanian and bulgarian AK mags to fit, but the rounds still dive right under the chamber throat. I noticed that the rim on the front of the standard AK mag is cut out lower whereas the factory mags are level in front with sides of the front lips.

Click to view attachment

thirtyCal, your set up is much more elaberate than mine. I used a very tight fitting 3/8" bucking bar under the trunion with a metal wedge in the front section to take up the play. I used an air hammer to punch the rivet down from the top, the rivet head pointing up. I used the rivet that came with the bulgarian BG from K-var, and it fits perfectly (even in the flat channel), the rivet head sits nicely in the BG recess - almost like it was made for this trunion. It only took a minute.

Your right, there is a higher risk of doing damage to your gun or botching a rivet and needing to drill out and start over, but no damage was done to mine. I sanded and polished the rivet head a little with my dremel, then painted black to match the trunion and it looks excellent.

Another member sent me an email today, informing me that Dinzag now makes a BG for these pre-drilled trunions. I checked it out on his website, and it looks like its bolted through the hole with a small nut on the bottom of the trunion. If the nut does not get in the way of the cleaning rod end, I would use red lock-tite and go with that method next time. Mr. Dinzag thinks of everything.

http://www.dinzagarms.com/saiga_762x39/x39ftgr.html

Thanks Bob! better than words. I'll let you know how it turns out. Now all I have to do is convince my neighbor he needs his done first.

Ok, that's a good description. There's two key points here that are important. First, you actually used a two-peice bucking bar. One was a peice of flat stock, and the other was wedge shapped.

Secondly, you used an air hammer. With an air hammer, the forces applied to the rivet (and trunnion and receiver) are very different than the force applied with a 20-ton press. Your method hammers the rivet, whereas mine squashes the rivet. The use of an air hammer the key to your success here.

Thanks and I do believe that an air hammer is the best solution for riveting the bullet buide rivet. My setup (using a 20-ton press) is elaborate, but is necessary in order to deal with the application of the forces necessary to sqaush a rivet. If I had to do more of this, I would definitely look into using an air hammer rather than a press (for this rivet at least).

thanks and if you get a chance to post photos of your finished bullet guide, that would be cool.

-Thirtycal

I

I bought a K-var bullet guide, which looks like this:

I cut off the fancy part of the guide, with the ramp on the left and rounded the bottom of the guide to match my trunion, and shortened it a bit. I drilled the trunion.

For a bucking bar I used 2 plates.

The first plate is 1/4" thick (it's from a trigger guard rivetting kit), ground on the one end to go over the angled part of the receiver in front of the mag well to avoid crushing it.

The second plate is 1/8" thick placed on top of the first. This left a 1/16"space between the bottom of the trunion and the plates.

I then pressed the rivet from above. This shows the 2 plates, and the final result before touchup.



If I could do it over I'd drill it a bit further away from the breech to give myself more room to remove the head of the rivet. It came out OK but it's not as tidy as I would like. The part of the rivet nearest the breech I could not dremel, so I just smashed it flat by peening it.

Looks really good! Did you use a press or an air hammer?

-Thirtycal

HOLY SHIT hahahahaa

30 cal did an awesome job on his... the entire deal is on the ak forum.

You are too kind about it looking good, it is not pretty, that's for sure, but it is a more permanent solution than a screw.

I used my 12 ton press, moderate pressure, nothing excessive. The long rivet AK jig is not tall enough to do the job. I just stood the rivet tool (made out of a bolt for my AK rivet jig) up on the rivet and squished it. Of course you watch it real close to make sure it doesn't cut down hard on the guide, or you can break something. I was concerned about the bucking bar(s) not holding up, but it did just fine. No damage to the receiver. After pressing the rivet the bars like to stay in there, so I had to punch them out from inside the magwell (see those brass marks on the bar).