I needed to dimple some of the rivet holes so I took a ¼” grade 8 bolt, stuck it in a drill, then ground the end into a ball. Worked great!
Made a double ended, front trunion, bucking bar out of an old tie rod. One side for the upper rivets, one side for the magwell rivets. I’m trying to do this on the cheap so I didn’t use the mill, just a 4” angle grinder.
Here is the bucking bar in the vise.
Here’s a shot of three completed rivets. I think they look pretty damn good for my first build and never using an aircraft rivet gun before!
I did screw up on one of my rivets though, and am going to fix that ugly thing quick! I won’t even put you through seeing that ugly thing… totally my dumb fault…
Here’s a shot of the inside of those rivets. Those buggers are hard to get to look pretty, and as you can see… I failed at that. They’re below where they need to be at least.
I made a bucking bar plate out some ¼” scrap for the rear trunion rivets. I made this by heating it up to red hot with a torch, then pounding a rounded rod into it. The rounded rod was a long drill bit, cut off, then put in a drill and ground to a ball end. I forgot to get a pic of that tool, but you get the idea.
Again, wanted to see if this could be built on a budget so I didn’t use my press. Bought a 1.99 non hardened 24” all thread bolt, used a couple brass washers, and regular nuts and washers and set it up like this on the carrier:
Here’s another shot in the receiver:
I am shocked at how easy this was. I was fully expecting to break this rod but never did. I had a couple times it seemed to start to pull hard, but a couple light taps on the barrel end of the all thread, was enough to get it moving again. I think this would be easier to set up, than using my press. I’ll use this method again for sure.
After that, I lightly tapped in my barrel pin with a hammer and punch, checked the head space again, then got it ready to fire. Here is a picture of all the tools I used to build this rifle.
There are some tools not pictured though, those are:
1. Oxy/Acet torch for heating the flat bucking plate, and hardening the receiver.
2. 4” angle grinder with 40 grit flap disk.
3. ¼” grade 8 bolt, for dimpling the rivet holes (lost it…)
4. drill press and various bits, for drilling out old rivets.
5. air compressor.
6. kitchen stove for tempering the receiver.
Most of those tools are standard tools that most people already own. Here is a close up shot of the “specialty tools” that might need to be made or bought. The bending brake isn’t shown, and again… the ¼” grade 8 dimple bolt is either missing or has been stolen by garden gnomes.
After putting the rest of the parts back in, and doing some simple safety checks, I took it out back and shot it for the first time. I did a couple shots into the ground, checking the spent casings, then loaded up some more rounds and did a few more shots at a 30 yard target. This is about a 4” grouping of 8 shots. I’m happy with that I think.
Then I filled the mag and did a rapid fire mag dump at 30 yards as fast as I could pull the trigger. I hit the target 10 times out of 30… bad guy is still dead… That barrel gets hot!!
First time firing an AK and I think I’m in love.
I kept a running total of how much this rifle cost me to build even down to that stupid lost ¼” bolt for 69 cents. I have exactly $262.17 into parts for it. (the kit itself was $150.00)
As far as tools/jigs/and parts for building jigs, I have another $105.68 into them.
Now, I have a small metalworking shop so I have lots of scrap steel laying around, I also have access to drill presses, welders, 30 ton press, a mill and even a CNC plasma cutter, but I tried to do this as cheap as possible to see if it could be done. I did also have some fabrication help with this project, not because I needed it, It could have been done alone, but I was in a small accident and still need some help with certain things... I ended up buying my 4X rivet gun, but found a place in California that would rent me one for 20 bucks shipped, so that could save you some money right there! Because 86 bucks of that 105.68 for tools, was for that Ebay rivet gun.
I made the bucking bars out of a railroad spike and junk tie rod, so those are cheap. Yes, I made that big heavy bending brake, but that brake can be bought for 175.00 shipped, or even cheaper, you could buy a Nodak receiver for 55.00 plus the transfer fee. If you did want to go with a flat, but didn’t want to buy a spot welder, the Tapco flat with rails spot welded on, can be bought for 25 bucks from the same guy who sells that 175 dollar bending brake.
One thing I kept waiting for was all the problems I heard I would have, using Tapco rivets and flats. I did have one hole that I had to egg out just a touch, and I think the center support rivet could have been longer, but the rest of the rivets were perfect length, and I had extra! The flat bent up fine, everything lines up great, the action cycles smoothly and it shoots great. Not that I was expecting any, but I had no FTE or FTF so far, and I assume it will only get better the more I shoot it. I’d like to try the AKBuilder flats and rivets, but I hear they don’t have the locating holes that I’d need for my brake, so I’ll probably buy Tapco again.
Now I gotta take it apart, clean it, then put a finish on it.
