I finished my first build this weekend (almost, I still need to drill/rivet the new piston and finish pressing the barrel pin in), it's a 1972 non-G Romy from Apex (all matching numbers w/ a bore so shiny it looks brand new) on a NDS-3 receiver. I haven't scaled these yet, so have to link them for now:
full pic
Next to Yugo
Everything went pretty good, though I did have some problems getting the barrel lined up which I went into in another thread. The front rivets aren't great, but not horrible. The rear ones are a bit worse, they seemed to lean a bit while forming so aren't centered. I intended for this to be a learner, so I'm not going to let it bother me but I'd like to figure out what went wrong on those so I don't make the same mistake. I used AK-builder riveting jig & rivets w/ a HF 12T press. I'm thinking it wasn't exactly straight or not tightened down enough (just hand tightened). I did hear mentioned that some feel those long rivets are a bit too long and should be shortened a bit. Other ideas?
Front Left
Front Right
Rear Left
Other than the barrel, I did run into a couple other problems to deal with. The first was a rusted on barrel nut that sat below the pin. At first I thought I'd leave it on and use the US grip in the above photo, but yesterday I decided I really didn't like the grip and wanted to put the original bakelite back on, so spent some time w/ a can of wd-40 and a couple pairs of pliers and finally worked it off by wedging it past the pin for the first turn.
Last issue is one that I haven't solved yet. I tried manually cycling a few rounds (Wolf HP) and noticed that the tips were being deformed a bit from hitting the edge of the barrel. The last one in the magazine actually wedged between bolt & barrel edge, but it wasn't under full spring tension as I was trying to watch what was happening by that point. Looking at the picture labeled "Front Right" above, I thought the magazine may be riding too high in the back compared to my M70, but then I realized it's the magazine itself and the magazine I was looking at in the M70 fits the same. I tried getting some pics of the feed ramp w/ magazine, they turned out a bit blurry though:
Feed Ramp 1
Feed Ramp 2
Any ideas what this could be (or is it even unusual)?
- jE
full pic
Next to Yugo
Everything went pretty good, though I did have some problems getting the barrel lined up which I went into in another thread. The front rivets aren't great, but not horrible. The rear ones are a bit worse, they seemed to lean a bit while forming so aren't centered. I intended for this to be a learner, so I'm not going to let it bother me but I'd like to figure out what went wrong on those so I don't make the same mistake. I used AK-builder riveting jig & rivets w/ a HF 12T press. I'm thinking it wasn't exactly straight or not tightened down enough (just hand tightened). I did hear mentioned that some feel those long rivets are a bit too long and should be shortened a bit. Other ideas?
Front Left
Front Right
Rear Left
Other than the barrel, I did run into a couple other problems to deal with. The first was a rusted on barrel nut that sat below the pin. At first I thought I'd leave it on and use the US grip in the above photo, but yesterday I decided I really didn't like the grip and wanted to put the original bakelite back on, so spent some time w/ a can of wd-40 and a couple pairs of pliers and finally worked it off by wedging it past the pin for the first turn.
Last issue is one that I haven't solved yet. I tried manually cycling a few rounds (Wolf HP) and noticed that the tips were being deformed a bit from hitting the edge of the barrel. The last one in the magazine actually wedged between bolt & barrel edge, but it wasn't under full spring tension as I was trying to watch what was happening by that point. Looking at the picture labeled "Front Right" above, I thought the magazine may be riding too high in the back compared to my M70, but then I realized it's the magazine itself and the magazine I was looking at in the M70 fits the same. I tried getting some pics of the feed ramp w/ magazine, they turned out a bit blurry though:
Feed Ramp 1
Feed Ramp 2
Any ideas what this could be (or is it even unusual)?
- jE