All right ladies and gentlemen, I’m having an issue with my Bulgarian AK 74 built on a USA armory receiver with all  matching numbers and original barrel. The Malfunction that I commonly have as in every other round or so the spent casing will still be locked onto the bolt head then they bolt will strip another round causing a brass over bolt double feed. I have noticed the rifle runs better without the dust cover on. So far I have tried multiple magazines including a polymer Bulgarian, and a magpul.  When I fire the rifle without the dust cover the rifle there is no ejection pattern, some rounds will eject to the 1 o’clock some to the 5 o’clock and some will go straight up in the air. And the distance the casing travels will very from 10ft to 1ft.  I really would like this recently purchased rifle of mine to run correctly so if anyone has anything for me to consider or try I would greatly appreciate your time! Thank you!

Any damage or deformation on the ejector?

With the rifle empty, top cover and recoil spring removed cycle the bolt back slowly. Look at the ejector as it passes thru the slot cut in the bolt. Does the ejector almost completely fill the slot?

If the ejector is too short you'll get FTEj, fix is to get a new ejector installed.

Variable ejection w/o the dust cover is pretty normal, the cases hit the dust cover and are more consistently directed up and forward. W/o the dust cover the cases bounce off various bits and get sent wherever.

With the dust cover installed how far does the rile eject cases when it functions?

AJ