I need to know how big (diameter-wise) is the pin holding the handguard onto the gas tube.
Many years ago I replaced my SKS stock with one of those polymer side-folder things (this may or may not have been during the Clinton assault weapons ban when such frivolity was frowned upon by the jack-booted thugs of the .gov
). As part of that, I also changed out the gas tube handguard by carefully knocking out the retaining pin and reusing it once I had the black guard in place.
Well, a few years went by and I got the urge to put the rifle back to stock, but left the polymer guard on because it was very difficult to change. Well, now I think I want it back to 100% original, so I've developed a scheme to replace the factory pin with a roll pin (so I don't have to worry about having to mushroom the head of the old retaining pin again). Trouble is, I need to find out how big that pin is before I destroy it by taking it apart (again).