Well, I decided long ago to do a drive screw build after reading the "easiest AK build ever" thread at the top of this page. It's too late, boys, sorry. I'm not set up for pulling/pressing the barrel or smashing rivets anyway.
It took me about 6 hours, because I had almost zero experience with AKs in general and I wanted to get it right. I've never even disassembled one before so everything was "learn as you go."
The easiest part of the whole thing was pounding in the drive screws. I loc-tited them up good and just tapped them in with a 2# hammer. The DCI NDS-3 reciever was a PERFECT match for my trunnions and almost everything worked perfectly.
The only part that actually was frustrating was installing the trigger group. I've never even seen an AK trigger setup before to night, so it was all trial and error. It turned out that of the three trigger pins, only one was small enough to fit in the holes in the NDS receiver. The others were too big around at the head to fit all the way in. Easy fix: chuck one up in the drill and dremel it down as it's spinning. Took 5 minutes and it fit perfectly.
Then getting the shepard's crook in was a pain, of course. First, again, the trigger axel pin was too close to the bottom of the receiver to allow the crook/spring to go under it. I did the same drill/dremel trick with that and after trying it about 5 times and then taking off more, it finally fit.
Everything went together then and I thought I was golden -- but then it jammed up on me and I couldn't pull the bolt carrier back. I opened it up and saw that extra little coil on the shepard's crook was being smashed by the hammer and it wouldn't allow the hammer to cock. I thought about it for a while and then realized that in all the photos I've seen, the shepard's crook didn't actually have that extra coil. So I'm guessing that is an auto feature that isn't needed? I cut it off and put it back together -- now it works slick and doesn't bind at all.
I only have a half of one mag (17 rounds!) of x39 right now, which is a HUGE bummer. But I'll try it out tomorrow if I have time. Pretty pumped at how easy it all was. Couldn't have done it without this site, though, that's for sure!
hug.gif