Hello,

I picked up some new Polish Radom magazines and noticed it is a bit tight in my magazines don't like to seat properly without some serious effort. I was thinking of having a gunsmith take a look at the mag well and widening it a bit, but was wondering if this is done will it then need to be reinforced inside the rifle? Removing a bit of material is okay, but I am just worried that if a lot is removed the lower will then be weakened. Thanks for all your feedback in advance.

If you look inside the magwell, you can see the difference between the trunion (the thick metal piece that the mag locks into) and the receiver (the thinner metal outside piece that everything is attached too).  As long as you are only grinding on the receiver magwell opening you are fine.

I had to open up an NDS-3 receiver from a home build that needed just a little more room for the Bulgarian bullet mags.

I bought my WASR10 with a mag stuck in it from a gun shop that said no returns, the mag will not come out. Sale is final. $275

I brought it home, put the butt on the Congrete floor, held the mag release and hit the mag as hard as I could with a rubber Mallot.

The mag popped right out.

Then I tried inserting a few mags, saw where the magwell was rubbing and fired up the grinder on my Dremel.

Just make sure you take metal off the receiver opening and not the trunion and go slow and check the fit often.

The reciever was made for a slim 10 round single stack mag and then the opening was opened up to take regular AK mags.

It just needs a little more opening, that is all and it is easy to do yourself.

Its the Mags,  The polish radoms are well known for being tight fitting.  Modify the mags not the rifle.

Try some steel mags in your rifle and see how they fit.

I wouldn't cut on that receiver until I made sure all the mags, not just the polish mags, were too tight. If most mags fit fine don't grind on the receiver. Grind on the mags. Much cheaper and easier to replace.

Those mags suck. If your steel mags work fine, dont touch the rifle.

I have a brand new Zastava o-pap, and everything on this rifle was TIGHT and loaded with excessive friction from sub par "slap it together" assembly of old parts fitted with new parts. I've spent the past two days systematically assessing  mated high friction areas by simply observing metal to metal contact points. Lots of room for improvement by "lapping" mating parts for a much smoother fit. The key is not to "grind" but be patient, sand and polish in small incraments and keep test fitting. Too much metal removal can get you in trouble.  Some #220 and then #1500 emery cloth, and a LOT of elbow grease has made a substantial difference in the action smoothness including the mag fit. Now my bolt glides nicely with only some slight normal resistance, and my mags fit with only some slight effort (unlike as new where I felt I had to use overly excessive force to insert the mag when new) .

If you do end up modding the rifle I'd us a hand file and leave the Dremmel unplugged.

H

This. Small files, small increments, small mistakes

Thank you all for the suggestions. I took it into a gunsmith and they said there was extra material in there when it was converted, so they removed a bit of metal and now the rifle takes all mags without a problem.