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Posted: 12/12/2002 8:44:14 PM EDT
| I recently bought a US made piston for my Hungarian SA-85. It looks like the threads are of a larger size than the smaller looking SA-85 piston. Is there a difference with the Hungarian size? |
| Nope, not yet. Just did a side-by-side comparasion, and the USA made piston looked much larger than the Hungarian SA-85M that I have. But then, I also had trouble installing the forestock furniture. Even a gunsmith couldn't get the Dragnov style fore stock pieces to fit! I'm wondering if I have some sort of mutant AK?? |
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Steveo, I am going to assume that you have a postban SA85M with the thumbhole stock. Most of the SA85M's that I have seen use the the shorter gas tube and piston from the shortened AMD-65 that the Hungarians produced. This does mean that not all standard AK parts are plug and play. I don't know if anyone makes a US AMD-65 length piston. I think Krebs or someone else makes a Krink length piston, but I don't know if it can be adapted. As far as furniture goes K-Var has a US made stock set that they say is modified to fit Hungarian AKs. Hope this helps. |
| Yes, exactly, that's the one. With the thumhole stock in blonde wood. Post ban. I was thinking about trying to add as many US made parts as necessary to maybe someday getting the more original pistol grip style furniture. One of the recommendations I read about said to get a US made piston. I did, but it looks a lot larger in the entire male/female thread area. Sorry, I should have made measurments to present here. |
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Stevo, I think to return your SA85 to pistol grip status since it is a stamped reciever gun you will need to add 6 US made parts. As you have already seen replacing the piston is going to be a bit more challenging. The other most commonly replaced parts are the stocks which count for 3 parts (handgaurds,pistol grip and buttstock), and the fire control group which also counts for 3 parts (hammer, trigger and disconector). That should be enough US parts but be sure to double check first. As far as sources for parts there is K-var for US synthetic stocks, Ironwood Designs for wood, and FSE for a Krink look alike stock. Both K-var and Global Trades sell replacement US trigger parts however most people on this board can't say enough good things about the Red Star Arms adjustable match trigger. Luckily one of my buddies just got his in the mail, and I hope to get some first hand trigger time. I believe there is a thumbtacked folder of links to all of the above places in the AK dicussion forum. I forgot to mention that you can also replace the floor plates and followers with US parts as well, but I don't like this approach because it limits your mag availability and totally prevents the use of drums which are impractical and heavy but fun every once in a while. Man I ramble. Anyway hope this gives you a few ideas for returning one of the nicest post 89/pre 94 AKs to its pistol gripped glory. |
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