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Posted: 12/30/2003 3:46:29 AM EDT
| I grabbed a WSAR (converted back to accept staggered mags) & haven't had the chance to fire it yet. I've played around with it and noticed that magazines seem incredibly difficult to insert. Really, it feels like unclasping a girl's bra @ the movies in junior high. There are no problems removing the magazine. Maybe my AR attention has severely impacted my AK handling profiency, but I don't recall my Norinco 56s giving me all this grief. Might there be an issue due to converting it to single stack then restoring the double stack capability, or am I just terribly out of practice? |
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Not uncommon. Depending on who did the conversion, the mag wells can be fine or just a tad undersize. In my experience, the receiver sheetmetal at the rear edge of the mag well can have some burrs sticking out from sloppy milling, or the entire rear edge needs to be dressed back a smidge (file-try-repeat; sorta like the measure twice, cut once approach) for mags to lock into place. What was happening was the rear of the mag was contacting the back edge of the mag well too soon. Dressing back the rear edge of the mag well (the receiver sheet metal and the front edge of the mag catch lever base) just a bit was all it took. The other place to look is the top edge of the mag catch lever. On many of the WASRs that I've "tweaked" for others, the top edge of the mag catch lever was cut at an angle, and merely required a light dressing on the high side with a narrow file (an ignition points file is perfect -- Sears has them) and the mag catch snapped into place readily. Easy to press and remove the mags, too. The key is to take a "sticky" mag and the unloaded WASR in bright light or use a flashlight and EXAMINE CLOSELY the mag and where it makes contact, then address those areas accordingly. HTH, Noah |
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it feels like unclasping a girl's bra @ the movies in junior high. sorry, i only do firearm advice. dr. phil is two doors down on the left. if your mags are tight upon entering the mag well opening, 15 minutes with a file will fix that by simply adding anorther .005" per side clearance. touch up your bare steel with brownell's cold blueing/black oxide. it the latch, itself is tight, use a smal stone to deburr the top of the catch/latch lever and deburr your magazine tabs. if the mags still will not snap into place and then release easily with the push of the lever, use the stone and/or a file to remove a little steel from the top of the catch lever. only remove a very little bit of material at a time, trying the mags often to insure that you do not remove too much steel. |
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one more thing to think about is...what county of origin are the mags you are using? i have found the chinese mags(no rib on the back)tend to be very tight in my wasr. the euro mags are a great fit. oh and a chinese drum would not insert at all. i pretty much stick to euro mags just because they will work in all without having to change anything. oh and as to what campy said. i did smooth out the mag well in a few spots. just be sure you are using a euro mag when fitting. if you use a chicom mag then your other mags will be sloppy. later jay |
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