Posted: 4/25/2006 10:26:37 PM EDT
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I'm looking into building my own underfolder AK. I was wondering if anyone is experienced in this department that could help me through it or might have some tools that would come in handy. I'm in St. Louis, but always open to a road trip. Thanks in advance. -Marc |
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Mrnuke, I go to school with you!! That is pretty sweet to know that there is another firearms enthusiast in my neck of the woods. If you ever want to get together and go shooting, let me know. Edited to add: I have also wanted to start on some ak builds. I have a few kits, but lack the proper tooling. Maybe I should hop on the ball and get some receivers too. |
Everyone in the world has Global receivers on order. That's the whole problem. If we had receivers in stock right now there are about seven AK builds we could complete. Argh! Right now they are just waiting in their little boxes for us to give them life. Sigh...  The only projects we are able to complete right now are the ones where customers provide their own receivers. We've also discovered just how substandard OOW and Ewbanks receivers are. We are hoping DCI will come through with a quality AKM receiver soon. Exile, I'll let you know when that milled reciever arrives. We've still just done that one build on the Firing Line MSL receiver, did you see it once it was totally done? It turned out good. 
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Duke where did that handguard come from on that krink was it one of the shit brown ones you refinished? I never saw the completed krink or get to shoot it Mine is going to be in 7.62 figured a little more punch when used at close range I'll give you a call Duke I think I can get you some Receivers soon. if you want them |
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boppie: We are thinking about trying to get back into making our own receivers. The whole AK building thing is much more difficult than it seems, but receivers are one nut that we have just had the hardest time trying to crack. There's only about a hundred things that can go wrong. Listening to the internet commandos talk about building AKs always makes us laugh, the joke around the shop right now is, "I read on the internet that you just put all the parts in a box and shake it real good, and an AK comes out." In reality, each build is different, there are little quirks that are unique to one configuration and even one rifle, weird little problems that need to be solved and can really stump you. We spent hundreds of dollars on specialized tooling when we first started up MCA, and alot of it we don't even use anymore, because it doesn't work that well and we came up with a better solution on our own. You guys looking to build your own can do it, but its not like an AR which basically goes together like a big Lego set. Frankly, that's why we aren't sure how to do a build party. The way we are set up to build, we do each rifle individually (so people's parts don't get mixed up together, organizationally its best) and each rifle takes a few days of work. One weekend we will disassemble the old parts kit (you have to unbuild before you build) and assemble the front and rear trunions in the receiver. The next weekend we will barrel the action, blast everything to bare metal, and refinish the barreled action and all the small parts. The next weekend we will do final assembly and fitting and test fire. Our backlog is currently more than two months! So if five of you guys come out to the shop for a "build party", and we actually want to take a rifle from a kit to a complete gun in, say 6 hours, we'll have to focus everything on that one gun. Probably four of you are going to go home without complete rifles and one guy out of five will be happy, if we're lucky. If you guys wanted to prep your kits ahead of time that would save a step, but I still have my doubts as to how many we could build up in one day. Also, there is the legal issue of us being a licensed manufacturer. Since the guns will be built in our shops, guys that came in with complete receivers will have to have them go into our FFL bound book as "repairs." That's not a problem. Guys who wanted to build on their own receivers bent from flats, with no markings, I'm not sure about. I don't think its a good idea for guns to come out of our shop with no markings or serial numbers when we are a licensed manufacturer and we have bound books for every gun that comes in or out of the shop. I'm not sure of the legality of it, but I am sure that I wouldn't be comfortable with that situation. Exile, I refinished the wood on that Krink personally. It started out the same baby-poop brown as all the others do. Tell me what your guys's thoughts are on the build party thing. Do you understand what I'm saying there? |
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that wood looks damn nice for what it use to be. I don't think it would be a good idea to have people roll their own in you shop but they should use 100% receivers anyways tring to press a flat then doing all the cutting and heat treating takes WAY to long. Duke do you have any hints for how to rivet the long rivet on a RPK or yugo front trunnion? A plinkers long rivet jig can't go all the way down due to the trunnion bulge. |
| duke, i understand what you are saying completely. i have been down there when you guys were working and saw how much you guys go thru to get a build up. a build party may not be the best thing but if it could be pulled off it would be awsome. it would be cool if it could be set up into a station type atmosphere. but i don't see it coming off like that at all. so one of these days duke you may see an order from me for one of your builds. |
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Exile, we don't even use our plinker jig anymore except for certain circumstances. There are alot of areas where it just doesn't work. Everyone wants us to build sidefolders and underfolders now, and the plinker jig won't reach some of the rivets in the rear trunions on those. Then of course you have the Tantals, heh, those guys are just DIFFERENT. Anyway, we've come up with our own ways to accomplish the other rivet work, but I won't post them online since it took us months and alot of money wasted to figure it out, so its kind of a trade secret. Anyway, specific to the RPK/Yugo receiver, we haven't messed with those yet. Kerry built his SBR Yugo Krink on an AKM receiver because it was easier to convert the kit to utilize a receiver we are used to. One of these days we'll get around to building up one of the Yugo kits we have lying around on a DCI Yugo reciever, and we'll cross the long rivet bridge when we get to it. Here's a pic that shows the refinished wood on that Krink build better. This was at the mock-up stage to check fitment. You'll have to modify your furniture considerably to fit the MSL 99 reciever, as the slots where the wood stubs go are significantly smaller than on a stamped receiver. Look past the forearm to the receiver and you can see the hole in the front of the receiver and how much smaller it is. The wood refinishing is really time consuming but I wanted that build to be really nice. img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/MolonLabe/krink3.jpg ETA: boppie, a station atmosphere would be the only way to do it, but that presupposes that you have builds at different stages to each occupy a station. This is, in fact, how we organize the shop, so two guys can be riveting the receiver on a new project, one guy can be bead blasting, one guy can be assembling, and parts can be baking in the oven or in the bluing tanks, all at the same time. When we are going full tilt like that its possible to get alot done. But if I have four or five guys all show up with boxes of parts kits that haven't even been degreased yet, they will all have to start at step one, and the other stations will sit empty. If we assigned one MCA member to each build, to walk you guys through each step of the build with personal attention, it would probably be more flexible, the MCA guy would know that this particular gun has whatever quirk needs to be dealt with, and could babysit it all the way through. I'm thinking that might be the best way to go. Might also be a good idea to make it a two-day, all weekend build party, although Holden doesn't sport a motel since traditionally there is no reason for anyone to want to stay there overnight. |
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Mike, I was wondering about the legalities of a build party at your shop. That's why I just let you take my parts kit. I'd rather have you do the build for me. I'm sure if people where doing builds in your shop there would be some kind of infraction of some sort. I know  Just don't annouce the day of a build party on the internet. Keep it on the "down low". Just kidding. |
| There's gotta be a way to do it legally, on the books. I mean, we're a licensed manufacturer, so lets manufacture some guns, why not? As long as we do the paperwork right there's no reason it can't be legit. I just think that if you use our shop, our tools, and probably some of our parts, the whole "I built this myself so it doesn't need a serial number" clause isn't going to fly well with BATFE at all. |
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Duke, if everyone degreased their kits, de-rivited the trunions and possibly a little more (can't think of what all else can be done w/o special tools) do you think a couple days and stations would satisfy an AK build party? I build my own computers and love the satisfaction of using something that you had put together and how it all works rather than just buying something. Also, where about is your shop? I've been hearing its near KC? Thanks in advance. -Marc |
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well if the people are going do a underfolder your looking at 2 days easy, i mean its one day to demil the kit even if thats done first you looking at half a day just to hand fir the rear tunion to a non underfolder stock. and since global isnt doing underfolder receivers now unless your lucky to have one you will be drilling and fighting the parts and wholes your self. this is a two man job. then a one man job working on the wholes after the drilled to fit the tunion. then 2 man job to pound in the barell. i dont see who you could do it in one day with a group of people. Ronald |
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Alright Duke, you bring up a lot of good points. Firstly, Thanks in advance for all the headaches you will likely endure due to this endeavor. You DA MAN!! Secondly, regarding the legal issues, I for one, and I would hope everyone else would feel the same way, will do WHATEVER it takes to remain 100% legal while in your place of business and on your premises. Since I plan to build upon "100%" receivers anyway, at least for my first couple of builds, and they will most likely be purchased through you, a little more paperwork won't give me any more or greater headache. Thirdly, a two-day build party sounds even better. Everyone bring their sleeping bags and cots and I'll bring the really big cooler loaded with lots of good Boulevard beer! We can order some pizzas and then we'd have breakfast the next day too!  Fourthly, please list/detail what I can be doing to my Romy kits here at home in preparation for the build party. I have a 4" grinder, small drill press, Dremel tool and a shitload of hand tools including some very large hammers. Please be specific as to what I need to be grinding and drilling and I’ll get started ASAP.And since Global receivers seem to be experiencing quite a surge of popularity, and therefore can be on backorder quite often (though they claim on Warrifles.com to be at less than a 30 day backlog), how about using Ohio or Nodak Spud receivers? I hear the Ewbank receivers aren't worth the steel they're stamped from and since they’re associated with Joeken I’d rather not send any of my money their direction. I had planned to get as much of the “mechanical” building done at your shop and then pay you to parkerize the parts. Then I would apply the final finish on the metal bits here at home with a Duracoat Finishing kit that I bought, giving them a sort-of HK matte black finish. Please advise. |
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Up, up, up the ladder! I spent some time last evening talking with Duke about the (hopefully) upcoming AK build party. I'll let him spell out the details of this shindig, but suffice it to say that for now, it is apparently still on the list of things to add to his shop's event calendar. And that's a GOOD thing!  I am SOOO stoked about this. I just wish my paydays came more frequently so I could buy more fun stuff more often. 
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GOOD NEWS! GOOD NEWS!! According to this thread over on WarRifles.com, Global Trades is "caught up" on production of their 1mm AK receivers.
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In my case, that includes a Tapco G2 FCG (3 US parts) and a set of Tapco US-made furniture (3 more US parts), plus the US-made receiver totalling 7 US-made parts. Oh, and if you can "prep" or "de-mill" your parts from the receiver stubs, that couldn't possibly hurt either. |