Quoted:
I'm trying to remember if an AK can fire out of battery normally. With the disconnector gone the gun should have hammer follow if the trigger stays depressed but does the bolt rotate closed before the cartridge is fired?
The bolt
should rotate before the hammer can depress the firing pin, but what should happen doesn't always.
What is commonly called the auto sear is actually a safety
and an auto sear (which is why the PSL has it in original form even though it was never made as a select fire rifle). It prevents the hammer from falling until the bolt is nearly locked, thus preventing the rifle from firing OOB. BATF required the redesign, leaving only the tail to prevent an OOB dishage. Since that is only the secondary function of that feature (its primary function is to force the hammer back at the start of the unloading/loading cycle) it doesn't always work as intended.
For that reason, firing the rifle with a broken, missing or inoperable disconnector CAN be dangerous.