Why the American AK manufacturers can't get the rivets right? Is it lack of tooling, e.g. a heavy duty press?



Do the American AK factories not have the investment to buy the proper tools?

An I.O. lol seriously? PSA is the new king for domestic AK's.

The question remains. Did the US company start its AK building business without proper tooling? Lack of funding? Or was it lack of know-how?

The pic is from an old, OLD thread about IO. They have been shit from the very beginning. And are still shit, if they're still around.

It's mostly lack of give a fuck from certain companies.


Like your IO example

Lack of give a fuck. No one that gives a fuck would let a part like that leave the shop.

Edit: beat

Foreign AKs tended to be military rifles built to a standard.

American AKs tended to be built as cheap as possible for people who were going to rarely shoot them or just bump fire them at the range.  People who already thought $350 for a WSAR was too expensive.

There has been a tendency to cut corners among US AK manufacturers. FWIW I am not referring to reputable kit builders here who are obviously using surplus parts. Most notably, Century and PSA attempting to use cast receivers/trunnions despite those parts being forged on every actual military AK. PSA finally figured it out with their GF3. I exoect that the K-USA rifles will be very good quality as well.

As for those rivets....clearly they need more practice with their bolt cutters

not just the rivets in OPs pic, that receiver isn't even bent properly.

Don’t buy shit AKs. Problem solved.

IO is very likely the worst AK "builder" that ever existed in the US. Don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of other shitty builders, but IO was impressively bad.
We haven't had a lot of firearms made of stamped sheet metal with riveted parts in the US, so I think there was just a lack of knowledge for a long time, but the bad builders combine the lack of knowledge with not giving a shit.

this.


The assembly of my 74 is beautiful. rivets and everything else are perfect.


however; some nutmeg at PSA filed my mag latch down to much though when "fitting" the magpul magazine. so everything else was borderline falling out of the gun.
sent it back with a bulgarian mag and they replaced the latch for me and didnt file it down this time.

100% since then.

The rule is you fit mags to the gun if you need to, not the other way around. Glad they made it right.

Fortunately, the latch is an easy fix.

I really wouldn't say it's fair to lump all American AK manufacturers in with IO, I've never heard a single good thing about them. As others have said PSA has really upped their game and is making quality, well built AKs. I picked up a GF3 about a month ago and all the rivets are very well done, no sight cant, and impressively accurate, I've been very impressed with it.

Man, I really should have put my logo or something on that pic in the OP; It's used everywhere, haha. I do hope that it goes without saying that it didn't leave the factory looking like that. This was the end result of a guy taking his IO (which had MULTIPLE build issues) to a carbine course and really running the hell out of the gun. Since IO used (all the way up until the point they stopped making AK's) the incorrect process of installing front trunnion rivets by installing the barrel before riveting the front trunnion into the receiver, the rivets could not properly expand to hold everything together. Now, for the occasional shooting one mag at the range slow fire, it's fine. Run it any harder, and you start developing problems.

As for why IO, Pioneer Arms, and whomever else uses this method: it's much easier to headspace a new barrel to an AK with the front trunnion removed from the receiver. Which, in IO's case, I'm not sure why they needed it to be easier when they just used a belt grinder to grind bolt locking lugs when they wouldn't fit anyway.



This is something that I try to convey whenever that IO pic I took shows up: just because the rivets look nice externally from the factory doesn't mean they were done correctly, and doesn't mean it couldn't end up just like that IO. Now, I have MUCH more faith that PSA correctly rivets their front trunnions. Especially given AKOU ran them pretty hard. But I haven't had the opportunity to pull the barrel on one and check for myself. Additionally, even if you have properly riveted trunnions but you have a manhole-sized gas port like IO (and others) used to use on their barrels, there's a solid chance you're going to tear out your rear trunnion as well.

American AK manufacturers are not the only ones that occasionally screw up a rivet. Have had to fix a few myself on combloc rifles of numerous types.

In addition to that, those m***********g thumbhole stocks in the 90's, had a tendency to bang against the rear trunnion rivet when you fired them, and if the wood was hard enough it would sometimes deform the rivet a bit.

But still, not hard to fix a rivet, i've never had to pull/drill one yet, they massage pretty easily with a ball peen hammer. May not be that pretty perfect round head when you're done but it's damn sure secure and it's an AK, can't sweat the small cosmetic shit.

Much agreed I have been seeing allot of post lately on quality. I think the memory is allot like a ended relationship. In hindsight its all horrible and miserable but back in the day buying any type of AK was a crap shoot. The thing about imports was that there problems were usually an easy fix well known, and or could be live with. As soon as companies started putting true QC into the process here in the states we started to see allot of steps in the manufacturing process that American countries didnt have massaged out yet. We are still in the infancy of USA built and sold AK's but we have come leap and bounds. Even Century stopped using cast trunnions a couple years ago. Today I like to tell people to do their research and ignore anything posted from 3 years ago or further back in regards to quality. In that time several companies have gone up or down in quality and some are not even around anymore. So times change we need to remember to change as well.

I could have sworn that I’ve see a video showing how they riveted the barreled trunnion into place without any sort of bucking bar. It was a Polish factory and I’m pretty sure they were associated with IO.

Yeah, that was Pioneer Arms.