Help with AK build

[Calplinker]

Built an AK at a party over a year ago. I believe it's a Romanian. After assembling it, the action is very rough. It's rough enough that it will hang up when working the action and stay about 2/3 open. Only takes a light touch to cause it to snap forward, but it is much rougher than my Saiga.

Put it away figuring I'd work on it at some point and got a wild hair to take it out last weekend. Rifle shot and cycled just fine, but the action doesn't seem to be loosening up.

Also, the safety won't engage. I accidentally took the wrong one at the build party and left mine there. They should be interchangeable, but it seems some fitting is required.

I'm not really AK savvy. Anyone have any ideas on how to correct these?

I'm more concered with the safety moreso than the action. It'd be nice for it to cycle smoothly but I sort of figure it's an AK, so if it fires, why worry?

[atsaubrey]

hanging up on the hammer like you describe is normal. You could polish the hammer to smooth it out, or just run a thousand rounds thru it. hehe. The safety wont engage? Not sure what you mean by that, sometimes you have to notch the safety, you didnt happen to shave off the whole safety instead of notching it did you?

[Gowking]

Please explain "won't engage". Do you mean that it can't be rotated up into the safe position because it is hitting the trigger leg? Or that in the up position it will still fire?

As for the bolt carrier hanging up that is probably due to the friction between the carrier and hammer. A light polishing of the hammer where it touches the underside of the carrier will work as will cycling it by hand a couple of hundred times.

-MRA

[Calplinker]

Safety

Please explain "won't engage". Do you mean that it can't be rotated up into the safe position because it is hitting the trigger leg? Or that in the up position it will still fire?

As for the bolt carrier hanging up that is probably due to the friction between the carrier and hammer. A light polishing of the hammer where it touches the underside of the carrier will work as will cycling it by hand a couple of hundred times.

-MRA

Thanks for the responses. The safety will rotate up, but never actually engages. If I push it up very hard and while holding it there try to pull the trigger, it won't fire. If I just push it all the way up as you normally would, the rifle will fire every time. I didn't shave anything off the safety or mess with it in any way. It appears to be brand new and is blued, while the rest of the rifle is parkerized, which we did at the build party.

The action definitely appears to be hanging up on the hammer. I'll look at it closer to see if there are wear marks on it. If so, maybe I'll polish it a bit. I only shot about 30-40 rounds through it, but like I said, it functioned flawlessly.

All in all, I'm really liking it. Big pain in the rear to actually build one of these things though. That was a very long day.

[kcstott]

Where are you located??

[nicoroshi]

Where are you located??

My thoughts exactly^^^

Plenty of guys willing to help you out if only we knew where you were so someone close could chime in.
What you describe is probably 10 minutes worth of work to get running flawless.
If you're in Nor Cal I would be willing to donate my time to help out.

[atsaubrey]

If your I'm central cal I'll help out as well

[Calplinker]

AK

Thanks againf or the replies. In in the IE/OC area of SoCal.

[TATER313]

try lube also works well also, very common. and well break in with time

[Calplinker]

Safety

I'll polish the hammer until the action works smooth, so thanks for this advice.

Any idea on how to make the safety engage as it should?

[SJgunguy24]

I'll polish the hammer until the action works smooth, so thanks for this advice.

Any idea on how to make the safety engage as it should?

Take a picture with the selector on safe and one on fire.

[savagemann]

You say you took the wrong selector from the build party and left yours there ?
Do you know what model the one you grabbed was from?

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

[savagemann]

Also....if you take the dust cover and bolt carrier out you can clearly see what's going on with the safety/ trigger group when you actuate the selector.
Be careful to not let the hammer drop and hit the center support when the rifle is taken apart.
When the selector is in the safe position, it should block the back leg of the trigger from moving.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

[hermosabeach]

Safety

I am not 100% of the issue you are having with the safety.

Is it hard to manipulate?

Does it not prevent the gun from firing when on safe?

Is it in the gun?

This video might help with the fitting of the safety and checking for function

[Calplinker]

Action

Okay, I may have it figured out. The safety just needs a bit of material taken off the bottom of it so it will slide over the back leg of the trigger.

The action being a bit tight and balky is a weird one. I polished the back of the hammer, then noticed that bottom of the bolt is actually rubbin on the center support bar. Used my dremel to remove some material from the center support pin and apparently need to remove some more as it is still rubbing and slightly hanging up.