the FSB/GB combos tend to be chonkier, that may be why you couldn't get the tool to budge the site. I bought a cheap tapco one years ago and dremeled it out to fit my 105 GB.

Hope that helps

Thanks for confirming I'm not an idiot. I'll have to get a stack of washers or something and see if I can press it with some sort of spacer.

Just an update.  PSA offered to send me an extractor spring to change out. I'm 100% capable and willing to do that, but when I mentioned it would be this weekend before I could test it, they offered to bring it back and get it shipped back to me by then. I just received the overnight shipping label. I'll drop it off after work today.

Good idea imo to have them do it.

Are they addressing all the other issues like loose handguards?

Also, Palmetto, how do we know this line that assembled it won’t put more out like this one?  That we only expect quality on everything after?

Maybe I've been playing with AKs too long, but you know you can Wile E Coyote it with a strip of electrical tape, right? I laugh when people complain about loose handguards or a lose side folding stock - one strip of tape inside of the receiver will friction lock it right up.

aluminum foil always worked for me

How are the trunnion rivets inside the front mag well area?

Look what the cat dragged in


Ah-kah sto dva? Da, tovarishchi.


Fresh off the assembly line

^^

hope to hear your experience

Hey, Metal, have you found a good source for B-33s? They're hard as hell to find right now, and I don't want to take my chances with 39bullets or Ivan Tactical right now.

Nice!  Glad someone else has one (or two) in hand and can speak to its performance.

Update on mine:  PSA received it this morning.  They emailed me a couple of hours later and said it was, indeed, a bad extractor spring. Stated they put a new one in and immediately ran five mags through it without a single failure. They've already got it headed back to me via UPS. Hope to pick it up tomorrow after work.

Honestly it's probably going to be paying up the butt for one already in country.  It's sad. I hope psa comes through.  I have one sitting waiting on a new build but I kick myself for not getting a 2nd one at the time when they were still cheap.

Cool.  Hope that's your experience as well

Looking forward to results, thank you for the update!

What are your initial impressions?  Solid?  Shot them yet?
Thanks!

Honestly, I can't tell much yet - external fit and finish quality seems great but that's always been one of PSA's strong suits. I probably won't be able to get to the range until at least this weekend, but I'll update with any issues I find. With the 5.56s, I'll have to bring a bunch of different magazines to try to figure out whether any of them will be problematic.

One thing I really dig about PSA's 100-series is that unlike the GFs and 103s, the 102/4/5s are marked with Av(tomat) and Od(in) instead of Safe/Fire or Safe/Auto/Semi.

Must be a recent change. My 104 from June is just marked F and A.

Edit: Mine arrived at my dealer, but I apparently left my ID at a freaking Best Buy in Idaho. They said they'll mail it to me. So when my fuggin ID shows up,  I'll have my 102 in hand.

Looking forward to your results!

Went and picked up the 102 today from the UPS hub today. PSA shipped it back Tuesday NDA but UPS didn’t move it for a day. Figures.

Anyways, everything looks good to the eye. Lower rail is nice and solid and PSA was nice enough to throw a Soviet Arms gas tube on it. That was very nice of them to do.





Hoping to get it to the range again this weekend.

Awesome they hooked you up! Looking forward to your results!

Wow, that looks fantastic - is that the factory setup with the SA railed gas tube and JLB lower rail?

I think so, yes.

Has anyone had trouble with steel case short stroking and either not picking up the next round or jamming?

Mine did with the AC Unity mag the first time I used it. After the first couple of rounds, it ran fine.  Might try downloading to 28 rounds to see if the spring can push those fast enough. The Polish Radom and Bulgarian Circle 10 mags ran fine. I'm hoping to get back to the range tomorrow to run my through a few mags now that I have it back from warranty repair.

I'm hoping it's a mag issue. I only had a little ammo with me at the time. I'll have to keep experimenting.

Give it some rounds to wear in. I've found that the ALG trigger sits higher than a stock trigger, which can cause the piston additional friction. After a hundred or two rounds, it wears right in. This ALG break-in is not a PSA-specific issue in my experience.

I have one of the ALG triggers in my GF5, it's a really nice trigger and breaks under 3 lbs. Mine's still fairly new so it's only going to get better. I liked it so much I went and bought one for my Riley Defense AK, dropped right in with no issues and again works very well.

I've done this to all my AK triggers.  Fixes any of the hangups.

Ok. Dog woke me up at 0700 on fucking Sunday so I decided to just get up and to the range early before it got truly miserable later today. At 0800 when I made it to the range, it was a balmy 85* w/ 68* dew points. So a typical middle TN late August morning.

The rigs to be zeroed:

11.5” SBR, AK102, Century AP5.


On to the shooting. Rifle came back with the lower hand guard good and tight and a fresh Soviet Arms railed gas tube very securely installed.

I started off attempting to zero the iron sights again. My washer truck didn’t work with the Magnamatic, so no joy in that regard. I started off with a simple 25 yard five round group using the AC Unity mag and Wolf steel case 55 gr:

This is an old target so ignore the pasties.


I then open and closed the rear dust cover in between several three round groups to see if there’s shift. I did not detect any whatsoever ever:


So, after I determined zeroing this one was out of the question, I started doing mag dumps. I think I did 6 in total. I filmed them all but they all looked like this one:


If you don't notice, I move my hand to rear after four or five rounds. The front sling loop on the hand guard retainer gets hot as shit and I forgot my glove.  

Not a single failure out of any of them. Same mag and ammo from before. The ejection was in the same location as the previous range trip: about 10 feet at 3:30 to 4 o’clock.

Now, the bad. Both the rail and the gas tube are loose:




I did not go through and attempt to loctite the lower rail screws nor tighten the gas tube’s jam nut before I started shooting. I didn't witness mark anything either. I would suggest you at least witness mark them when you first get them if they're good and tight. I’ll be taking the lower hand rail off to cut that fucking sling loop off the front retainer and krylon it. I'll never use it w/ QD sockets being in the rail and it gets in the way of my natural firing grip. I’ll try using red loctite on the set screws inside the rail to see if that helps in the future. However, I still think those will get hot as fuck after a few mags and might still loosen. Is Rocksett out of the question on those? As it is, I'm only going to be putting a light on the lower rail and maybe a handstop and the pressure switch on the gas tube, so it's not a really a big deal to me. However, after years of using Ultimak gas tubes with red dots of all sorts and those never coming loose with blue loctite nor losing their zero, I'm hard pressed to suggest the gas tube right now for any sort of optic mounting.

Anyways, I feel confident in the reliability now. I need to get an optic with which to shoot some groups to see how it does. Still not sure how to secure the rails in a confidence inspiring fashion.

Your other 2 vids didn't come through

Well shit. Those uploaded as Shorts for some reason. Let me see if I can fix them.

ETA: Ok, had to link from my laptop instead of my phone.  Should be good now.

You are correct sir. I put another 60 rounds of steel and brass throught it today and it's running flawlessly now. It just needed to stretch it's legs.

Drivers license finally showed up so I could pick this up.

And I had a 3 prong and Griffin M24-1/2x28 adapter waiting for it.

So a pic out of the package and one with RC2 attached. Bore is concentric, so no baffle strikes in my future.

I find it interesting (and annoying) that PSA is delivering new pistols/rifles with their Picatinny Dust Cover with Rear Back Up Sight, but I can't get a replacement for the rear sight screw from my dust cover that I ordered back in April!?!?  11 emails and at least two phone calls (might be 3 it's getting hard to recall after 4+ months)... last I was told that I would get the replacement screw when they came in???

The head of rear sight stripped on install... just a bad screw... was using the proper tool and it stripped with very little torque

@Jman_JJE any chance helping this guy out?

The service in here never fails to amaze me. Keep up the great work PSA!

Thank you... PM sent

Mine ran through about 100rds today. 80 of that suppressed. Just shot at the shorter pistol range since the foliage is blocking the 50 and 100yd targets.

Ran great unsuppressed, very mild recoil, flinging cases like 20ft to the 3 o'clock. When I put the can on, they gained altitude and distance. They were ejecting at 4-5 o'clock range, after they had arced 15+ feet in the air. I was standing about 8 paces outside of the covered pistol bench and they were landing on the roof and one/hopping off the backside. Definitely not under-gassed, lol

Other than that, boring range trip. Worked like it should and was fun to shoot.

I’d chuck a KNS piston in it. Really get that thing dialed in.

Here's some details on the rail for anyone interested:

Removed:


Receiver portion.  The set screw is evidently supposed to be in contact with the bottom of the trunnion? I had to give it a solid 1/2 to a full rotation to get it to do that.  Once I did, it has much less slop in it.  It does appear yellow threadlock was applied. However, you have to size it outside of the receiver.  There's no way I can see to make it tight against the trunnion just "close" to remove the wiggle.



Same piece in the rail:


This is the piece that interfaces with the front handguard retainer.  When tight against that retainer, the two set screws apply rearward pressure to keep the rail tight.  As I mentioned, this is very similar to the RS Regulate rail install:



Absolutely no thread lock of any kind on either of these. My assumption as to why these keep backing out. Would blue loctite withstand the heat?


Now that I've torn it all down and applied blue loctite, I've witness marked everything I can reach.  We'll see how they do now.  Also put on my spare Streamlight HL-X (need a LCS), a Slateblack Industries handstop, and got a Holosun AEMS to try out. Now I just need a sling of sort that will work with the brace:

I have a 104 with the same handguard.  For the part of the rail that inserts into the receiver, I installed it just enough to still access the set screw, set it to a slight interference-fit, and pretty much smacked the handguard down into the slot.  I used blue loctite on the retainer piece set screws, but haven’t been able to get back out to the range yet.  As it sits, it’s super tight.

I was waiting to shoot it before I did that,  it that's the first modification I'll be making. Don't see where it's mushrooming any material, but it's clearly operating HOT

Just ordered this.

Attached File

how is the non braced version the same price as that?  
Shouldn't that be cheaper?

No idea, was going to order the non braced version then saw this at the same price so ordered it instead.

Trying to move brace inventory before whatever craziness is attempted regarding them in the next 9-15 mo?

thats kind of what I'm thinking.  still pretty stupid.