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Posted: 1/13/2010 12:41:30 PM EDT
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I had a Bulgarian ak 74 built by Chris Horn ( Horn’s custom rifles). I wanted to give a report on his over all build.
I bought the 74 kit from arms of america and had it sent right to his shop. I originally wanted it converted into a pistol, but decided I wanted a full size 74. He built the gun for me and said he would give me a deal. I sent the gun to him early September. I tried to put a down payment on the gun, but he would’t take it. The kit was in his shop for about 2.5 months and upon completion he called me to let me know it was done. The game of phone tag began. I would call him and leave a voicemail and he would call me and do the same. Because of our game of phone tag it appeared that the “deal” he had promised was no longer. He also said that this was the longest a rifle sat in his shop without being paid for with out being sold to someone else. Long story short I finally received the rifle in December. Upon receiving the rifle I inspected it and immediately noticed that the rivets were mashed and beat up pretty badly for someone who calls himself a “great ak builder.” IMO if I were great at something my work would show it. I shot around 100 rounds through it and decided I should probably have another gunsmith look at it before I really put some rounds through it. I sent it to Mike at firingline. He inspected it, commented on the rivet work, and then said that the head-spacing was off. He said that if it wasn’t fixed there could be possible case failure, broken shells and separation, and/or possible blow up of the rifle. So here I am spending more time and money having it fixed. I wanted to post this so that people out there would think twice about who they have work on their firearms. I thought I had found a quality builder. I’ll admit I was looking for a deal and in the end it costs more time and money for something I am not even sure I want to have in my collection. Let me know your thoughts. I’ll be posting this in several locations on the ak forum. |
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Quoted:
Long story short I finally received the rifle in December. Upon receiving the rifle I inspected it and immediately noticed that the rivets were mashed and beat up pretty badly for someone who calls himself a “great ak builder.” IMO if I were great at something my work would show it. I shot around 100 rounds through it and decided I should probably have another gunsmith look at it before I really put some rounds through it. I sent it to Mike at firingline. He inspected it, commented on the rivet work, and then said that the head-spacing was off. He said that if it wasn’t fixed there could be possible case failure, broken shells and separation, and/or possible blow up of the rifle. So here I am spending more time and money having it fixed. I wanted to post this so that people out there would think twice about who they have work on their firearms. I thought I had found a quality builder. I’ll admit I was looking for a deal and in the end it costs more time and money for something I am not even sure I want to have in my collection. Let me know your thoughts. I’ll be posting this in several locations on the ak forum. Came across this post and wanted to comment. Have had at least two experiences with "ak smiths" and both were mediocre to say the least. The last one, I had to go back and actually re-do some of the work myself because I did not want to go through the wait and phone tag game once again as the above poster did. Neither of the two "smiths" were on the list above, but as President Reagan used to say " trust ,but verify" Ask around and get others experiences (and if possible see examples of a particular ak smith's work) before you ship it off to wait for 2-3 months only to get it back with sub-standard work performed on it.  
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Anybody can put together an AK in their garage but you need to know what you are doing for a QUALITY rifle.(Not trying to flame the homebuilders out there-Most of you guys do very well)
A lot of people use modified bolt cutters to set the rivets and while it looks right they dont have the power to set the rivet correctly. In the Comm Bloc factories the rivets are set with hydraulic or pnuematic rivet sets that set them all at once and the rivets are set hot. You just cant get that out of bolt cutters. They just dont have the force to dimple the recievers into the trunnions when the rivet is set. This keeps the reciever/trunnion tight as the reciever flexes during firing and the rivet does not have to carry the full stress of firing. If it does it WILL loosen over time and allow movement between the reciever and trunnions. |
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