AK Sponsor
Posted: 12/15/2011 3:59:05 PM EDT
|
I'm planning to start my first build very soon. I want to build from a flat, because I want the full experience of building an AK. I've been pouring over Youtube videos, and various forums to get as much info as I can before I start. The step of heat treating is the only part of the process that I am a bit concerned with. I've read conflicting info on spot treatment vs. whole reciever treatment. Will spot heat treating be sufficient to build a safe and long term reliable reciever. Or am I better off buying a 100% reciever that has been fully heat treated.
Thank you for any help. |
| I think that most of the builds here were heat treated around the pin holes. I red a lot about receiver heat treatment and it said that Russian receivers had only about 35 Rockwell. You can get this much hardness with the local treatment and fairly ductile receiver which will be stiffen by attaching inside guide rails and forend and stock. Of course total heat treatment would be better for uniformity of it but it's definitely more complicated because of tooling needed. Very important is the annealing process because you can get the steel too hard and develop cracks starting at the holes. |
|
you only have to harden the tip of the ejector and the hammer and trigger holes in the receiver.
i doubt you will ever have problems by only doing those. its very important to really clean off the receiver between hardening steps, get yourself a small wooden handled steel wired brush. then after you heat and quench, clean all the black residue off before you do the final heating. i mean getting the metal super clean it will turn out really well for you then. |
We heat treat the entire thing and there is great info in the tacked thread about heat treating. If I had to choose to spot heat treat I would heat treat all holes and openings as well as edges. That means holes for fire control group pins as well as rivet holes (the rivets are subjected to perhaps the greatest stresses and I have seen rivets that are mis-shapened by normal use) as well as magwell, upper and lower rails. It isn't that hard to spot heat treat something and you would rather do it and not have an issue than to not and find out it causes problems in the future. 
|
AK Sponsor