Category: AMD-63

Categories
AK-47 AMD-63 Arsenal Bulgaria gunmagwarehouse.com magazines steel

I’ve Some Bulgarian Surplus AK-47 Mags Coming My Way

I ordered 5 x AK-47 magazines from Gunmagwarehouse.com this past Thursday.  They will arrive sometime Monday.  These are Bulgarian mags with the typical ribbed look.  They’re made of steel and are 30-round mags with a polymer follower (I’m not bothered by that).  They’ve good reviews.  I ordered these to replace the Croatian mags that my AMD-63 seems to hate.

I still have not shot the SAM7UF nor tested the Croatian mags on that particular rifle.  That’s coming soon.  I do believe the SAM7 will accept the Croatian mags, though, as I stuck a loaded mag into the firearm and the rifle chambered a round without issue (something the AMD-63 won’t do with those mags).

UPDATE:  I was finally able to order some snap caps in 7.62×39 (they are plastic, though, and are already chipping and cracking).  I ordered five of them.  I tested the Croatian mags with them since I didn’t really want to test by chambering live rounds in my house.  All four of the Croatian mags will properly mount in all my AKs but the PSA AK-P.  The non-PSA AKs will actually strip the snap caps from three of the mags and chamber the fake rounds.  One mag has issues where none of the AKs will feed rounds from it (note that I did not test that mag in the SAM7 – I tested it in the AMD-63).

Categories
AK-47 AMD-63 canted front sight Croatia Cube+ magazines Polaroid

Range Visit on 2/19 – took the AMD-63 again

Range Notes:

Shot 52 rounds (1 hour session).  40 of these were PPU ammo from the last range visit.  The last 12 were the new RAS 7.62×39 ammo I recently bought.

There were no malfunctions.

I tried to use the Croatian mags again, thinking that they may work if they had less ammo, so I put in 5 rounds.  It would not strip ammo from the mag with this rifle.  These mags will be for the SAM7 only, I guess.  A pity…they look nice and have are BHO.

I spent the whole hour range session chasing the bullseye.  I found that if I put the target out further (40 yards for me, since I can’t see the target beyond that), I had a better aim.  At 25 yards, the bullets drop, even if my POA is at the bullseye.  At 40, it raises near BE level.  Now, I’ve to ensure my trigger squeeze is consistent, because I think I either flinch a lot or I’m jerking the trigger, as I had a lot of flyers to the lower left.

I also think my front sight is canted to the left.  I saw footage from the new camera.  I saw the spine of the rifle and the front sight looked off.  I’ll ask questions  on the forums and maybe see about finding a gunsmith that can straighten it.

I’ll take the SAM7 out next just to see if I can hit the BE easier than the AMD-63 (note that some Arsenals DO have canted sights).

The new camera works GREAT!  I just need a bigger micro SD card, as I ran out of card space at the range today!

Oh, and the bolt carrier tail is pretty mangled.  I may have to take a file to the ragged edges.  It hasn’t hung on the rear trunion…yet.

Range footage is here:

Categories
AK-47 AMD-63 cleaning rod SAM7UF

The AMD-63 Will Take A Cleaning Rod!

Some things I’ve discovered:

I took the cleaning rod from my SAM7UF to see if it would fit on my AMD-63 and it does.  I tried it before and it wouldn’t go in all the way and would poke out a bit beyond the latching spot under the front sight.  Well, I put it back in and wiggled it around a tad and it dropped fully into place.  It will latch.

I wanted to share that since it’s is supposed to be common knowledge that these will not accept cleaning rods.  They will.

So, I think I’m going to just order one from K-VAR to use in the AMD-63.

As well, I removed the gas tube and hand guard from the SAM7UF today, since I hadn’t done it since I bought it (wanted to be sure there was no damage or hidden anomalies).  The latches were stiff but I was able to remove them.  I saw no flaws but there was preservative on the underside of the hand guard.  Because of this, I’m almost positive that this firearm has never been fired, otherwise that preservative would’ve either baked onto the heat shield or dissipated.

I also looked at some of the 7.62×39 casings from my last range visit and found that they’re dinged to hell.  I also have brass markings on the dust cover of the AMD-63. I researched and found that this is normal for AK-47s.  I’d initially thought that there was something wrong with the firearm, but the research shows that this normally occurs with these rifles.

No, I’ve not yet been to the range.  Maybe I’ll visit the range tomorrow after work.

Categories
AK-63DS AMD-63 Croatia feed issues Hungarian jam magazines steel

Recent AMD-63 Range Visits and Issues with Croation Magazines

For brevity, below are my range notes from today’s range visit.  I also visited last week:

Had issues today.  The new Croatian mags will not work in the AK-63D/AMD-63.  They will not feed ammo into the firearm.  At all.  Two of them won’t strip ammo from the mag and two jammed when trying.  Luckily, I had one of the Atlantic Firearms mags with me (they are new also)…it fed and fired without a hitch, so I had to use this one mag during my session, stripping out ammo from the non-functional mags and reloading that ammo into the functional mag.  It took a bit of time and I only had an hour (range was packed, too).

When I got home, I tried to see if the SAM7 would load ammo from the Croatian mags.  It would.  It seems the AK-63D/AMD-63 does not like the Croatian mags, even after I fixed them so that they’d latch into the mag well (before that, they wouldn’t even latch).
The firearm never got hot because I only fired 49 rounds from it.

I also had to readjust the front sight because I was hitting very low.  To raise the POI, I had to lower the front sight post.

I’m hitting low left still, which indicates I’m flinching.
The fired brass is dinged at the opening lip on a lot of the spent cases.  As well, there’s brass dings on the outside of the ejection port.

Need to open up the firearm to check to see how the bolt carrier tang is.  Also need to check the front trunnion and bolt for wear.

Also, I experienced some trigger slap…stings a bit.

Additionally, I shot the last mag standing up.  I was able to put the majority of the 15 rounds in the middle of the paper (there were two flyers).  I think if I keep practicing shooting while standing, I can get the hang of it, if I lean forward and keep the stock planted deep in my shoulder pocket.

I may need to get a new rear sight…this one is difficult to see, which affects front/rear sight alignment.  It’s difficult for me to hit where I’m aiming if I can’t properly align the sights.

There’s 171 rounds through the AMD-63 now.  I brought close to 200 rounds with me but only fired 49 due to magazine issues (mentioned above in the range notes).  Plus, I only had an hour to work with and the range was crowded tonight.  Will try again tomorrow (and not use the Croatian mags when I do).

Some pics of the rifle’s internals:

I’ve an BG-AK lower handgrip coming (these are back in stock as of now).  This was on my wish list.  I also have a Zhukov stock on my list, as well as a rail that would fit where the rear sight resides (for the SAM7UF).

I also have 1000 rounds of Red Army Standard FMJBT on the way (lead core).

I’ll post again after my next range visit (which may be tomorrow).

Categories
AK-47 AK-63DS AMD-63 Arsenal magazines Magpul SAM7UF SAM7UF-85 Tapco

I’m Attempting to Expand My Knowledge of the Arsenal SAM 7-UF

So, I’ve been not only looking at SAM7UF reviews online, but doing things such as swapping mags between my AK-63DS and SAM7UF.

I’ve 6 Tapco mags that came with the AK-63DS.  The Arsenal came with one Magpul (Gen 1, I think).  The SAM7UF will not take the Tapcos.  The AK-63DS will take the Magpul without issue.

Most people talk crap about the Tapcos, mainly because of issues like this, but this really isn’t an issue with Tapcos.  It’s an issue with the Arsenal.  Why is the mag well that tight?  My ratty-assed AK-63DS will take both without issue, so it’s NOT the mags, and in the AK-63DS’s case, it isn’t the gun.

If I want to take the Arsenal to the range, I’ll only have that one mag, unless I go to Cabelas and pick up a few Magpul mags.  I solved the problem by ordering 3 metal Polish mags from Atlantic Firearms and 4 metal Croatian mags from Apex Gun Parts (both groups being 30-round mags).

I also added 550 cord to both arms of the spars of the collapsible stock.

Eventually, I’ll also find some bakelites, but they’re really scarce.  In fact, it was moderately difficult to find even European metal mags.

The plan is to continue to take my AK-63DS to the range and practice with it.  I’ll use my experience with that particular gun as an AK-47 baseline of knowledge.

I also have to order more ammo, but I’ve enough for a decent start.

Categories
AK-47 AKM AMD-63 Elite Shooting Sports

I FINALLY Shot the AMD-63!

So, after work today, I took my AMD-63 to my local range. I used an hour of range time to get the rifle zeroed.  It took a full hour, as the instructions I used instructions that came with my sight adjustment tool were not the best.  I used Google on my phone to find some other written instructions and while those covered what the other instructions didn’t, they left out things as well.  I was confused as to how to adjust the front sight post.  The instructions were not clear and I ended up walking the sight post in the opposite directions as what I intended.

The range I use (Elite Shooting Sports) is an indoor range.  They have a 100-yard range and I thought I’d need long range to zero the sights.  Nope.  All I needed was 25 yards.  I couldv’e used the handgun range instead.

I shot approximately 36 rounds.  I shot Red Army Standard 124-grain FMJBT (I’ve like 500 rounds of that).  I was shooting in groupings of three and checking to see where the groups were landing and attempting to make adjustments.  I ended up zeroed my last 5 minutes of the session.

The first grouping was pretty tight, IMO (1-inch group):

The tang that the hammer strikes is mushroomed a bit but that’s pretty much normal for most AKs.  It’s only mushrooming due to the Tapco trigger group that was installed to keep the firearm compliant.  The Tapco hammer is harder than than the tang.  The original trigger group did not beat up the tang (otherwise, it would’ve been bad when I first received it).  Eventually, the mushrooming will stop.  Once it does, I’ll dremel away the mushrooming.

The Tapco mags performed flawlessly.

I had a serious amount of fun.  I will probably be shooting this rifle a lot more often!

Some range footage is below.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/uT5He3X3K1sW2JFLA

Categories
AMD-63 ammo Cabelas frangible Hevi Duty LAX PPU RAS

7.62×39 Ammo – Where Is It?

I visited my local Cabelas today and was a bit pissed.  They had very little 7.62×39 ammo.  I saw a few boxes of PPU and Herters.  That was it.  Nothing else.  No bulk in that caliber either.  That company (Cabelas) is large.  It is very large.  And it can’t keep stocked in mainstream calibers?  I mean, there was 5.56mm and .223, but no 7.62×39.  WTF. 

I was hoping that Cabelas would be my local go-to, but either someone is purposely buying up all the AK ammo (I hate horders) or Cabelas is having supply problems.  I was trying to stay away from Walmart for ammo but I think I might need to keep using Walmart until Cabelas gets their shit together.

As well, it was the same for 9mm handgun ammo.  There was hardly any.

I ended up buying some of that PPU, only to find that it was soft-nosed, and it wasn’t marked as such on the box.  I opened it up and saw that it was round-nosed with a lead tip.  I heard that some people had issues when trying to shoot that ammo through their AKs.  I did see at least one video where a guy loaded up this same ammo and shot it through his AK with no issues.  We’ll see.  I bought 40 rounds of it (2 boxes).

So, I’ve two boxes of the PPU SP RN and a box of RAS (30 rounds).  I guess I’ll be using my range’s ammo on my first visit.  I want to fire maybe 100 rounds of 7.62×39.

I saw that Cabelas had some frangible ammo that I was curious about.  It was Hevi Duty frangible and non-toxic, $15 for a box of 50.  I bought 2 boxes.  This is multi-purpose ammo:  it can be used at indoor and outdoor ranges, on steel, as competition ammo, and as HD/SD ammo.  It’s supposedly very accurate too.  It is light-for-caliber, as it is 100-grain and has a velocity of 1200 FPS.  I will shoot a box of it through my carry gun and then begin to use it as my SD ammo if it feeds without issue.

I also have 500 rounds of RAS coming from LAX.  It was $99 for 500 rounds.  I almost ordered 1000, but I’ll see how fast of the incoming batch I shoot before ordering more.  Shipping was a bit high, though, so I should’ve probably bought the 1000.

In my last post, I mentioned that I’d bought Magpul hardware for the AK.  I was able to fit that on the gun with a bit of grinding/filing.  The handguard fits well.  I can’t fit the gas tube cover since the gas tube on my AK is not standard (it is shorter and has no fittings for covers or handguards.  I do want an upper handguard on the gas tube, though, so I’m waiting for M-13 to finish a batch of tubes specifically designed for the AMDs (they are $50 each, though….I’ll probably end up buying two of them).  I suppose I could make my own.  Apparently its easy to cut down a standard gas tube but heat is needed, as they can crack.

I keep looking over the gun to determine if there are flaws or some things I overlooked.  I think I’m obsessing, thinking I went cheap and remembering the “you get what you pay for” mantra.  The only thing that might be wrong with this particular rifle is that the barrel’s hole where the gas tube vents from might be large (they’re supposedly all like that).  I’ll deal with replacing the barrel when the time comes.  I can mitigate the issue by buying a stronger recoil spring and maybe one of those buffer cushions…

So, tomorrow may be where I take the AK to the range.  We’ll see.

Categories
AMD-63 bolt bolt carrier group receiver trigger group

A Close Look At The Innards Of The AMD 63

I wanted some video documentation of the innards of my AK, so that people see how CII firearms hold up over time.

I’m finding that there are too many people that are parroting shit about guns they’ve never owned or seen.  I’ll elaborate on that soon but for now, I just wanted to share the videos and picture.

And yes, I’m aware of the peening on back of the bolt carrier.  I discussed that in my last post.  That’s the fault of the Tapco G2 trigger group, actually…it’s metal is harder than the bolt carrier.

Categories
AK 63 AKM AMD-63 FEG Hungary

It’s Here!

The good news:

The bad news:

Yes.  Already.  I haven’t even fired it yet.  The only thing I can think of is that it happened when test firing the rifle.  It’s not actually that bad…it’s only on the left side.  The right side is fine.  I hear they all peen like that and will eventually stop.  We’ll see.  I understand that I can polish my hammer (Tapco G2) so that it stops doing this, but I want to investigate further before even trying that.  This is my first AK….I’d rather the carrier gets fucked (I can always buy another) than me screwing it up by trying to smooth out the hammer face.
I’m loving the rifle so far.  I only had 30 minutes to mess with it before I had to be off to work.  Everything it came with is good, as well.  The rifle is actually lighter than I expected.  In fact, it’s a LOT lighter…it feels around the same weight as my AR-556.
I can actually see myself shooting this thing a lot, but I’ll await the other bits to arrive before I take it to the range.
Categories
AK47 AKM AMD-63 CII Clearview Investors Hungaria Tapco

Ordered My First AK47!

Last night, while at work, I ordered my first AK47.

I ordered a Hungarian AMD 63 rifle that was built from original surplus parts sets.  This particular firearm is based on the Hungarian AKM.  The Hungarian AMD 63 replaced their AMD 65 (their 65s were more expensive to build and had reliability issues with the foregrip).

Note:  This rifle is mislabeled by importers.  It is actually an AKM 63.  The folding stock version is still called the AMD 65, though.

It will come with a composite stock, 5 30-round Tapco mags, a 4-cell mag pouch, and a AMD leather sling.

I ordered through Clearview Investors.

I was on the fence between an AMD 65 or an AMD 63. AMD 65s appeared to be much more difficult to find and also don’t have all that many mod options. The difference between the two is that the AMD 65 has a foldable stock (a metal piece that can be crooked). So, I opted for the AMD 63 instead.

This is the item I ordered.

The below is what is listed in the description at the above link.  I’ll list it here in case it changes in the future.

AK 47 Variant 7.62×39 Rifle
Original Hungarian FEG “Heavy Wall” Stamped Receiver
New U.S. 16.5” Barrel, 4140 chrome moly
Barrel threaded 14mm-1, standard AK threading
Muzzle Brake threaded on
Tapco G2 Trigger Group
Accepts hi-capacity magazines and drums
U.S. made Butt Stock
Plastic Pistol Grips (stained black)
922r compliant

7.15 lbs.
37.5” Overall length
7.62×39 Caliber

Built to our specs. from original AMD 65 parts,  from double stack rifles. This means that the bolt, bolt carrier, etc.. were made to handle double stack mags. The heavy wall receiver is an FEG with a double stack mag well.The rifles are built by Clearview Investments. They are well built using a new U.S. made barrel, with the gas port, front and rear sight blocks aligned carefully, assembled and then the entire assembly is parkerized. Each rifle is tested with a variety of mags prior to shipping.

Note : These rifles are built from original surplus part sets. Metal components have been professionally parkerized to a like new finish however grips and forearms are original and may show some rub or finish wear. Trust me though, overall these are nice. 

I’m definitely excited about this firearm, because I’ve been looking for AK variants for awhile.  I specifically wanted something that wasn’t going to beat itself up as I shot it, and it had to be not-too-expensive while also chambered in 7.62×39.

I initially started looking at Century Arms’ C39v2 because I liked the idea of an AK that was made in the U.S, but when I saw MAC’s and AKOU’s reviews of the rifle, I backed off.

I then researched PSA’s PSAK47, which is actually not a bad option.  I’d have probably had one by now if they’d been better stocked.  They were always out of stock.

I then researched the WASR 10s and N-PAPs.  In fact, I was researching those guns last night and was on the ak47 Reddit subpage when I saw an archived post of someone mentioning Clearview Investors as a good source for a rifle they mentioned, the AMD 63.  When I saw that the firearm was Hungarian-sourced and was on sale for $529 (regular price was $621), I began to feverishly research.  The only issue this rifle will have is carrier tail mushrooming.  Here’s an example, with pics.  From my understanding, the Tapco trigger is the cause of that (the metal of that trigger is harder than the metal of the carrier tail).  That can easily be fixed by installing a different trigger group (to a trigger group that is known not to mushroom the carrier group).  So, I’m trying to find out if anyone has had any luck with other-than-Tapco triggers.

I’ll also be needing to get some 7.62×39 (in bulk, which will be cheaper than buying range ammo).

I’ll review the rifle when I receive it (should receive it sometime this coming week but I work swing shift so it may be difficult to get until my next weekend.  We’ll see.