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-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).