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.