AK owners inspect your firing pins.

[GAGunguy]

I got this message from a very knowledgeable gunsmith - Dave Brackett, http://davesgunsmithing.com/



Had a very lucky Dragunov owner in yesterday. The firing pin in his rifle was rough. This roughness finally combined with a thin primer resulting in a ruptured primer. This resulted in the pressure driving the firing pin out of the bolt and hammer, pushing the dust cover open and exiting the firearm just to the right of the shooters head. Please inspect your firing pins; smooth and rounded with protrusion that does not exceed the width of the pin at the hole. Ideally, the pin should only be a thousandths or two smaller than the hole but have not personally seen this in AK.

Regards,

Dave Brackett
www.DavesGunsmithing.com

 

[Shemp]

Thanks for the heads up

 

[mo mauser]

Will check them. Thanks

 

[Hayata]

I bet that made for an exciting range day...

 

[Optimus Prime]

Damn. Just damn...

 

[Camper292000]

Wait. What exactly should you look for?

 

[bulletpaluza]

I call BS the firing pin tappers and there is a channel for gas in situations like this to escape. There may have been heat treating problems and head space issues but a ruptured primer is not the cause of that problem.

I have had ruptured primers in my ak from using soft winchester primers when loading some hunting rounds. I loaded them HOT and all I had to do was remove my firing pin and shake out pieces of primer from the bolt.

 

[MRH]

I call BS the firing pin tappers and there is a channel for gas in situations like this to escape. There may have been heat treating problems and head space issues but a ruptured primer is not the cause of that problem.

I have had ruptured primers in my ak from using soft winchester primers when loading some hunting rounds. I loaded them HOT and all I had to do was remove my firing pin and shake out pieces of primer from the bolt.

This sounds right, but what kind of heat treatment issues are you referring to? Also, I've never heard of head spacing issues on an AK. Not saying that do not or cannot exist, but this has always been one of the many reasons I like AK's. I've never heard of head spacing issues...

 

[Gigante]

Yup. Ya gotta check those head spaces in them. It's the only tight tolerance in the rifle.

 

[bulletpaluza]

This sounds right, but what kind of heat treatment issues are you referring to? Also, I've never heard of head spacing issues on an AK. Not saying that do not or cannot exist, but this has always been one of the many reasons I like AK's. I've never heard of head spacing issues...

Well it was on a psl/dragonov. Could have been a home build with barrel depth not set right or whatever. Any firearms is capable of having a heads space issue. The pin holing the firing pin in could have been comprised or a home made pin that was not heat treated or just a flawed surplus retainer pin.

Plus for the firing pin to push the hammer back bounce off of and or around the recoil spring and still have the balls to break through the dust cover and fly past the shooter just sounds like BS to me I just don't see it happening.