AK owners inspect your firing pins.

[DABrackett]

Keep yourself safe, inspect your firing pin.

 

[sovietak474u]

Not to knit pick but you should inspect all parts of a firearm after you shoot it. This should be done while cleaning. Your in the gun when your cleaning it anyway.

 

[DABrackett]

I wonder if the company will send you replacement parts AND a new pair of underwear if this happens to you?

Firing pin damage can occur in use so you may want to keep an eye on it on all firearms as a matter of regular maintenance. Spherical smooth and tight.

I could use some new underwear anyway, ha ha.

 

[Jeddak]

Thanks for the constructive input!
The receiver is a FPK Dragunov (Romanian) imported by TG.

Thank you, so it is a PSL--trigger did not look right for the SVD. You probably know this already, this is for ODT, the real Dragunov/SVD is a short-stroke rifle with a removable trigger group (short stroke does not change the balance of the rifle as much when piston moves). PSL is a long-stroke rifle, same action as AK. If you need to look at its close cousin, Russian Vepr AK are also built on the RPK-style receiver, same as PSL/FPK.

What is interesting us that the gas relief cut is MUCH bigger on the SVD bolt, so it can accommodate more gas from a fired cartridge (.39 vs x54R). I wish Romanians would modify AK bolts to Dragunov design.

 

[blueknight8]

good looking out !

 

[madmarinehays]

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

All true, its my PSL.

 

[DABrackett]

I hope my concerns are not BS because I genuinely want to help people avoid problems before I need to fix them; or worse, they cannot be fixed.

Attached are photographs showing what I found.

Note the flattened, sharp edge firing pin tip. Also note that the firing pin is bent and the back is highly deformed from impact with the hammer which is also grooved from the impact (photo). Note the crescent cut in the retaining pin formed when the firing pin departed the bolt. The picture of the bolt shows the "pressure relief" notch that just intersects the edge of the primer and would be filled by the primer metal when under pressure and compare that to the space provided by the firing pin hole and decide where 50,000 psi would rather go if the pin ruptures the primer. After I replaced the firing pin I test fired the gun and had a case rupture. The headspace on the 7.62x54R is set by the rim not the shoulder. This is why I cast the chamber to see if it was damaged or out of specification. It turns out that the ammunition may have been mislabeled. Chamber measurements were correct for 7.62x54R (Russian) but the ammunition was about 0.010 short at the shoulder making me think the ammunition is really 7.62x53R (Romanian).

Be careful, there is a lot of BS out there.

The mislabeled ammo is actually likely to be 7.62x53R Finnish based on the dimensions measured. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

 

[A3370]

The mislabeled ammo is actually likely to be 7.62x53R Finnish based on the dimensions measured. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

So, the problem was due to wrong ammo?

 

[whiskerz]

7.62 x54 is the Russian designation . 7.62x53 is the Finn designation and is slightly smaller .

Differences between 7.62x53mmR (Finland) and 7.62x54mmR (Russia)
Round length: 77.00 mm (54R: 77.16)
Case length: 53.50 mm (54R: 53.72)
Rim diameter: 14.40 mm (54R: 14.48)
Bullet diameter: 7.83 mm (54R: 7.92)


A 53 round should not blow up a 54 chambered gun. The Finn ammo is a Finn product and not elsewhere in the Combloc

 

[Tony2X]

7.62 x54 is the Russian designation . 7.62x53 is the Finn designation and is slightly smaller .

Differences between 7.62x53mmR (Finland) and 7.62x54mmR (Russia)
Round length: 77.00 mm (54R: 77.16)
Case length: 53.50 mm (54R: 53.72)
Rim diameter: 14.40 mm (54R: 14.48)
Bullet diameter: 7.83 mm (54R: 7.92)


A 53 round should not blow up a 54 chambered gun. The Finn ammo is a Finn product and not elsewhere in the Combloc

That's just dumb....why would they do that?
Talkin bout Finland.