Making a Milled Receiver?

[smity]

Is it possible to make a milled receiver at home with a drill press? I understand this sounds farfetched. But gun smiths in Pakistan do it all the times. What are your thoughts, any machinist out there?

[Packrat]

It's possible, but it's not easy even with a mill. The Pakistani gunsmiths don't worry too much about guns blowing up, poor accuracy, etc. They also expect to do a lot of hand-fitting. If you can live with that, then it can be done.

I knew a guy who was intent on building an AK with minimum tools, so he brazed the trunion in place. I know another who had a receiver made by a sheet-metal company, from a pattern he made by wrapping a piece of paper around an AK and marking the holes and openings. Both guns worked.

The AK is a very forgiving gun. If you're intent on building it, and will accept that it looks like when you're finished, go for it.

[smity]

I am not interested in how it looks just how it shoots. I have thought about welding the cut milled receiver from a parts kit to some kind of receiver rear. It will look like shit but should work just fine.

[7.62x39]

You might be better off using your drill press to "mill" your front receiver stub into a trunnion and use a stamped receiver.

That has been done successfully many times.

[Ekie]

The easist way to do a receiver for a milled rifle, or AK-47 would be to use a three piece AK-47 receiver kit. They are welded together. Not milled, but looks sorta like one.

http://www.stenparts.com/Projects/projects.html

[smity]

Ekie that looks good, what about the dimples? How thick is the sheet metal?

[KalashniKat]

Has anybody actually measured a milled reciever to see how thick the walls really are as compared to a stamped reciever? I have some of the demilled Galil recievers and was really surprised at how thin they were. I don't have them handy or I'd measure it myself.

[7.62x39]

Ekie that looks good, what about the dimples? How thick is the sheet metal?

Those weld together kits are 1/8" thick and require a lot of extra work to use.

You must make new axis pins, do a serious revamp on the selector lever and the top cover, which will not fit for snot.

Oh and you can forget about dimpling a 1/8" wall.

[smity]

kalashnikit The milled receiver aks are different thicknesses at different places. The one I have is about 2mm (1/16") at the rear and about 5mm around the lighting cuts. It is hard to measure some of the places with a tape measure.

Why is it that America has such a hard time making a decent ak receiver, china can do it how hard can it be. I know there are good ones out there just so many bad ones.

The weld together kit is right up my alley, that is what I do for a living. May be I will make a pattern and then make it up in three pieces then weld it together. The hard part will be useing a heavy enough material to weld together and making everything work. Something to do in my spare time.

[droog]

ACE has thier template online you can print out one for free then cut your own plates. :small_griAs far as the axis pins being too short you could always counter sink them on the left side plate with a 3/8 end mill and a drill press and you might be able to do the same for the selecter switch although that would be a lot of work I think it could be done if you have a lot of time on your hands.