2/25/13

Monday, Monday… can't trust that day.  Anyhoo, so here’s what went down over the weekend.  Friday evening I arrived home to find two Kushnapup kits sitting in the living room.  After dinner, I took them to my room to play with.  I began with the installation on the 7.62x39.  It turns out there is a bit of trimming Juan has to do to make the stock fit a Saiga rifle.  I did this trimming.  Eventually I got the stock installed and working but I couldn’t put the butt plate on until the tangs are removed from the rear trunnion and I can't remove the rear trunnion until I have the flash hider permanently installed.  Oh, in a fit of “instant gratification” impatience, I swung by Bloodbath & Beyond to see if they had a flash hider rather than wait until Monday for the one I ordered.  They did, I bought it.  It didn’t fit… but I knew it wouldn’t so that was no big deal.  With the 7.62x39 converted, I debated tucking in to the Saiga 12.  It was approaching a million o’clock so I decided to go to bed instead.  Saturday morning I took the 7.62x39 to the shop with me to cut off the front sight tower and have a look at installing the flash hider.  John was already there working on his car so I got to work on mine… ok, I got to work on the 7.62x39.  I cut off the sight tower, trying very hard to not nick the barrel with the cutoff wheel… unsuccessfully I might add.  I equalized the grooves on both sides of the barrel and will call them lightening channels or something.  I debated long and hard (tee hee, I said "long and hard!") about drilling out the threads on the flash hider then went for it figuring, “I have another coming in the mail Monday.”  Yeah, here’s why that didn’t work.  The barrel is 14mm.  14mm is really close to 9/16” as John has taught me with wrenches.  Thing is, 14mm comes out to 0.5512” whereas 9/16” is 0.5625”, a difference of 0.0113”.  I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but it allows the flash hider to flollop about pretty badly.  If I'd thought of it at the time, I would have taken a .005” feeler gauge and cut a shim to wrap around the barrel to fill the gap and align the thing for zooking.  Alas, I didn’t.  So, with the 7.62x39 done as far as I could legally go, I moved on to Lil' Wiggly.  I removed the fuel pump bracket and bent a strengthening bend in it then reinstalled it in the car.  I took a picture with John's phone so he could post it on the build thread.  I removed the fuel cell mounting bracket and drilled the mounting holes before hanging it up for John to paint.  He put on a coat of red which didn’t turn out well at all.  We decided to paint it black when we had some more black paint.  I zooked on some spring perches for John then we loaded the brown 210 onto the trailer so I could deliver it to its new owner.  We cleaned up and went to have sushi.  After delivering the car, I swung by Winchester Gallery to talk to the gunsmith about attaching the flash hider to the 7.62x39.  We decided that he would tread the barrel and I'd bring the second flash hider to him Tuesday so he could align, drill, pin, and weld it to the barrel.  Have I mentioned that a Saiga rifle is too short in a Kushnapup stock if the tangs are removed and a permanent barrel extension of some sort is installed?  Well, it is.  On the way home was when I had the shim idea.  I almost turned around and retrieved the gun.  I didn’t because it was a major ordeal getting Fifi and the trailer into and out of the Winchester Gallery parking lot the first time.  I decided I'd go home, get Fiona, and go back.  Yeah, I didn’t do that.  After dropping the trailer back at the shop I considered going back but eventually decided to gopher the original plan.  Saturday night I got tucked in to un-converting the Saiga 12.  I fought with the bolt hold-open spring and finally got it all reassembled… and the Arsenal fire control group will not work in a Saiga 12.  I was… not happy, let’s just say.  I packed everything up to go to the shop Sunday and went to bed.  Sunday I waited for mom to get home from church then we went to Red Hot & Blue for barbecue.  After lunch I took the gun to the shop and got to work.  I trimmed the Arsenal FCG to work and reinstalled everything.  Then I tried to fit the gun to the stock.  It would not fit with the bolts for the remote trigger installed.  Finally I just gave up on the idea of ever converting this gun back to a regular configuration and welded the original pins back into the receiver.  Finally everything fell together.  Oh man, a Saiga 12 Kushnapup is so friggin’ cool!  I can't wait for the 7.62x39 to be finished!  So, there you have it.  I'm sure I'll gas on some more about how awesome I am with two Kushnapup Saigas later in the week, but for now that’s all you get.  Toodles.