Plenty of AK barrel have seen heavy use and some are pretty much sewer pipes at this point – blown out, dirty and most of the rifling a distant memory. A quick way to check is to take a cartridge of the correct caliber, such as 7.62×39, and put it in the muzzle. If it stops before the case hits, there is hope. It the case hits or even goes into the muzzle, the barrel is pretty much history.
Pass:
Fail:
I’m not saying the barrel is perfect but it may still be useful. I built both M70 stubs on their original barrels and they shot good enough – about 8-10″ – at 100 yards fired with iron sights with cheap ammo. Still a fun rifle to shoot though.
If a barrel fails, I would definitely get a replacement and not even bother trying to use it but that’s just me. I’ve known a few guys over the years that proudly built and fired sewer pipe rifles.
One of the challenges with older AKs is to figure out what kind of shape the barrel is in. Yugos especially are famous for shot out bores. The slang term is "dark bore" meaning the barrel is so corroded that it is no longer shiny and usually they are pretty…
At this point we are getting into the home stretch. Once the barrelled kits dried up, virgin barrels required a fair amount of work to install the blocks. Personally, I never really enjoyed doing the blocks so now that completed barrel assemblies are available again, I'll happily leave that work…
When you buy a scope/optic and mount it on your rifle or pistol, it may relatively be close to where the actual bullet will hit the target or it may be a mile off. This applies just as much to dot optics as well as scopes with magnification. First off,…
