The cool thing about ARs is that there are a ton of them out there and people are sharing ideas on how to build, use and maintain them every day. This series of blog posts I just wrote shows my current take on how to assemble lowers. I will continue to improve my techniques over time and I do this both through trial and error as well as researching what others do. In this post, I want to share some links with you that might just give you an “ah-ha” moment because of what these folks are sharing.
Please note that when you click on the below links a new tab or window will open and you may need to manually switch to that tab or window in your browser to see it.
“How to build an AR-15 Lower Receiver: A Step by Step Visual Guide” by The New Rifleman. Great photos and instructions. Shows some different approaches such as using carefully wrapped pliers to squeeze the bolt catch pin into place. Note, I tried pliers once and didn’t like them but this is an example of another approach for you to consider – plenty of guys do use pliers – just be careful wrapping them to protect the receiver from getting nicked/scratched.
“Assembling Lower Receiver – Section 7” by Brownells. This page then links to videos that cover an introduction, the mag catch, bolt catch, pivot pin, trigger group, safety selector, pistol grip and trigger guard.
“Assembling Mil Spec & Free Float Barrels – Section 5” by Brownells. This page links to videos that provide an overview, installing the delta ring, flash hider / muzzle brake, front sight, assembling a free floated barrel, installing free float handguards w/gas block and installing free float handguards with a standard front sight (which makes no sense to me why you would do that but it is there if you want to see that – if I free float a barrel, I want as little stuff on it as possible as in just the gas block and that’s it).
Beware no-name knock off websites selling generic import stuff. Some of the parts are counterfeit and not rated for firearms use.
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On the left is a RAS47.
K-VAR upper handguard
Magpul cheek riser
Ronin’s Bulgarian SAW grip in Dark Russian Plum
On the right is an AK74 NODAK SPUD.
Ronin’s Bulgarian SAW grip in Dark US Plum (Similar to the color of KVAR’s US plum furniture)
Russian mag and upper handguard.
I am a huge fan of Nepalese khkuris including ones from Himalayan Imports and GK&Co (Deepak Sunar). I do like customizing them also and have made handles many ways for both the full-tang and rat tail tang blades. What I am going to show below is a rat tail tang and you’ll notice the curve the tang has. This is the traditional tang and is very strong. Westerners have a mistaken belief that full-tang is better.
The Nepalese bladesmiths, known as “kamis”, have evolved their design over centuries based on real world experience. Their rat tail tang is very strong, allows for the traditional handle to be changed relatively easily and since the handle can flex somewhat on the tang, some of the shock is absorbed there vs. by the wielder’s hand. When the British arrived they mandated a full tang on their Army models based on their experience and beliefs. In short, when you are looking at khukuris, do not discount rat tails as weak because they are not.
The first step I do is to blast my slabs of Micarta to prepare them for maximum adhesion. I am a zealot on cleaning too before gluing. Do not attempt to glue the shiny micarta to the blade or it will knock right off with the first shock. Basically we are going to make a handle by sandwiching a piece in the middle that has the tang outline cut out between two outer slabs. These are black canvas micarta slabs that have already been blasted – that is why they are dull.
The thickness of the middle slab needs to be the same thickness as the thickest part of the tang to keep things simple.
Next, I lay the middle slab under the tang and trace its outline.
I was doing two blades at once. See the one above sitting in the cut out notch and the one below I have just traced the outline with a Sharpie marker. Please note I have not taped the edge of the khukuri’s blade yet. I would recommend you do that at some point to protect yourself.
This is slightly out of sequence but see the two round drill holes at the end of the tang? I did them before sawing to make turning around at the end easier. The numbers marked on the micarta correspond with which of the two blades I was working with.
I would then use a jig saw or band saw to cut the section out where the handle went. Note, I more often use a band saw these days and you can do whatever works for you.
[Update 7/19/18: Don’t buy the above Skilsaw. It’s not strong enough and I wound up giving it to a friend. Either get a Dewalt scroll saw or use a band saw]
See how the tang fits in? It does not need to be perfect as this will all be filled with structural epoxy.
I do not have a photo, but I would abrasive blast the tang until it was clean shiny steel. I would wear nitrile rubber gloves and hose everything (tang and slabs) down with brake cleaner to make sure no oils from my skin contaminated the work pieces. Note, I often drive a 1/8″ brass cross-pin in through the thick part of the tang to lock everything in place just in case and also use a piece of thick wall 3/8″ brass tube at the rear to make a lanyard hole. I did not do these things on this particular model and they are features to consider. For people new to this, I would recommend the brass cross pin. I always do this now even though I have never had a handle fail but I evolved this method and learned over the course of a number of years.
Next, take the outer slabs and round the outside edges over. What you want to do is to create the taper you want before you glue the handle on. It is hard to sand up front on the handle once it is glued together. I would take the three pieces, clamp them together and then work on the belt sander until I got the shape I wanted on the front leading edge. This is all we want to shape at this point. I always preferred to do the majority of my shaping once the handle was epoxied onto the blade.
For gluing the handle, I will only recommend Brownell’s AcraGlas liquid. It is a very strong, durable, and shock resistant epoxy. Absolutely do not use a cheap epoxy as it will likely break down and crumble (“sugar”) over time with repeated heavy blows. Always bear in mind that the big khukuris are choppers and heavy. What you do needs to hold up under extreme use compared to many knife handles that see very light relative use. To be safe, I would recommend you always abrasive blast the steel and the micarta before applying the epoxy – don’t try and just get by with sanding or otherwise scuffing the surface. By blasting you are almost doubling the surface area for the epoxy to adhere to and the irregular surface creates countless shapes where the epoxy can get under “ridges” in the micarta and the steel to really securely hold the parts together.
Follow the AcraGlas mixing instructions to the letter. I add in a bit of milled 1/32″ glass fiber to increase the strength in the filled areas. The ratio for AcraGlas liquid is 1 part hardener to four parts resin and I’d add about 1 part of the glass fiber. It is a bit of a balancing act because you do not want to make the resulting epoxy too thick. You need it to run in, fill voids and seep into the micarta as much as possible. [To get the most out of your epoxy, please click here to read a post I did a while back detailing my lessons learned over the years.]
Next, cut a piece of wax paper to wrap the handle. You want to apply a ton of epoxy, clamp the heck out of it and let it sit and cure for 24 hours. When you remove the wax paper, if there are any imperfections you need to fix by adding more glue, first blast the surface, clean it and then glue it. Do not just put epoxy on top of epoxy without preparing the surface first.
Next, if you haven’t done so yet, tape your blade’s cutting edge to make sure you don’t get sliced when sanding the handle. When working with a belt sander it can grab hold of the work and surprise you – you don’t want a sharp edge to be flying around!!
I do a lot of my handle work on a Rigid oscillating belt edge sander from Home Depot with 40-80 grit sand paper. Hook your shop vac up to suck up the dust and be sure to wear both a good dust mask (such as a N99 rated mask/respirator) and eye protection. The dust goes everywhere so be sure to have the vacuum hooked up and stop periodically to clean up and also to inspect your work.
In terms of shaping the handle, I will relay a piece of funny sounding advice – remove all the material that isn’t part of the handle. Really useful, right? When the fellow told me this years ago his point was that making a handle is applied art. You are sculpting a handle by removing material and working towards a shape you have thought out. I would remove a bit and test the feel, remove a bit and test the feel over and over.
I have experimented with many shapes over the years and it is really up to you. I would stick with coarse sanding to keep the handle from being slippery and did both one handed and hand-and-a-half models. In all cases, I wanted to user to have control while chopping / hacking with the blade. One real strong recommendation: ALWAYS build a finger stop or hand stop into your design. You do not want a hand to slide forward onto the blade. I always built the stop into the handle but you could certainly make your own metal cross guard or do something else — just be sure to protect the user’s hands.
The below blade is acid etched with a combination of apple cider vinegar and phosphoric acid and then everything, including the handle, had boiled linseed oil (BLO) applied to it. [Click here for my post about acid etching blades.]
This is a handle from a big HI WWII model blade. Note the lanyard hole at the end. I would drill the hole both for a friction fit and I would cut the tube longer than needed, blast it, clean it and then apply epoxy liberally before inserting it into the blade. I would then sand it down to size as part of the final shaping of the handle.
This is black paper micarta that comes out a beautiful obsidian black. It is on a long, elegant 24″-ish Sirupati. Notice the oversized pommel to serve as a hand stop and the finger groove up front for indexing and grip. This is a hand-and-half design meaning a person could grab hold with their second hand if they really wanted to.
The cool thing with the handles is that you have a ton of materials and options to consider to make a very unique functional piece. I hope this blog post gives you some ideas.
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Back in 2015, Rob Ski went to Definitive Arms to build an AK. In this video, they really get into the details of building an AK and anyone regardless of experience level is bound to learn something. You can watch in this 36:13 video as Rob builds his AK under the expert tutelage of the guys at Definitive Arms.
There are some great tips in here for riveting, getting the barrel blocks on square, etc. Definitely worth your time. After watching all these build videos, I really wish I had the time to build another.
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This is his last video in the six part series. He recaps what he did and shares with you some of his tips for sandblasting such as putting foam earplugs in the chamber.
Here are the links to each segment – when you click on them they will open in a new tab:
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
This is the 5th video in his six part series. If you are building from a flat, then you need to pay careful attention to this. He shows how to file the ejector tip down plus also shows how to do the spot heat treating in this video with a MAPP torch. I spot heat threat the fire control group (FCG) pin holes but I heat treat the entire lower rails outside of the receiver before I spot weld them in. His method works just fine so pay attention. If you are building from a finished receiver then the odds are it has already been heat treated – if you have any doubt, ask the vendor that made it.
By the way, if you need a MAPP torch, go to Home Depot or Lowes (I prefer HD) and buy a Bernzomatic MAPP torch. Personally, I use a MECO Midget Oxy Acetylene (OA) torch that works great for sheet metal. Do some comparison shopping though. It may be real expensive online if they ship the gas too.
Note, the Bernzomatic MAPP torch is definitely more portable so there are times I use it but if I need a lot of heat fast, I get out one of my OA rigs.
Here are the links to each segment – when you click on them they will open in a new tab:
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
In this fourth installment, you can see usmcdoc14’s welding results and he discusses how to trim the top rails. Note, a lot of flats and receivers now have pre-cut top rails so you only need to trim them if they look like what you see in the video – big, wide and straight.
Here are the links to each segment – when you click on them they will open in a new tab:
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
Here is the second video in usmcdoc14’s series about building an AK using a flat. He still swears left and right (which I find hilarious – when he said “sandblast the shit out of them” I started laughing) and gives you some good recommendations on checking the past receiver stub from the kit. He talks about his approaches for weld and rivet builds. He does make one comment I don’t agree with. To press out the barrel from the rear trunnion you do not need to remove the rear sight block (RSB) – you just push out the barrel pin out and then press the barrel out. Second, and this is just my opinion, with a weld build I would still drill some holes where the rivets were at and do plug welds otherwise you are going to pour on a ton of heat, may still not get good penetration and risk ruining the heat treat of the trunnion locking lugs.
Other than that, I think it is a good video and worth you watching and learning from. Your best bet is to watch multiple guys and decide what works for you.
Here are the links to each segment – when you click on them they will open in a new tab:
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
