PSA AK-V Part Four: Lubricating and Picking a Carrying Case

At this point, the AK-V is almost ready. As you may have noticed in the first post about impressions out of the box, it shipped pretty dry with just some oil to prevent rust and that’s just fine. In this post I’ll outline what I did to lubricate it and also the cool US Peacekeeper case it will be carried in.

Here’s a good view of the inside of the receiver. Everything is clean and appears solid. However, it definitely needs lubrication.

The bar you see in the middle with the circle on its left is the bolt hold open or bolt catch mechanism. On the PSA AK-V magazines, you will see a red tab at the back that only protrudes when the magazine is empty. That tab pushes this bar up and it holds the bolt open. A slide release lever is in the non operating side and simply moves this bar down allowing it to close.

That red tab in the back of the magazine is what pushes upwards and lifts the bolt hold open bar into position.

Here’s the fire control group. It comes with a retaining plate, which makes me happy since I really do not care for the traditional wire retainers.

This is not really a criticism and more of an observation – PSA installed a sheet metal shelf just forward of the hammer and just above the center support rivet. Don’t dry fire the weapon without the bolt present or the hammer will hit this shelf. In most AKs, the hammer would be beating up the center support if triggered without the bolt assembly so really the same need to manually move the hammer forward when the bolt assembly is not installed in order to protect the two surfaces still exists.

Cleaning the AK-V

On any new weapon, you need to run a bore snake or whatever your preferred method is to get any remnants from machining, dust, etc. out of the barrel. I ran a RamRodz tip down the length of the barrel coated in CLP and it came out fairly dirty. I did this four times with two RamRodz and was set. Note, I usually use the RamRodz on my 9mm pistols and happened to have them sitting there. The wood push sticjs were too short for the AK-Vs barrel so I used a small nut driver to push the wood stick down. I would normally use a Hoppes 9mm Bore Snake.

Here’s what the two normally white RamRodz looked like after running down the bore two times each with CLP on them. Note, I broke one removing it from the mag well in a rush.

Lubricating the AK-V

To lubricate the weapon, I pretty much did what I normally do with any AK and I follow and old saying “If it slides, grease it. If it rotates, oil it”. My grease of choice these days is Super Lube. It works great on weapons in a wide range of temperatures, is a synthetic grease and includes very fine particles of PTFE (Telfon) in it. I apply it to the bottom of the bolt carrier, rails, fire control group (FCG) surfaces and a light film in the hole for the recoil spring in the bolt group. I wanted to say bolt carrier but in the AK-V, the bolt is a one piece combination of the traditional bolt barrier and bolt body.

I then used Super Lube oil on the FCG pins plus a drop on each end of the firing pin. Technically, I tried to put a drop in the hole on the bolt face and a drop on the exposed firing on on the rear. I also made sure the extractor was oiled as well.

I’m using Super Lube grease and oil on everything these days – rifles, pistols, shotguns, stuff around the house, etc. You can see the acid, or flux, brush that I use to lightly coat parts. I buy them by the bag off Amazon and keep the current one in use in a baggie between uses — that’s the purpose of the Bondhus zip loc bag to the left.

It’s not pretty but you get the idea – any surface that slides has a think layer of Super Lube grease. All surfaces that rotate have the oil.

You can see I brushed Super Lube on the bottom of the bolt. It looks heavier than what it is thanks to zooming in and the lighting. I put a drop of Super Lube oil down the front firing pin hole and on the exposed firing pin in the back.

After lubricating the AK-V, I function tested it. Wow. What an amazing difference. We’re talking night and day difference. It was incredibly smooth and hadn’t even been broke in yet!

US Peacekeeper 28″ Rapid Assault Tactical Case

Ok, so after measuring the rifle, I ordered the US Peacekeeper case and it fits like a glove. Often you have slop at the ends but here the butt and muzzle go right up to the cushioned ends.

The case is rather discrete and very well made in terms of materials, zippers and stitching. Inside the outer pocket is MOLLE straps for securing pourches and accessories. To hold the magazines, I opted for a three cell pouch made for AR magazines – you can get two of the AK-V 35 round magazines in each and just barely close the flap.

Here’s the case. I had to add the Punisher swag patch to it.

That is a Midway USA brand three AR magazine pouch mounted with MOLLE straps. It’s a pretty good pouch and the as you can see the mags just barely fit. I have three mags laying in the pouch for moment along with an Outdoor Connection one point sling. I don’t think I will keep the other three magazines in there. I do want to keep at least one spare battery for the red dot and a Mag Lula loader in there. I may add one more AR magazine pouch to hold a total of eight magazines and still have room for the batteries and sling.

You can see the AK-V magazines just barely fit. I’m perfectly fine with the fit. The purpose of the pouch is really to organize the case and I don’t need to worry about how securely they are retained vertically.

As you can see, it is a nice snug fit. The AK-V and Vortex Crossfire Red Dot sit in there just perfect. It will not fit with a magazine in case you are wondering.

This is the back of the bag. You can see the sling attachment points plus the fact that they ran the handle webbing all the way around the bag. Cheap bags don”t do this. The reason it matters is that this bag will weigh a lot once the magazines are loaded and you want the weight as evenly distributed as you can – looped under the bottom even. Cheap bags that have handles that only go part way risk the material separating over time under the load. Now there are designs that compensate for this but I thought it worth pointing out that US Peacekeeper thought this through.

That’s It For Now

I will try to get this to the range at some point and will report back when I do. I hope you found these posts useful.

This is a four part series on the PSA AK-V 9pmm:

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PSA AK Webstore Links

Interested in an American made AK? Consider Palmetto State Armory (PSA) as a source. Click on the following links for the associated webstore categories for AK-related rifles, pistols and parts at PSA: