Tag Archives: AK

AK & Related Rifles, AKBuilds, Gunsmithing, USA

PSA AK-V Part Three: Changing the Brace, Adding a Red Dot and Installing A Quick Takedown Pin For The Dust Cover

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Out of the box, the AK-V is impressive. The trigger is decent, the grip and handguard are functional but there were three things I really wanted to do – move to a SBA4 brace, install an optic and create a quick takedown pin so the dust cover could be removed (the big reason I bought the AK-V from a business perspective). So let’s step through each.

Palmetto State Armory (PSA) has a stunning array of Kalashnikov firearms now. AK-47s, AK74s, 100 series, rifles, pistols … it’s impressive. Click here to go to their main AK menu.

Replace The SBA3 Brace With An SBA4

Yes, they are both adjustable braces but that comparison ends there. The SBA4 is much more sturdy and has five length of pull adjustment positions. The SBA4 does go on sale and that is the time to buy one. I got mine for $99 at PSA’s July 4th sale and there was free shipping!

The SBA4 is the top brace and the SBA3 is the bottom. You can instantly see the SBA4 has more bracing and is bulkier. The back end does not flop around either unlike the SBA3.

Now PSA did something with the SBA3 that is a best practice. They staked the castle nut to the receiver end plate. Now, I started thinking about what would be my easiest option and it dawned on me that if I was SB Tactical and wanted to control cost and complexity, I would try and have as few inventory parts as possible and that means as few buffer tubes. Guess what? The SBA3 and the SBA4 both use a Mil-Spec 6 position buffer tube. Problem solved. You can remove the brace just like most AR/M4 stocks – lift up on the locking pin and slide it right off.

The Castle Nut has two real solid stakes in it. Kudos to PSA.
Ta-da! Under the brace is a Mil-Spec buffer tube or “receiver extension” depending on who you talk to. The SBA3 and SBA4 use the same tube!! Note, the weapon is upside down for this photo.
Here’s a good shot of the receiver. See that small vertical slider switch just above the mag catch? That’s the bolt release. The M4 buffer tube / receiver extension they are using is rock solid. If it is made by someone else, I don’t recognize it.
Here’s the tail end of the SBA4 on the left vs. the SBA3 on the right.
The SBA4 uses the same buffer tube and slides right on in place of the SBA3 brace.

The result is a very sturdy brace. After comparing the two, I will only use SBA4 braces going forward.

Vortex Crossfire Red Dot Optic and American Defense Mount

I doubt I will ever go past 100 yards with the AK-V and a much more likely engagement distance is 50 yards so a red dot is perfect. I’m a huge Vortex Optics fan and this was a perfect situation for their Crossfire Red Dot mounted on an American Defense AD-T1-L STD quick detach mount. They are my favorite combination of price and performance these days.

By the way, be sure to keep a couple of spare 2032 Lithium batteries in your case or range bag. Nothing dampens a range trip like dead batteries. It’s also why I use a quick detach mount – if the batteries are dead or that optic fails, I am yanking that optic off.

With the AD-T1-L STD mount you are a tad higher than the AK-V’s sights. I plan to watch how they relate at the range so I can ballpark where to aim if the battery is dead and am in a rush. Practice, practice, practice and not just when everything works.

Here’s the Vortex Crossfire Red Dot on the American Defense AD-T1-L STD mount. If you wonder why I use American Defense, it’s for the quality. Cheap Chinese/import quick detach rings shoot loose, don’t return to zero and bend/break over time. AD stuff is rock solid made from aerospace aluminum. Note, you can see our Quick Takedown Pin just above the handguard and I’ll cover that next.

The AK-V Dust Cover Quick Takedown Pin

I had to look up — I built my first Yugo M92 in 2012 and instantly hated the hinged dust cover. I drilled out the rivet and came up with a stainless pin with a ball detent and pull ring to secure the cover. The rest is history. I wound up making pins for the M92/M85, Tula and Bulgy Krinks use the same pin, Vepr shotguns and now the AK-V.

The reason for wanting a quick takedown pin is plain and simple, when you want to clean the weapon or work in the receiver, the hinged dust cover is in the way. To remedy this, you can install our AK-V quick pin and it’s about a 10 minute job if you know how to strip down an AK. This is a quick overview:

  1. Ensure the weapon is empty.
  2. Field strip the weapon like you would any AK, remove the gas tube and the lower handguard so they are out of the way. 
  3. The AK-V’s hinge is simply a 5/32″ roll pin that needs to be tapped/punched out so use something like a bench block to support the weapon and create a hole/gap for the pin to exit into.
  4. Use a 5/32″ roll pin punch and a hammer to tap the roll pin out.  You can save it for the future in case you ever want to use it again for some reason. 
  5. Put the dust cover back in place with the hinge holes lined up and slide in our quick takedown pin.
  6. Re-assemble the weapon.
  7. Done
Here, I have the rear sight block fully supported by the bench block behind it and am using a 5/32″ roll pin punch and hammer to drive the roll pin out.
What makes a roll pin punch different from a normal punch is the dome in the middle that centers the punch on the pin and makes driving the pin out very easy. It also reduces the risk of a regular punch slipping off what you are working on an scratching the finish.
So this is what you wind up with once the roll pin is removed.
This was my first attempt because I am right handed. Having the pull ring there right next to the gas tube locking lever was just too much. I flipped it around and had the pull ring on the other side of the gas block.
This is how I am running it now. The pull ring is on the left / non-operating side and the ring is tucked just behind the handguard.

We have the pins up for sale on our website now. Click here to order one.

Summary

Looking good!

The AK-V was almost done at this point. I still needed to lubricate the weapon and put it in a suitable case. I’ll tell you about that part of the journey in the next post.

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

Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.

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**@*********ps.com. Please note that for links to other websites, we are only paid if there is an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay and only if you purchase something. If you’d like to directly donate to help fund our continued report, please visit our donations page.

AK & Related Rifles, USA

PSA AK-V Part Two: First Thoughts Out Of The Box

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A tad over a week from when I ordered my AK-V via the PSA website, Scott Igert, of Modern Antique Firearms, called and told me that the pistol had arrived. Let me give you a tip, there is such a huge backlog of people signed up for the “email me when it is in stock” feature of the PSA website, you will never hear when they show up. I have a huge tip for you – check at 9am and 4pm Eastern manually. I did that for a week or so and that is how I snagged my AK-V. I My logic was real simple – if I were them, I’d add inventory either first thing in the morning or at the end of the day. Bingo. Maybe it was just luck but it worked.

Okay, so this post is really a collection of photos to show you the AK-V. The next post will get into the modifications that I did.

Here’s the AK-V still with the PSA tag on it. You can see the SBA3 brace, Magpul grip and handguard. Note, Magpul makes some very solid stuff. If that works for you, great. It will take any AKM grip and handguard. That means you can put Russian AK furniture on it, Bulgarian, etc. The good news is that it is not custom.
I have mixed feelings about the big Palmetto logo at the rear but what can you do? It has an enhanced safety lever. And you can see the mag release just behind the magazine.
Here’s one reason I bought the AK-V – the hinged top cover. When I saw the AK-V was taking off in terms of popularity, I knew a good chunk of folks would not like the hinged cover and want to replace it with a quick takedown pin. What is nice is that hinge is just a 5/32″ roll pin and it pushes/punches right out. The gas tube cover lever is separate.
Just so you know, this is our quick takedown pin for the AK-V. Click here to open a new tab to order it. In the next post, I’ll get into the installation.
In one photo you can see why I don’t like the SBA3 brace. The rear rubber is too flexible and slides into weird shapes. You’ll notice that not only are the top and bottom (the sides really) of the brace not lining up but the whole shape is slightly cupped upward. The SBA4 is a far better design.
Top down view of the front half.
The hinged top cover is nicely designed and executed. This is a close up of the hinge area. You can see the rear V sight just to the left of the center of the photo.
It is a solid albeit unique top cover design. The rear sight block (RSB) does not have a groove to retain a normal dust cover. This weapon is a pretty unique design – it’s not just AK parts slapped together with a magwell adapter – there’s a lot more to it. I am impressed.
When you lift the top cover, you immediately notice an interestingly shaped spring, a rubber recoil buffer and a spacer made from machined aluminum.
A view of the hinge with the dust cover open.
A closer view of the recoil buffer and spacer.
This is the recoil spring assembly removed. The length looks pretty much like that of an AKM but I did not measure it.
Wow – now the bolt carrier and bolt are one piece and it is surprisingly heavy. This thing is packing some inertia to be overcome. Notice how the gas pistol is both short and fixed/solid? No wobble like you would see on an AK. Notice there is no out of battery tail on the carrier/bolt either.
Now look at it flipped the other way.
Here’s a close up of the bolt face. Notice there is no sign of the firing pin – it’s spring loaded and being pushed backward. The extractor looks beefy. This is what I am talking about in terms of AK-V being an interesting design.
Another view of the non-op side of the bolt. You can see the bolt handle towards the top left.
This is the rear of the firing pin being pushed backward by a spring.
Things look pretty normal. Definitely needs to be lubricated before the first use.
View of the bolt hold open mechanism and the interestingly shaped ejector.

Click here to go to the main Palmetto State Armory AK-V web page. You can see all the accessories and models that they have online as well as order magazines and drums.

In summary

The AK-V is a very interesting design. Rivets and the finish were well done. Everything looked well machined and assembled. You could tell it was dry. There was a very light coat of oil but the action felt rough just like most new AKs do. In the next blog post, I’ll actually step through what I did in terms of changing to the SBA4 brace, adding a Vortex Crossfire Red Dot and installing one of our Quick Takedown Pins.

This is a Four Part Series on the PSA AK-V in 9mm:

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**@*********ps.com. Please note that for links to other websites, we are only paid if there is an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay and only if you purchase something. If you’d like to directly donate to help fund our continued report, please visit our donations page.

AK & Related Rifles, USA

PSA AK-V Part One: Good Reviews Really Raised My Interest After They Fixed Initial Problems

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Well, I bought a Palmetto State Armory AK-V in 9mm. I’ve been a PSA AR fan for years and years. I’m not even sure how many rifle and pistol kits of their’s that I’ve built. On the other hand, reports about their AK attempts kept me away from that product line until recently.

PSA responded to the market and brought out a 9mm pistol caliber carbine (PCC) using the AK platform that they called the “AK-V”. In a ways, they took the Russian ideas behind the 2004 Vityaz-SN as inspiration and created their own unique weapon.

Now, they did have some bumps when they launched. Guys identified a number of weaknesses and then PSA did something that not a lot of folks expected – they went out and fixed them and improved the AK-V design. Kudos to them – seriously. What has resulted is a red hot product that is pretty hard to find.

So, before I get into what I did, here are some videos that started me down my journey including some updated videos.

Palmetto State Armory (PSA) has a stunning array of Kalashnikov firearms now. AK-47s, AK74s, 100 series, rifles, pistols … it’s impressive. Click here to go to their main AK menu.

AK Operators Union, Local 47-74

Rob Ski has fired 3000 rounds through his as of July 11th with no major problems. He reported one CZ magazine not a PSA magazine. My response – just use PSA’s magazines. He was dropping it on rocks too! The bolt, buffer, chamber and internals all looked fine. No deformations or marks. Rob doesn’t mince words and likes what he is seeing.

Military Arms Channel – PSA AKV9 Relaunch

They did a lot of shooting and said they are extremely happy with the performance of the gun now.

I did a lot of lurking reading reviews and comments on Facebook and what not. Watch these videos – these guys are impressed. My next post will have a bunch of photos and first impressions.

By the way, click here to go to the main Palmetto State Armory akv page. They have listings of all their models and accessories

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

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**@*********ps.com. Please note that for links to other websites, we are only paid if there is an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay and only if you purchase something. If you’d like to directly donate to help fund our continued report, please visit our donations page.

AK & Related Rifles, Yugoslavia

Add Length of Pull to a Yugo M70, M72 or M76 Wood Buttstock WIth A Limbsaver Recoil Pad

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Normally, I like the length of the Yugo M70 and M72 buttstocks. They’re shorter than many Western fixed stock designs but I’ve just grown accustomed to the length of pull (LOP). Recently, I had Two Rivers Arms build me a M76 designated marksman’s rifle (DMR) and found the stock to be a tad shorter than what I wanted to get in position behind the big Vortex Hog Hunter scope I had bought for it.

Two Rivers Arms custom built Yugo M76 rifle with a RS!Regulate scope mount and Vortex Hog Hunter scope. The UTG rings have been replaced with an American Defense mount and the cheek piece will be replaced but you can get an idea that this is a big rifle and a big optic.

I realized that to make the LOP longer, I had two options. My normal route with an AK is to install a stock adapter and either go to some form of modular stock. In the case of the M76, I really wanted to stick with the original wood. The brought be to my second option – to add a recoil pad.

There are a ton of recoil pads on the market but as far as I know, nobody makes a direct replacement recoil pad for the Yugo military rifles other than me and my pad is a copy of the original. This gives you two options also – either cut the stock and install a “grind to fit” pad that would ruin the original stock or to go with a slip on pad.

Slip on recoil pads are designed to fit a certain range of buttstock sizes based on the height and width. They may not be the best looking of options but they get the job done and don’t require any modifications to the underlying stock — plus for folks who don’t like messing with tools – they can be slid on and off usually very easily.

End of Buttstock Size for Yugo M70B1, M72B1, and M76 Rifles

Zastava made the Yugo rifles but is now in Serbia and makes both commercial and military rifles. The dimensions I am about to give so you can get the proper pad only apply to he military rifles. If you have a Zastava N-PAP for example, your stock is much smaller and I don’t know the dimensions.

If you do have a military sized Yugo M70B1, M72B1 or M76 then the following should sizes should be approximately right:

  • Top to bottom of the buttstock overall: 4.48″ so just under 4-1/2″
  • Left to right at the widest point: 1.29″ so just under 1-1/3″

So that means a slip on buttpad needs to accomodate those dimensions and will slide right over the original recoil pad as well.

Limbsaver by Sims Vibration Labs

Years ago, I happened across Limbsaver recoil pads and started using them more than Pachmayr, which is another leading brand. I’ve had very good luck with Limbsaver so they were my go-to when it came to the M76.

They have a new Air-Tech series that adds 1″ to the LOP and is also remarkably spongy to absorb the recoil. The M76 really doesn’t have a ton of recoil so my decision was more based on the 1″ LOP.

The AirTech slip on pad comes in four sizes:

  • “Small” fits stocks measuring 4-1/2 x 1-1/2 inches to 4-13/16 x 1-5/8 inches
  • “Small/Medium” fits stocks measuring 4-5/8 x 1-9/16 inches to 5-1/8 x 1-3/4 inches
  • “Medium” fits stocks measuring 4-13/16 x 1-5/8 inches to 5-1/8″ x 1-3/4 inches
  • “Large” fits stocks measuring 5-1/8 x 1-3/4 inches to 5-3/8 x 1-7/8 inches

Given those dimensions, I opted to buy the “small” size and it fit beautifully. [Amazon has all four sizes – click here to see them]

The small-sized pad slid right on and fits nice and snug.

I actually wish they had a pad that added about 1/2-3/4″ of pull as that would be perfect. The end result is just a tad longer than what I would dial in with an adjustable Magpul PRS stock but it definitely feels better when I start lining up behind the scope. It’s staying on the rifle!

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**@*********ps.com. Please note that for links to other websites, we are only paid if there is an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay and only if you purchase something. If you’d like to directly donate to help fund our continued report, please visit our donations page.

AK & Related Rifles, Russia and also USSR

Yes, There Is A Published Specification for the AKM Fire Control Group Pins

I had a fellow who was new to AK-47s/AKMs ask me the other day how the two pins work and if there was a published specification for them because his were floating in their holes. I learned a long time ago to try and help guys learn so I took a few photos and sent them to him.

Two Pins for Semi-Auto AKs

In a fully automatic AK, there are three pins and they are referred to collectively as the fire control group (FCG) pins – this includes the hammer pin, trigger pin, and sear pin – once in a while you’ll see the word “axis” thrown in there somewhere. For most civilians, we’ll just see semi-auto AKs so there are just two pins – one for the hammer and one for the trigger assembly which is made up of the trigger and disconnector. They are still called the FCG pins.

For anyone that is interested, a 1968 Soviet era armorer’s manual does have the pin specification:

This is from a Soviet era Armorer’s Guide that specs out the AKM fire control group pin. The shaft is 5mm and is where the trigger and hammer rotate. The same type of pin is used for both the trigger and the hammer – they are not unique.
Here is a pile of pins from a mix of countries. I had them in one of my parts boxes. The diameters of the shafts vary from 4.921 to 4.988mm according to my micrometer. Based on the armorer diagram above, a diameter under 4.97 or over 5.03mm is out of spec. Three of those pins were under 4.97 interestingly enough.

Odds are that the heat treat is messed up on his receiver or someone drilled the holes out of spec. He has enough info now to decide his next steps and since I wrote most of this already, I decided to post it in case it helps someone else.

Accessing the 1968 AKM Armorer’s Manual

I am going to try hosting his huge armorer’s manual PDF file and see how it goes. If people have problems downloading it, I’ll just remove the link – click here for the 64MB PDF file. Note, I am not the owner or creator of that file. Someone did us a huge favor by taking the time to scan in all the pages and share it. It is in Russian and has a ton of diagrams.

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**@*********ps.com. Please note that for links to other websites, we are only paid if there is an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay and only if you purchase something. If you’d like to directly donate to help fund our continued report, please visit our donations page.

AK & Related Rifles

Part 6: Two Rivers Arms Yugo M76 Rifle – The First Range Trip

I finally got a chance to take the Yugo M76 to the range and my youngest daughter went with me although now that she’s in college she’s gone a lot. I do have fun when she’s home as she loves shooting also and knows her way around a rifle.

Erika is getting the rifle situated. I forgot my good bench rest so we made do with a Caldwell bag rest I brought along just in case. The weather was great.

We set up at 100 yards and I did the initial test firing and sighting in of the rifle. Function-wise, it was great. We did not have a single failure to feed or eject the whole day.

By the way, my daughter is wearing MPOW 035 ear muff hearing protectors and she said they worked great. She wore them when we were shooting the M76, my .338 Lapua and 9mm Glocks. They are excellent not to mention a good deal. I have three sets of them now for her and others. I am still using my Howard Leight by Honeywell electronic ear muffs.7

Both of us were wearing NoCry safety glasses. I use ones that go over my prescription eye glasses and my daughter wears normal ones because she has contacts.

One thing the slowed me up a bit was that the laser bore sight didn’t really help me out much. I have a new one from Wheeler that works great on the actual muzzle end of rifles but it would appear the M76’s brake was not truly perpendicular to the bore. Normally it is pretty slick but at the range, I had to fire a number of rounds to even get them on the backing board first and then finally to the bullseye.

We were shooting S&B 196 grain SPCE ammo. My groups were about 1.5-2″. I’ll get back down to the range one of these days with my better rest so I can test the accuracy. I have some Hornady Vintage Match ammo too that has cool specs but since I didn’t have my bench rest with me, I largely saved it for next time and will explain why I said that in a moment.

Pierced Primers

The only problem we encountered was the firing pin piercing primers. We went through almost 40 rounds and about a third had pierced primers. This is a known issue with M76s and, yes, the rifle is headspaced properly.

At first I thought it might just be the S&B ammo so I tested it with five rounds of Hornady Vintage match also. I think two of the five Hornady rounds were pierced. At any rate, here are some photos of the S&B ammo.

Example pierced primer. It did this both on S&B and Hornady ammo.
At home, I grabbed some random brass and took this photo to show both pierced and cratered primers.

There are a lot of posts about the piercing and cratering of primers with the M76. I’m pretty busy right now but will read all that I can before I do anything.

First, I plan to confirm the pin protrudes between 1.42mm (.056″) minimum and 1.52mm (.060″) maximum.

Second, I want to compare how close the firing pin hole is to the firing pin on my other M76 bolt plus some of my AKs. I don’t think it looks unusually large but it should be investigated.

Third, I have a hypothesis – I think the firing pin needs more of a rounded radius. The current face of the firing pin is relatively flat. There were literally little punched pieces of primer laying on the firing bench that were flat and the primers that intact showed a very flat impact.

Those primer pieces, maybe they should be called chads, show a pretty flat firing pin face.

I’m not going to rush into anything. I do have a second complete bolt assembly that I can look at and scavenge from if need be. If you have suggestions, contact me – in**@*********ps.com.

Bottom line

We had a lot of fun. The rifle performed very well with no feed or ejection problems, no magazine problems and only the pierced primers were minor issue.

I do need to work on the cheek rest more so it stays in place better.

I definitely look forward to shooting this rifle with a better bench rest and also comparing it side by side with my .308 M77. Also, I’ll report back on what I try to correct the firing pin piercing or cratering primers at some point in the future. Until then, have a great day!

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**@*********ps.com. Please note that for links to other websites, we are only paid if there is an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay and only if you purchase something. If you’d like to directly donate to help fund our continued report, please visit our donations page.

AK & Related Rifles, Serbia, Yugoslavia

Part 5: Two Rivers Arms Yugo M76 Rifle – How to Find the Correct Commercial Ammunition

I’m new to the Yugo M76 rifle and the world of the 8mm Mauser cartridge. When I searched on 8mm Mauser all kinds nomenclature (how it is named) popped up and I had to do some research to understand what to buy. To try and help others I decided to write a blog post to try and clarify what type of ammunition you need to look at for the M76.

IS, JS, IRS & JRS Cartridge Types

When I heard my M76 was almost done being built by Two River Arms, I started shopping for ammo and quickly got confused – I’m good at that. I really didn’t want to deal with old corrosive ammo so my focus was on current commercial offerings and not hunting down old surplus ammo, etc.

First off, you will notice that much of the 8mm Mauser has an “IS” or “JS” designator after the size such as 8×57 IS. The “I” comes from the German word “Infanterie” which means infantry and was mistaken by some to be a “J” so some groups refer to the round using a “JS” designator instead.

When the round was first officially adopted in 1888, it was for 0.318 bore rifles. The “S” dates back to 1903-1905 when “S Patrone” or S ball cartridge was developed for use in S-bore rifles that was larger at 0.323″.

The nomenclature of the rounds can vary because of this and other factors so you are looking for: 8mm Mauser, 8×57 IS, 8×57 JS, 8×57 and so forth. It will likely say IS or JS somewhere especially if it is European but American producers may just say “8mm Mauser”.

Do NOT buy 8×57 IRS or 8×57 JRS. These refer to a rimmed variant that was developed for use in break barrel sporting rifles – double rifles, drilling rifles and so forth. Once in a while you will see it for sale and it will NOT work in a M76. Just remember – if it ends in RS, your day is going to Really Suck 🙂

CIP and SAMMI Specs

The standards body for small arms ammunition in Europe is the Commission internationale permanente pour l’épreuve des armes à feu portatives (“Permanent International Commission for the Proof of Small Arms”. They refer to the 7.92×57 Mauser formally as 8×57 IS.

The US standards body is the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufactuers’ Insitute (SAAMI) and they refer to the round both 8mm Mauser and 8x57mm.

I also noticed one interesting detail – the CIP designated rounds are up to 390.00 MPa or 56,565 PSI. Rifles that use the round must be proof tested to 125% of this.

SAAMI is considerably lower at 241.3 MPa or 35,000 PSI and is done is for liability reasons. Among other things, they are concerned that someone may put a modern cartridge in an older narrower throat “I-Series” barrel.

What am I shooting?

I really like Sellier & Bellot from the Czech Republic and they have a number of rounds for the 8mm Mauser listed as 7.92x57JS. The only load I can seem to find from them in the US is the 196 grain Soft Point Cutting Edge (SPCE) cartridge. It functions great and is accurate in my M76. I’m getting about 1.5-2″ at 100 yards with it.

Here’s my S&B 196gr SPCE ammo. It has worked great so far and I am getting about 1.5-2″ groups at 100 yards shooting 5 round groups. I plan on taking my good bench rest the next time I go to the range and see if I can tighten up the groups.

I also have some of the Hornady Vintage Match but haven’t started using it yet. The specs Hornady publishes sure look good and I look forward to trying it.

Hornday Vintage Match 8x57JS. I just bought this and plan on trying this in the near future.
The unique looking top round is the 196 grain S&B Soft Point Cutting Edge (SPCE) round. This is supposed to be designed for medium game including boar, goats and deer. The bottom round is a Hornady Vintage Match cartridge and the bullet is a 196gr Boat Tail Hollow Point (BTHP) .

Where To Learn More

The following websites provide a lot of insight into the 8mm Mauser round for those of you who want to learn more.

Thank you for reading and I hope this helps you find ammo for your M76.

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**@*********ps.com. Please note that for links to other websites, we are only paid if there is an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay and only if you purchase something. If you’d like to directly donate to help fund our continued report, please visit our donations page.

AK & Related Rifles, Serbia, Yugoslavia

Part 4: Two Rivers Arms Yugo M76 Rifle – Fixing The Magazines

The M76 is a pretty wicked designated marksman’s rifle capable of firing 1.5-2 minutes of angle with the hard hitting 8mm Mauser round. It does have a pretty bad weakness however – the magazines can jam so hard you need a tool to get the follower to come up. There’s a solution and that’s what this post is about.

So, What’s The Problem?

Zastava designed the M76 with a bolt hold open (BHO) follower. In other words, the follower has a big lobe that blocks the carrier from going forward and thus locks the action open. Sounds great, right? It would have been if they had closed the gap between the follower and the magazine body and/or made the skirt of the follower longer.

What happens way too frequently is that when the carrier cycles forward, it hits the bolt hold open lobe of the follower causing the follower’s nose to dive down and jam the follower. Literally, the end result most of the time is that it is a bear to open the action and get the magazine to release — I found I needed to fashion a dowel to hit the rear of the follower to free it up. Not good.

Some guys report more headaches than others and I can’t readily tell you why. Maybe Zastava realized the problem and corrected it or maybe there’s enough variation in the gap between the magazine body and follower that it does not always happen. I have about nine M76 magazines and they all nose dived when hit by the bolt carrier practically every time.

The bolt carrier slams the follower down so hard that it can be difficult getting the magazine out of the rifle as well as releasing the follower.
A 3/8″ dowel can be hit with a hammer to pop the follower back into position. Yeah, this sucks.

Cleaning The M76 Magazines

I should point out that I bought about a dozen M76 magazines – some from Apex and some from Ivan Drago on GunBroker. They all had a ton of old cosmoline on them and a lot if was on really thick. I pulled the old paper and junk off the eight you see below and left the rest in storage.

Eight cosmoline laden M76 magazines. Some were almost full of the stuff inside. Some had old newspaper stuck on them as well.
I keep a 5-gallon bucket about half full of Ed’s Red cleaner around that I use to remove cosmoline and what not. Click here for the recipe. I let the crusty magazines sit in there for a couple of days because I had other stuff I was working on and the solution needs time to soften everything up. When I am done, I put the lid back on. It’s great for freeing up rusty parts too.
After the soaking in Ed’s Red to soften and even dissolve some of the crud, I disassembled each magazine and wiped them out. What a mess. No photos of that part but here you can see ones that are done and sitting in a box waiting for next steps.

The Solution to M76 Magazines and Nosediving

Let’s start with two things that didn’t work just so you know. My first try was to simply polish all the edges. That did not work and neither did adding Dupont Teflon dry lube.

My second try was to use sand paper to round everything over underneath the lips of the body and the outside edge of the skirt. That did not work either – even with polishing and Dupont Teflon dry lube.

So, with those two failures, I did some searching on the WWW and found that AKblue posted how he welded a small tab of 20 gauge (0.039″) sheet metal to the back of the follower to close the gap. That did work wonderfully for me and let me walk you through the steps.I went to all the big box stores in the area and nobody had 20 gauge sheet metal. I miss 20 years ago when I could go to a local steel store but they are all gone now.

1. I went to OnlineMetals and bought a 12″x12″ sheet of cold roll mild steel – nothing fancy is needed. 12×12 turned out to be way more than I needed. Shipping is what kills you so I wanted to only buy one time even if some experimenting was needed.

Nothing more exciting than a photo of a 12×12″ piece of 20 gauge sheet metal.

2. I needed to figure out some basic template so I could cut out a bunch of tabs to to then try different shapes with by sanding them down. Now I have a big belt sander – you could use a file or whatever works for you.

That high quality rendering is from an ancient CAD application called pen and paper. The back of the follower was over 0.7055″ wide – I think I just measured the back bent portion and not the sides so take this as a starting point and not an absolute.. Plus wait until you see the fancy ultra precise cutting method (that’s a joke by the way)! In terms of height, I measured about 0.525″ from the lower shelf to the bottom and then added a 0.25″ to have metal to grind down to a shape that worked so the tabs I cut were about 0.71″ wide and about 0.75-.8″ tall.
So much for precision – I used these shears to do the cutting due to the depth of the sheet, I allowed for the thickness of the cutter and clamped a straight edge to guide me from the front to the back. In this photo, the stuff is just sitting there for the photo – I did not have it laid out properly yet. I told you it was high tech, Note, I cut the sheet for the approximate 0.775 dimension.
I scribed the line for the 0.7050 dimension and cut it with my bandsaw. I wasn’t kidding when I said the dimensions were ballparks. I had two criteria I wanted to honor – the tab should not protrude from the top or sides of the follower and I wanted enough material at the bottom to do some experimenting and shaping on.
I then used a Dremel to remove burs. I did not want anything to hang up inside the magazine.
I sanded the back of the follower and sprayed both it and the tab with brake cleaner before welding just to get rid of any contaminants. This is a Harbor Freight 120 volt spot welder and it has the tongs on it for welding in AK rails hence the unique shape of the lower tong if you are familiar with them. If you don’t have a spot welder then I would drill or punch a hole in the tab and shoot a weld with a MIG, etc. I really am not sure if epoxy would hold up with this use case and am recommending true welding for reliability
I didn’t have much room to move the tongs around. I could get two heavy spot welds. This photo shows part of a third attempt but I settled on just two for the rest.
Have you ever wondered about spot welders for casual use but thought they might be too expensive or too complicated? Actually, there are a lot of decent import models that will run on 120 volt household current. The thing you do is to buy one of the tong models, take a few scraps of sheet metal and get to know the sound and color when there is a good weld. First, do it and burn hole on purpose to see but don’t go longer than that or you will melt your copper spot welder tips. Next, back off the time and the amount the tons compress until you find a good weld that doesn’t pull apart easily. That’s it. Click here for a listing of tong spot welders on Amazon – be sure there are over 30 ratings and the higher the average score the better.
First off, the tab is way too long. I am maybe an 1/8-3/16″ at the base of that curve. You’ll also notice that I sanded the back so it would not drag on the magazine body. I polished all the parts using the little rubberized polishing bits in my Dremel.
I did apply a light coat of Super Lube grease to the back to help the parts get to know each other. After things wear in, I bet I will not need it.
You can see the tab. I made sure that the tab was below the lip of the follower. In other words, I did not want it protruding. I went around and polished all edges to make sure nothing would snag.
Here’s another angle – you can just barely see the tab.
Testing of the magazines was done with Realistic Snap Caps. These were great because they are just like the real 8mm Mauser rounds and I could confirm that feeding was okay.

Bottom Line

Welding in the tab did the trick. I think it works for two big reasons – it closed up a rather large gap at the rear that allowed the follower to tilt down to begin with plus by making the skirt of the follower a bit longer, it could not tip as much either. I don’t think the exact shape of the bottom of the tab matters a great deal but you definitely must debur and polish each By adding a bit of Super Lube grease to the back, everything slid very smoothly. I am assuming it will not be needed as parts wear in and time will tell.

Also, I bought way too much 20 gauge sheet metal. You could get by with a far, far smaller sheet. I thought I would have to experiment more and it turned out to be simpler than I thought.

When I went to range feeding was great and not one problem with the follower nosediving when the carrier returned on an empty mag. Problem solved.

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