Israel, Uzi Builds

Uzi Part 1 of 7: The Uzi Kit, Receiver and Barrel

One of the firearms that had an impact on me growing up was the iconic Israeli Uzi.  In the 1980s you would see them in the news, TV shows and movies all the time.  Today, being quite a bit older, what interests me is the history and engineering that led up to this weapon.  Suffice it to say that Israel has known conflict even before the country was founded in May 1948 and certainly ever since.  Israel first fielded the Uzi in

I’m not going to duplicate the history as there are some excellent resources out there that explain the political climate and how the Uzi came into being.

  1. The first is a book by David Gaboury entitled “The Uzi Submachine Gun Examined” that is the single best reference guide I found. I can’t recommend it enough and you will not regret buying it.
  2. There are three overview videos on Youtube that provide good context – especially if you prefer watching  a video to reading.
  3. The Wikipedia entry provides a decent overview as well.

The Uzi has evolved into a variety of weapons including the micro uzi, semi-auto versions and so forth.  What interested me was the full size Uzi that I had grown up hearing so much about and you’d see them with the original wood stock and the metal folding stock.

Over the years, I’ve made many AKs and ARs for personal use.  I’ve been really busy but wanted to build something different.  For the past several years I have noticed that there are a ton of Uzi kits for sale from the various parts kits vendors and this sparked my interest.  For me, part of the challenge of building from a kit is learning how to do so legally and finding all the parts.

I knew I wanted to build a carbine vs. a pistol so that shifted me in the direction of a wood stock for a number of reasons:

  1. To be classified as a rifle, the barrel needed to be at least 16″ with an overall length of 26″.
  2. To get the overall length, that meant I either needed an even longer barrel or a permanently attached stock that would surpass that 26″ minimum.
  3. The resulting carbine would be front end heavy and the wood stock would help balance things out.
  4. I am not a huge fan of my cheek being on sheet metal – I prefer wood with a gently bend.

Now you many have a different perspective and that is just fine but due to this I ordered two wood stocked Uzi kits from Robert RTG.  I only planned to build one Uzi but purchased a spare kit for donor parts just in case.  What arrived were two seriously oiled kits.  The wood was a tad beat up as were the pistol grip and handguard panels – probably from being packed with the parts.  The bolt and fire control group honestly looked like new.

In terms of the receiver, all my research pointed me to buying one from McKay.  They offer just the bent receiver shell and you can do all the welding or a fully welded receiver that is all set for semi-auto use and ready for you to assemble with.  I opted for the ready-to-go model and based on McKay’s reputation, I also ordered my 16″ 1:10 twist 9mm NATO chambered barrel from them also.  I placed my order direct with McKay, had them ship it to my FFL, Scott Igert, and it arrived a week later.

McKay really did a real nice job on the receiver.  Here it is with some of the original stubs sitting by it:

Here are the details that McKay took care of when they make their fully welded receiver:

  1. The front trunnion has a reduced inner diameter to prevent installation of a military model
  2. The rear barrel support ring must not allow a military barrel to be installed
  3. The bottom of the semi-auto feed ramp will block a full auto sear – in other words, it is just a tad too long for the full length original sear to fit.
  4. The right side of receiver behind the ejection port has a block bar welded in place that prevents the installation of an original full auto open bolt.

The other plus is that everything above is American made so that means the receiver and the front trunnion count as US-made parts.  By the way, in terms of 922r, an Uzi has 13 parts on the 922r parts list so that means three must be replaced with US parts to meet the maximum limit of 10 foreign parts.  The McKay receiver, front trunnion and US-made barrel will enable you to meet the parts count requirement.

By the way, there are a lot of other posts about how to do an Uzi:

For Uzi parts, my go-to sources are:

At any rate, let’s wrap this post up and will discuss the the parts you will want to remove from the old kit.

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.

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