slughammer
04-16-2014, 10:46 AM
Initial testing with a fat 311041 in my MAK-90 showed very good accuracy, but I found that they would NOT feed from the magazine into the chamber. Not even close. 0% feed rate. The flat nose hit the bottom of the barrel so squarely I couldn’t even understand how the pointy surplus ammo manages to make the trip into the chamber. Checking into the condition I slow fed some jacketed rounds from the magazine and found that the pointed bullets just barely clear the edge of the chamber. After looking at the situation I decided to try for a better feed angle into the chamber for my flat nosed boolits by modifying a magazine.
102464
I have (3) 5 round magazines so I decided that one of these would be modified. I started the modification by drilling out the (5) spot welds on the front catch. I did this using 2 different drills. I wanted to avoid breaking into or through the magazine so I stopped when it looked like I was deep enough. The welds were still holding and the catch didn’t want to budge when I tried tapping it off. I took my second drill and ground the tip of the point off of it; the point was already drilled into the magazine as deep as I wanted and removing the point from the bit allowed me to go deeper with the full dia. without breaking into the magazine body. I was then able to give a few taps and pop the catch off.
102465
I made a guess of how far to move the catch and decided on .09. I scribed the magazine body with my calipers and removed the material with a file. I test fit the catch onto the magazine and inserted it into the rifle a few times. Loaded a dummy round and fed it into the chamber both slow and fast. It looked like it would work.
102466
I clamped the catch into position and went out to the garage. Please excuse my welds; it’s been a few years. Cleaned it up bit, but left it rough and unfinished for now.
102467
Testing at the range showed good things! (25) rounds fired and it fed everything perfectly. The improved angle allows the nose to clear the edge of the chamber and feed right in.
102468
Many thanks to Junior1942 for his SKS article on castbullet.com and also his informative post on this board. His use of 311041 in the SKS showed me that a mold I already owned was not too heavy for the 7.62 x 39. Accuracy with surplus ammo was poor; but by using my own cast lead reloads, I am amazed at the difference.
102464
I have (3) 5 round magazines so I decided that one of these would be modified. I started the modification by drilling out the (5) spot welds on the front catch. I did this using 2 different drills. I wanted to avoid breaking into or through the magazine so I stopped when it looked like I was deep enough. The welds were still holding and the catch didn’t want to budge when I tried tapping it off. I took my second drill and ground the tip of the point off of it; the point was already drilled into the magazine as deep as I wanted and removing the point from the bit allowed me to go deeper with the full dia. without breaking into the magazine body. I was then able to give a few taps and pop the catch off.
102465
I made a guess of how far to move the catch and decided on .09. I scribed the magazine body with my calipers and removed the material with a file. I test fit the catch onto the magazine and inserted it into the rifle a few times. Loaded a dummy round and fed it into the chamber both slow and fast. It looked like it would work.
102466
I clamped the catch into position and went out to the garage. Please excuse my welds; it’s been a few years. Cleaned it up bit, but left it rough and unfinished for now.
102467
Testing at the range showed good things! (25) rounds fired and it fed everything perfectly. The improved angle allows the nose to clear the edge of the chamber and feed right in.
102468
Many thanks to Junior1942 for his SKS article on castbullet.com and also his informative post on this board. His use of 311041 in the SKS showed me that a mold I already owned was not too heavy for the 7.62 x 39. Accuracy with surplus ammo was poor; but by using my own cast lead reloads, I am amazed at the difference.