An Ak47 front sight post question...

[Signut]

A while back i bought an Arsenal SLR 107f AK47 rifle. The front sight is canted. Its bad enough that adjusting the front post alone would not be the best option as it would be allmost all the way to the left side. I have watched a few YouTube videos on the subject of correcting it but none of them explained exactly how it is that the "pins" that hold the front sight in place work to keep it in place? Do the pins make contact with the barrel thus preventing it from moving? Is it mere contact with the barrel or is there a channel cut in the bottom of the barrel that the pins make contact with?

I'm not spooked about doing the work myself... i just like to understand how things work before i start taking them apart. The rifle has a flash hider and i see the detent that keeps it in place. That should come off pretty easy. Drilling out the pins is not an impossible job...i've had to do that at work quite a few times. If i get it set up to do with a drill press it should not be that hard.

Another thing that makes me wonder is how you keep the front sight block straight and while i am pounding the new pins back into the holes?

Any advice on this procedure would be appreciated. Thanks

mike
signut

 

[cjjtulsa]

I'm pretty sure thre is a slight groove in the barrel that the pins use to lock the sight in postion. I'd imagine if you have to realign the front sight base, you'll have to run a drill through the pin holes and "correct" the grooves in the barrel, otherwise the pins will just relocate and rock the FSB back out of position? Not sure if that would require a slightly oversized pin, but I imagine it would. Seems like I've read a little about this, but never had to do it myself (thank God). Here's one site:

http://www.novarata.net/Linx310/fsbcantfix.shtml

I'm surprised an Arsenal Bulgarian would have front sight cant; that's typically a beef with Romanian and a few of the MAK-90s.

 

[english kanigit]

If it is physically possible to get the windage zeroed, even if it takes all the travel available, then it is 'correct' in AK terms.

Small comfort, I know. My -107CR was delivered with an ever so slight cant to the front sight base/gas block in one direction and an opposite cant to the rear site base in the opposite direction! The front sight post was however perfectly centered. When I shot it at 25yds the first time to confirm zero I was hitting nearly 1.5" left of POA. A closer inspection of the drum into which the front sight post was screwed actually showed a witness mark way off to the side. It HAD been zeroed at the factory and then somebody pushed it back to center prior to boxing and shipping. That was one of a couple of issues with that gun.

I'm surprised an Arsenal Bulgarian would have front sight cant; that's typically a beef with Romanian and a few of the MAK-90s.

That Arsenal has/d a reputation for making good guns doesn't mean they don't make a certain amount of junk; every manufacturer does. The good ones though make significantly less of it though through better manufacturing processes and catch more of it with QA/QC before it gets out the door. What really sets companies apart though in my book is how they handle things once questionable items they've manufactured hit the field or the market. That is just as important to me as the company's reputation for quality products.

We are well into the point of receiving products that were manufactured during the production surge following the gun control freakout response of Sandyhook and other stupidity. During that ramp-up in production you can bet your sweet tush that many manufacturers were loosening QA/QC standards to get more units out the door.

Ek

 

[TwoForFlinching]

I'll chime in with the easy (read improper) way of working around the proper... All of my Romanian SAR series guns were canted, but the gas ports always lined up ship shape. Ended up cutting, bending, rewelding, semi-gloss rattle can coating to solve the problem on the first two I had. I ended up just learning the curve on the last one I had. It was watermelon accurate at 100. Ended up a fun gun that took tens of thousands of rounds of $2 brown bear with little more than some wd-40 to keep the bolt running.