rustycrusty
09-24-2011, 03:08
Shot my newly acquired century ak74 today and loved it, but immediatly saw room for improvement in the trigger.
tonight (this morning?), inability to sleep and boredom lead to a major improvement in my new AK74. While i was taking it all the way down to familiarize myself with the gun, I found that almost a full cm of travel in my trigger was unnecessary take up. i played around a bit marking where the trigger actually broke, and measured the full distance of take up. I then divided that distance in half (could have gone way more, but then safety becomes an issue IMO) and began thinking about the cheapest way to hold the trigger back that distance.
i realized anything stuck between the forward travel stop on the trigger group and the receiver where it makes contact alters the distance the trigger is allowed to return forward. too much and it wont reset, too little and it is still too long. It turns out that a small paperclip - straightened then bent appropriately - will fit in-between and go a hair over halving the distance. Even better, sliding the bar of the paperclip intercepting the forward stop forward or backward allows for fine tweaking.
The excess paperclip on both sides was the perfect length to string back out through the small amount of room in front of the pistol grip handle nut and bend back around the receiver - securing the paperclip. Even better- the nut firmly holds the clip when tightened, and the pistol grip hides the ends of the clip.
After doing all this i noticed that the safety would not fully rise. Realizing that if i botched it i could buy a new one for next to nothing, i filed away at it, re-assembling everything every few strokes of the file until i got it just perfect, where it would engage perfectly. (btw, i took off appx .5mm)
Now i have-
- NO travel of the trigger when the safety is engaged- a good 'duh' indicator when you have forgotten to take the safety off and are sloooowly bringing the trigger back for a long shot.
-a 6mm pull with 6mm reset (instead of 16mm pull with 6mm reset)
***SAFETY CONCERN***
While checking the distance in tinkering it was not the trigger length which was most important to me- it was the amount of purchase that the sear hook had on the hammer. Fortunately, the lever is set up so there is a VERY good amount of steel hooking over the hammer. I estimate that i reduced the amount only about 20%. it is important to make sure that the sear has plenty of purchase and that the safety is filed just enough to engage. Any wobble or movement in the trigger with the safety on means you botched the whole job- buy a new safety and start over.
hope this is useful, and that this method isn't already out there- i'm feeling pretty clever and very pleased with myself...
tonight (this morning?), inability to sleep and boredom lead to a major improvement in my new AK74. While i was taking it all the way down to familiarize myself with the gun, I found that almost a full cm of travel in my trigger was unnecessary take up. i played around a bit marking where the trigger actually broke, and measured the full distance of take up. I then divided that distance in half (could have gone way more, but then safety becomes an issue IMO) and began thinking about the cheapest way to hold the trigger back that distance.
i realized anything stuck between the forward travel stop on the trigger group and the receiver where it makes contact alters the distance the trigger is allowed to return forward. too much and it wont reset, too little and it is still too long. It turns out that a small paperclip - straightened then bent appropriately - will fit in-between and go a hair over halving the distance. Even better, sliding the bar of the paperclip intercepting the forward stop forward or backward allows for fine tweaking.
The excess paperclip on both sides was the perfect length to string back out through the small amount of room in front of the pistol grip handle nut and bend back around the receiver - securing the paperclip. Even better- the nut firmly holds the clip when tightened, and the pistol grip hides the ends of the clip.
After doing all this i noticed that the safety would not fully rise. Realizing that if i botched it i could buy a new one for next to nothing, i filed away at it, re-assembling everything every few strokes of the file until i got it just perfect, where it would engage perfectly. (btw, i took off appx .5mm)
Now i have-
- NO travel of the trigger when the safety is engaged- a good 'duh' indicator when you have forgotten to take the safety off and are sloooowly bringing the trigger back for a long shot.
-a 6mm pull with 6mm reset (instead of 16mm pull with 6mm reset)
***SAFETY CONCERN***
While checking the distance in tinkering it was not the trigger length which was most important to me- it was the amount of purchase that the sear hook had on the hammer. Fortunately, the lever is set up so there is a VERY good amount of steel hooking over the hammer. I estimate that i reduced the amount only about 20%. it is important to make sure that the sear has plenty of purchase and that the safety is filed just enough to engage. Any wobble or movement in the trigger with the safety on means you botched the whole job- buy a new safety and start over.
hope this is useful, and that this method isn't already out there- i'm feeling pretty clever and very pleased with myself...