I was doing a very thorough cleaning and oiling of my Romanian AK-47 yesterday and was getting familiar with how it is designed. I put in a recoil buffer when it was new, so the back of the receiver has not been impacted by the bolt during recoil. The area where the bolt assembly has been hitting the front section of the receiver during the closing of the bolt seems trivial, a very small area of the bluing is rubbed off only, the rifle has about 500 rounds through it. Overall, this rifle is rugged and I don't see a problem with not having a long shooting life. But the sheetmetal design of the receiver is really odd compared to the traditional milled block that we are mostly used to.
Having owned 3 SKS, the wear on those rifles was definately higher in comparison to the AK, with the bolt in contact with the receiver, etc. I also have read of people having problems with their SKS rifles on this Greybeard format, although my SKS's functioned well, almost no jambs all the years I shot them. I know of a shooter who bought a Chinese AK in the early 90's with a case of ammo and he and his buddy proceeded to really abuse it, lots of shooting without a cool down of the barrel. At the end of the day the gun began to go full auto due to a worn trigger part, sear I suspect. Otherwise it still worked.
I like the AK gun design so well I am thinking of getting another one, different make and setup for variety. Anybody have a part break on their AK-47?
Thanks
