August 19, 2011
By George Spafford
Next, I ordered some fairly standard AK parts from Cope's Distributing (www.copesdistributing.net ) in order to comply with the 922r regulation. I knew I'd need a new fire control group, and I favor the U.S.-made TAPCO G2 single hook trigger. That gave me three 922r compliance parts, a topic we'll discuss later, and the G2s work very well once polished. I also ordered a U.S. 14x1 AK slant brake that gave me another U.S. part, a Romanian grip nut and screw plus a Romanian selector lever. In terms of that lever, the Yugo M70 milled selector sits flush against the receiver and will not clear the center support rivet that a sheet-metal receiver has. I like having a true rivet there and thus bought a Romanian AKM lever. If I had opted to weld the center support in place, a Yugo selector lever could have been used.
One tip to make your new rifle function like new is to go with all new springs. In general, if you go with the springs that came with your kit, you are really trusting in the luck of the draw as to how much life is left in them. Several years ago I had the Falcon Arms AK spring rebuild kit recommended to me (www.falconarms.com ). These are all the springs in an AK for under $20 - it's rare that you get such a great combination of quality and price. I put them in each of my rifles now and am very happy with the results and recommend them.
