Cone_Skid_Cone
Regular
- Location
- Grande Prairie
I just couldn't leave it alone.. I am just ending day two now of modifying my perfectly good VZ58 into another one of my "bubba" collection. This project has been in the back of my head for a long time, and it's finally seeing progress.
I present to you.. my VZ58 SBR project.
The barrel shroud is currently sitting in place, stuffed with butcher wrap to somewhat center it. The shroud I'm building is a temporary seat filler until a site sponsor produces something more professional. After removing the front sight yesterday using a number of unsuccessful methods, including but not limited to, a gear puller.. I made a trip to Princess Auto and bought their dirt cheap 12 ton press. If you're thinking about doing anything like this, I'd highly suggest spending the $120.
As the barrel is turned down 0.025" for the sight block to seat - it leaves very few options for recessing it to the gas block. You can widen the sight, leaving very thin material to press it on with. You can turn down your barrel the whole way with a lathe if you're confident enough and be left with a skinnier barrel. Or you can aquire a sight block from an AK47 which would match your barrel's 0.590" OD. I figured it would be tighter and used bullet lube to press it on.. but it's just barely tight enough that you can push it on by hand. The VZ58 uses the same 3x12mm pins fortunately, so after seating your sight where you want it, simply drill some new grooves for the pins and press them in.
The temporary shroud I'm using is a $30 husky flashlight from Home Depot. It has all the parts necessary to work with a bit of fitting and grinding. I liked that it was checkered the whole length.. but I still may end up smooting out half of it. There is a lot of room to play as the body of it is very hefty, while still very light. It sits half finished for the night as it's getting too late to be running the grinder. The flashlight shaft was about 8 or 9", allowing me to cut it down my preference of 7 - 1/4". It will be secured to the barrel by an extra thread protecter that will be pressed into the muzzle end of the shroud. I'm trying to use only parts provided by the flashlight (excluding the thread protector) to keep this as a budget build.
Over the winter I plan to also build a new set of furniture featuring a widened LHG for better grip, a matching UHG, and possibly an AK style stock if I can decide on a method of mounting it. The pistol grip will be a resin surplus AK grip if I'm able to source one.
Before the comments that VZ58s aren't AKs.. I am well aware.. but we have to made due with what we have up here! I appreciate any feedback or suggestions on what I have so far, and if you'd like, I can begin to take more detailed pictures of my progress.
CSC
I present to you.. my VZ58 SBR project.
The barrel shroud is currently sitting in place, stuffed with butcher wrap to somewhat center it. The shroud I'm building is a temporary seat filler until a site sponsor produces something more professional. After removing the front sight yesterday using a number of unsuccessful methods, including but not limited to, a gear puller.. I made a trip to Princess Auto and bought their dirt cheap 12 ton press. If you're thinking about doing anything like this, I'd highly suggest spending the $120.
As the barrel is turned down 0.025" for the sight block to seat - it leaves very few options for recessing it to the gas block. You can widen the sight, leaving very thin material to press it on with. You can turn down your barrel the whole way with a lathe if you're confident enough and be left with a skinnier barrel. Or you can aquire a sight block from an AK47 which would match your barrel's 0.590" OD. I figured it would be tighter and used bullet lube to press it on.. but it's just barely tight enough that you can push it on by hand. The VZ58 uses the same 3x12mm pins fortunately, so after seating your sight where you want it, simply drill some new grooves for the pins and press them in.
The temporary shroud I'm using is a $30 husky flashlight from Home Depot. It has all the parts necessary to work with a bit of fitting and grinding. I liked that it was checkered the whole length.. but I still may end up smooting out half of it. There is a lot of room to play as the body of it is very hefty, while still very light. It sits half finished for the night as it's getting too late to be running the grinder. The flashlight shaft was about 8 or 9", allowing me to cut it down my preference of 7 - 1/4". It will be secured to the barrel by an extra thread protecter that will be pressed into the muzzle end of the shroud. I'm trying to use only parts provided by the flashlight (excluding the thread protector) to keep this as a budget build.
Over the winter I plan to also build a new set of furniture featuring a widened LHG for better grip, a matching UHG, and possibly an AK style stock if I can decide on a method of mounting it. The pistol grip will be a resin surplus AK grip if I'm able to source one.
Before the comments that VZ58s aren't AKs.. I am well aware.. but we have to made due with what we have up here! I appreciate any feedback or suggestions on what I have so far, and if you'd like, I can begin to take more detailed pictures of my progress.
CSC
