Quote:
Originally Posted by Webstral
... Is it practical to rebore an AK-74 barrel (5.45mm) so that the barrel will fire 5.56N?
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Short answer: No, it'd be more practical to make brand new barrels bored for 5.56mm (and probably a whole lot safer, as Paul mentioned, if you rebore the 5.45mm barrel to 5.56mm, you'll be left with a much thinner barrel).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Webstral
...perhaps modify the magazine well so that the rifle would accept standard M-16 magazines, and eliminate the full auto feature.
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Magazine well change.
The AK series use a very different magazine release catch to the AR15 series and as such has a very short magazine well. The AK mag catch would have to be totally removed and the magazine well would have to be "rebuilt" so the AR15 style catch could be installed (primarily because the barrels on the two rifles sit at different heights to each other relative to their triggers and magazine wells). However, it can be done and some companies in the USA have produced AR15 mag wells for AK series rifles. The following link has some images of such a conversion done by a Florida-based company.
http://www.armyparatrooper.org/dropz...g-well-and-BHO
Removing full auto.
I think this would be the least "practical" change to make.
The AK series is designed with a very different methodology with regards to automatic weapons fire. The selector switch in the majority of rifles goes SAFE - SEMI - AUTO (or some variation of this theme) but the AK series goes SAFE - AUTO - SEMI. You'd probably have to fabricate new parts to allow the selector to move pass the AUTO position without engaging it. I would think it would be more practical to manufacture a brand new semi-auto only trigger group or totally rebuild the original - otherwise you'd have some enterprising individuals changing the modified original trigger group back to full auto capacity.
In the image of an AKM receiver below, the AB is Cyrillic for "av", shorthand for avtomaticheskaya (automatic). The second symbol is Cyrillic for "od", shorthand for odin (single). The image also shows the magazine release ahead of the triggerguard and illustrates the almost non-existent magazine well
For comparison purposes, this is the AR15/M16 setup. For those unfamiliar with the rifle, the black "paddle" lever directly above the trigger is the release catch for the bolt hold-open device while the black button diagonally above the trigger is the magazine release catch. The purpose of that other black lever should be kinda obvious
- although in this case it's the ambidextrous version, normally it's only present on the lefthand side.
